More Glaciers, More Travel

Lago Argentino

On Christmas we were scheduled to go back on a boat and then get on top of the Moreno glacier and walk around. The previous day was fun but was also very touristy, so we opted out of the glacial hike. We instead drove to some good viewpoints of the glacier and walked around. We made it back to the ranch in time for another amazing three-course lunch, then lounged around and explored later. My rump was too abraded from horseback riding the previous day, so I hiked while Anna and Than rode with Frederico and Jeff (Anna's dad) drove up to a viewpoint and hiked back. I made it fairly high up the mountain in an hour, got some good views and then ran down it. Once again, we ate late and fell asleep quickly afterwards.

Lady Slippers?

Moreno Glacier from the hills behind Hosteria Alta Vista

The next morning Frederico took us to a neighboring ranch that was fairly close but had a much different climate and a rockier terrain. He took us to a large rock formation that had some native paintings from 4000 years ago! They didn't look like much but it was cool to see that some of the patterns still exist. From there we drove to the shearing shed where the workers still use some of the 100+ year old equipment in the shearing of 16,000 sheep each year. It was an amazingly sophisiticated yet very manual setup.

On our way out, we stopped in downtown Califate, which catered entirely to the tourist population with a lot of upscale gift shops with local wares. The town was very nice, likely as a result of the country's president hailing from the town and siphoning money back into it. From there, it was off to Bariloche, a larger town in the north of Patagonia. We flew in the late afternoon, got in in the evening, and were shuttle from the airport through Bariloche and then to the northwest part of town where we took a boat for a 45 minute ride to Isla Victoria and our hosteria.

Hosteria Isla Victoria from The Boat

Anna and Than on The Boat

A Bowl Made of a Cow Udder

Sunburn

On Christmas eve day we got up early and met Natalia again for a catamaran tour of the glaciers, almost exactly as I'd done with my dad in Alaska a couple years ago. It was really cool of course, but it was a little long and repetitive. Natalia is a bubbly local who has been guiding for 14 years and did an amazing job of giving us the inside scoop on everything from the owner of the boat tour company (and thus, Califate) to the history of the glaciers and the Andes. She made the tour. Anna's brother Nathanial (Than) was completely hilarious as well and helped pass the travel time with his antics. He probably took 100 pictures of himself with various ice formations. We all got totally sunburnt even though we'd been thoroughly warned about it.

The Family

Fierce Wind and Fierce Woman

After the boat tour we came back and prepared for some horseback riding, which I've never done before. It was--so far--the highlight of the trip! Riding was great and the views were amazing. It's really hard to describe, but as Than put it: "This really makes everything else seem insignificant, doesn't it?"

Mountains and Horses

This whole trip has been so surreal since it is such a foreign place in so many ways but so familiar and comfortable in many other ways. We had an incredible Christmas eve dinner with our hosts and the other guests seated at one long wooden table in the barn, and the staff brought us amazing grilled lamb, chicken, and beef. It was the best steak I've ever had and the lamb ribs were divine as well. The dinner experience couldn't have been more perfect for someone separated from his family--it felt like home.

The Roast

Whirlwind

La Hosteria Alta Vista

On day three in BA we rushed from bed down to breakfast at the Sofitel and then quickly off to a guided tour of the city. We mostly hit places we'd already been, but we added the neighborhood of La Boca and got the inside scoop on some of the local buildings. La Boca is an interesting old blue collar neighborhood that is completely rundown besides the touristy district where all the buildings are painted with outrageous portland-style purple and blue colors. The poverty was impressive but honestly the homeless are so ubiquitous in Portland that it wasn't all that shocking to see a guy living below a bridge with his two dogs. The main difference was in the roofless and fallen-down houses that people were living in.

From the city tour we scuttled off to a small airport in BA which took us through Bariloche to El Califate. These are in northern and southern Patagonia and are about two and four hours away from BA, respectively. For reference, El califate is at about 52 degrees latitude. You do the math. From the airport, our driver and guide, Natalia, took us to the Hosteria Alta Vista, a small ranch hotel with six rooms set on 150,000 acres. El Calafate is a town set on an immense glacial lake which drives the tourist economy. Califate has tons of climbing and "trekking" shops as well as tourist infrastructure of restaurants and hotels. Our ranch is 60km from town on a mix of paved and dirt roads, and is set back into the hills with amazing views of the surrounding prarie land, foothills, and mountains. Probably 15km away you can see up to Moreno glacier and the tips of the Torres de Paine (Towers of Pain) which are the craggy mountains on the Chilean side of the Andes. The mountains in Patagonia are less craggy but still immense.

The days are blurring together as this is now the third day here, but we have seen non-stop action. We arrived at around 7pm on the 23rd and came to the ranch to get settled in and have some food. We were introduced to the staff--most notably our hosts Fredrico and Tamara--and the golfing wannabe-bourgeseois chodes from Baltimore that were alreday staying here. Dinner was some fantastic savory crepes filled with spinach and ricotta, and dessert was a frozen creme dish with a cookie bottom. I took some pictures:

Savory Crepes

Frozen Cream Dessert

All of the food here has been immaculately prepared but a little bit bland. I think they're just not as into salt and pepper as we are, but the shaker and grinder brought out the intense flavors at every meal. I have been thoroughly pigging out!!

More on Day Two soon!

Itinerary

Leave Portland: 12/20
Arrive in Buenos Aires: 12/21
Arrive El Califate: 12/23
Arrive Bariloche: 12/26
Arrive Kalispell, MT via Santiago, Lima, LA, and SLC: 12/31
Arrive PDX: 1/5/09

More walking

Day 2 in Argentina started a little earlier, since we only snoozed until noon. From the hotel, we set out to check out Puerto Moreno, the high-tech area set on a series of man-made lakes, San Telemo, the old neighborhood with amazing antique shops, plaza del mayo, the government and banking center, and of course, another round of Killer Instinct!

Puerto Moderno was neat. There were a lot of glass buildings with mostly american high tech corporation logos, set over dirty rectangular lakes of about 1/4mi x 1/8mi. Around each lake were a number of large old cranes that have been out of operation for some time, but that used to be used for loading and unloading people (I guess?!) and cargo from ships. We walked farther east over the "woman's bridge", this huge white modernistic contraption, and meandered towards the wildlife reservation. It looked like it might be better back in a ways, but nearby the path it was mostly tall grass with a bunch of garbage strewn about. Oh the joys of the city! At this point I badly wanted my shorts which were back at the hotel, since I was burning up in my jeans and wool socks but I went barefoot and found some shade to cope with the heat.

Anna the CRANE!

The "Woman's Bridge"

After Puerto Moderno we japed over to the San Telemo neighborhood where there were a lot of amazing antique shops. These were not like Sellwood's antique shops, but rather shops with insanely old elaborate furniture, tapestries, and silverware, and odd things like elaborate chandeliers that I wished I could bring back to the states for Bernie's stairwell and gigantic bottles of 'eau de toilette'. Which reminds me, people wear a lot of perfume and cologne here. Blech!

From San Telemo we hiked to the Plaza De Mayo, where the government buildings stand and the mothers of the disappeared from the Dirty War march. I planned us a route back to the hotel through the financial district and some cool streets that secretly brought us near my favorite arcade again! Walking through that district was neat because we got to see some of the 'hustle and bustle' of the BA business world and a different crowd as a result. They definitely weren't as earthy. We stopped at the arcade on the way home and I rocked it to the final battle in the game where I got my ass kicked repeatedly. That game 'puts me in a joy' as the young Clarks say.

These bikes looked a lot better than your average BA bike

When we got back to the hotel, we found we had been sunburned pretty badly. We look like lobster tourists--great. We soon met up with Anna's parents; their flight from Boston to NYC had been cancelled but they took a train and made it to the NYC->BA flight and got in on time. We went out to a really posh place for dinner that was a bit disappointing--the meat was OK, the fish was bad, and the desserts were mediocre. Anna and I walked home from there and with the late dinner custom here (they start around 9-11 and eat until 10-1), crashed soon after that.

Long flight, first impressions

Chilean mountains from the airplane

Anna and I took off from PDX at around 10:30am Saturday and flew without hitch--besides a persistent migraine and some screaming children--to Buenos Aires; we got in around 10:30am on Sunday local time and got a ride from our travel people to the swanky Sofitel hotel downtown. We were passed out at our minutes later. We woke up starving and walked from the hotel down the pedestrian street, which was sort of a dirty version of the walking streets in Copenhagen. Street vendors had their wares out on sheets, and all the stores catered to the mostly tourist crowd. It was fairly lame. On our way from the hotel to the metro, we came across an arcade. Anyone who knew me well in my teens knows that I'm completely obsessed with an old street fighter-style arcade game called Killer Instinct, that has been all but entirely wiped out of existence by now. Still, I check every arcade, and sure enough, this one had it!! I stopped and played a couple rounds and it was as amazing as it always used to be. I'll definitely will make my way back there before we leave.

You don't even know how good this game is. Seriously.

The subway system was very good, much like NYC's (except that this one stopped running by 11:30pm!), fast and underground. We got out and walked through some more trendy neighborhoods on our way to dinner at Bar Uriate. Most of the shops and stuff were closed but we peeked in and saw some euro-style trendy 80s clothes, funky shoes, and some other cool stuff. There are a lot of equestrian gear, leather, CD shops, and restaurants around town. Dinner was pretty damn good--I had a pork rib and anna had some spinach stuffed pasta dish, and we finished it off with my favorite--souffle (called fondant here). Nothing amazing, but it was a solid meal, especially since we hadn't eaten anything good since Friday. Stuff isn't quite as cheap as I expected here. Drinks are substantially cheaper than in PDX, and our meal wasn't too bad, but it's not vastly cheaper.

Since the subway was closed we walked fairly far from pallermo back to the hotel, with one stop at a crappy irish bar for a beer and hot cocoa for fuel. Anna managed the whole hike in some high-heeled boots per usual though the beer stop was necessary for morale! Irish bars suck as much here as they do in the states, no offense to the irish. So far Argentina is 0/1 on beer too--we tried a scottish ale brewed here that was total crap. We found a brewery on our way back that we're going to check out tomorrow if we get thirsty, but after Copenhagen I have little hope for non-american ales, with the exception of Belgium and possibly Germany, though they're even overrated.

My feet are leather!

The walk was good and we got to know BA a bit on the journey. It's in serious need of some repair and some regulations on driving (too aggressive), littering (lots), and dog shit cleanup, and it's fairly poor. There is garbage juice everywhere and the whole city kind of smells like it. There are a lot of restaurants, though not really any ethnic besides the plethora of italian joints. The people are fairly earthy looking; not particularly fit, kempt, or naturally attractive. It would certainly be hard to match Copenhagen for human beauty. There are some hipsters but I haven't seen a single fixed gear bike! In fact, I haven't seen many bikes at all. We may rent tomorrow, but it's a little scary on the roads here.

Kids were kicking a soccer ball into the door of this cathedral

I hear it snowed like crazy and it just keeps coming in Portland. I hope that this doesn't screw up local business too much but I must say the week of riding my MTB to work in the snow was awesome! I'm sad that I missed the heavier stuff and some of the awesome XC and DH skiing that everyone must be raving about!!

Time to email this blog URL out!! Colonel out.