Dirty South

After El Bolson, we took our longest bus yet (and hopefully this will remain the record) to El Calafate. It was a whopping 27 hours, though we spent 30 minutes at a security check in view of our destination. Moreover, this bus ride did not include any food or drinks, which came as a surprise after we had become accustomed to the champagne service provided on other Argentinian buses. Bummer.

El Calafate is a boring tourist town whose architecture looks like it was selected out of a catalog of generic ski style buildings. Ironic because despite being near the end of the world, it rarely snows there. Nevertheless, we found a cheap hostel (this time without bed bugs), got ¨witnessed¨by an evangelical hostel owner (we´re still in Kansas?), and made plans to see one of only two glaciers which are expanding.

Perito Moreno (not Perrito Moreno which would mean Brown Puppy) is a glacier named for a 19th century explorer. It is massive and spectacular. Every few minutes, in the summer, huge chunks of ice fall of the glacier into the lake below and sound like the crack of a rifle. Despite all the ice falling off, it expands even more in the winter leading to a sum growth each year. We hung out for about two hours tramping around the various viewpoints and enjoying the spectacle. There were also lots of goofy tourists to check out in ridiculously overgeared outfits. It is, after all, handicapped accessible and makes hiking poles and avalanche gear seem excessive. Still, we got gear envy.

In the evening, we jumped on a bus to El Chalten, commonly known as the ¨Trekking Capital of Argentina.¨We arrived after sunset and had a bit of a hard time finding a hostel, but eventually found a reasonably priced place. It ended up being even more reasonably priced because there were insufficient beds and we got a mattress on the floor for half price. We had to convince the owner to let us drink a bottle of wine we had brought with us: apparently this was an evangelical place too and there was no alcohol allowed. Why does this keep happening to us? (It didn´t make the blog but we have been approached and detained by Mormons twice in the last few weeks, as well. Sadly, never while wearing our Nietzsche: 1 Mormons: 0 shirts)

The next day we planned to start a 4 day trek but had no clean clothing and split up the trek into a day hike and a 3 day trek instead. El Chalten is great because all of the trailheads are accessible from the town: when the roads end, there are stairs into the hills and trails start from there. Our first day we headed up to Laguna de la Torre (Lake of the Tower), a fantastic glacier and lake underneath a giant Mordor style mountain peak. Compared to the stuff we did in El Bolson, the hike was not difficult but the glacier was much more impressive.

Our trek began late in the day: we had errands to do in order to get back to Buenos Aires when we returned from the trek. We decided that plane tickets were imperative because a 50 hour bus sounded hellish. These tickets cost considerably more than the last tickets we bought to Guatemala. By the time we got started, it was threatening rain but we stuck it out anyway and were rewarded with a pleasantly cool trip up the mountain. We even managed to get our tent set up before it got really cold and rainy. Somewhat hilariously, we laid down and fell asleep for three hours in the middle of the day when we had intended to continue hiking for the same amount of time. This was an accident, but not a big problem.

Tori woke Stew and Mike up early to prepare for a day of summiting glaciers. A quick breakfast of pastries, now squashed, and we were on a skree laden trail to Laguna de los Tres. We assume the name is in reference to the three lakes in the area, though it really looks to be a lot more like 2.1 lakes, the third being more of a pond. The view was incredible: the Fitz-Roy peaks stood in the background of two glaciers, connected by a 100 foot waterfall. We re-filled our waterbottles directly out of the top of the waterfall and enjoyed the fresh and very cold water. It is the best tasting water you can get.

We returned to our tent for a quick lunch of hearty wheat bread and aged cheese before continuing on a hike called Piedras Blancas (White Rocks). More marble than Marion Barry´s preferred white rock, the hike ended in a field of massive boulders that obscured any sort of trail. We all just ran and jumped between the rocks until we got to the lake where we were right below another huge glacier, this one with considerably more icebergs. We were once again astounded.

That night, we ate white rice and lentils (much like our previous dinner of white rice and white beans). Generally when we camp, we bring white rice and boullion cubes to add flavor. This time, we messed up and had one third of the required amount of flavor. Thus, our dinner ended up blander than Coldplay. We vowed to go to a Tenedor Libre upon descension. Tenedor Libre, by the way, translates literally as Liberated Fork, which is a much better name than All You Can Eat.

We slept in late the next morning, and Stew woke up sick. We had a somewhat less enjoyable descent, as a result, but made it back to El Chalten with plenty of time before our bus to El Calafate. The tenedor libre was everything we hoped it to be and a lot more painful. We split a leg of lamb, ate about half a cow, a brace of chickens, and a real festival of sausage. In addition, we filled the cracks with ravioli, fried pastries, empanadas, pig in a blanket, and canned fruits (how did they trick us into thinking canned fruit is dessert?). We never wanted to eat again. Just kidding, Moms, we ate salads.

Yesterday was our last day with Mike so we went to a museum. It looked crumby, so we waited outside while Mike wasted his money. Stew had forgotten his jacket in El Chalten, so we picked it up from the bus station (isn´t it great that hostels will do things like this?) and then jumped on our plane back to Buenos Aires. We had a lay over in Ushuaiia, which we regret not being able to visit, but honestly it looks like the colder version of Puntarenas.

We spent all day today trying to get to Uruguay, but failed. Tomorrow, we will take a ferry and hopefully make more progress than today. By the way, El Tigre, chupanos. We´re going to Bio Uruguay to try WWOOF again...hopefully it will go better than last time.