On the Road Again

After a five week rest the red backpack has been dusted off and hoisted onto my shoulders once again. It was odd packing up the tiny bits of my life that had scattered themselves across my B.A. apartment, it was as though I'd forgotten that it could all fit in one bag and I was disappointed to discover that, in fact, it did all fit with room to spare. I am finding that I am not as in love with life on the road as I once was. I take a new pleasure in the tiny normalcies of life: showering and sleeping in the same place, walking to the subway each morning to go to school, recharging my phone or buying my fruits and vegetables at the same corner stores, going to the same Mexican restaurant twice or three times in a week, getting to know the people who run the laundromat. Maybe it is because even while it becomes a routine I know that it is temporary so I don't become bored or bogged down by it. In short, I was sad to leave my little B.A. home bubble and, though looking forward to going to the places I'm headed, I'm not vibrating with excitement the way I did on some past travels.

Saying goodbye to people has become an all too normal part of my life. The goodbyes to my fellow CELTA teachers was drug out over a few days. All 10 of us + one spouse went out to dinner on Friday night at an all you can eat steakhouse, Siga La Vaca, in B.A. The all you can eat menu included either an entire bottle of wine or a liter of beer per person.  No one ever hurries you out of restaurant in Argentina so our feast was a nearly four hour long affair, starting at 8 and ending at midnight, which was good cause 11 bottles of wine is a lot to drink, even when there are 11 of you. Some goodbyes were had at dinner and then the rest of us went out to an awesome bar in Palermo (my neighborhood) which was decorated in a funky Portlandesque style and had games like Pictionary, scrabble, and jenga for all the tables. It made me a little homesick to see all of these people playing games at a bar. Every table was playing a game. We played pictionary in spanish, which was challenging because half of the time we had to have Gabriela (who is Argentinian and now certified CELTA english teacher) translate the cues for us. It was pretty hilarious. I spent the weekend soaking up my last bits of BA. I did a decent amount of exploring in my time there, but I was so busy with the CELTA that I didn't go out at night much and there was lots that I didn't do. Our trip to the game bar and some of my wanderings my last few days there made me want to get know the city even more. On the one hand, I know my way around and have seen a lot. On the other hand there is so much MORE to discover! Alas, you can't do it all.

Two of my fellow CELTA folk, Ollie and Kari, and I traveled to Uruguay to visit another CELTA cohort, Christel. Christel is marrying an Oregonian diplomat and they are stationed at the US Embassy in Montevideo. It was the perfect trip, even Kari and I almost getting in like five car accidents in the taxi on the way to the ferry terminal was great (and by great I mostly mean hilarious because we didn't actually get in an accident and the taxi driver was singing along to 80s tunes in English the whole time and blaming the other drivers).

We took the slow, 3 hour long, ferry from B.A. to Colonia, a small colonial town on the Rio de la Plata in Uruguay. The sun was shining and we spent the entire time out on the top deck, soaking up the sun and playing backgammon and cards. Everyone I asked about Colonia pretty much had this to say about it, "Yeah, Its pretty but....you just need a few hours there and that's enough." We spent just a few hours there, loved it, and could've stayed longer. This is probably mostly due to the fact that we rented scooters and had an amazing time zipping through the cobblestone streets of the old town and up the coast (the river is so wide it looks like you are already at the Atlantic), stopping at beaches and an abandoned bull ring before taking backroads back into town. Poor Kari kept switching between riding on the back of my scooter and Ollie's because both of us kept saying things like "wow! Its so much harder to drive this thing when you are on it." The old town of Colonia is beautiful and we went a little picture happy.

We slept the entire 2.5 hour bus ride to Montevidea, which meant we were wide awake when Christel picked us up at the bus station in her pink Chinese knock off of a mini cooper. We picked up two other CELTA peeps, who were staying at hostel in Montevideo, and forced the poor pink car (which I named Lola) to cart all six of us up the hill to Christel's beautiful apartment where her husband-to-be had an amazing dinner and wine waiting for us. We stayed up late, talking, eating, drinking and playing the guitar.

The next day we wandered along the beach, had lunch with Christel at a cute little restaurant, and then wandered around the old town of Montevideo. Most guidebooks describe Montevideo as a city that seems stuck in time or as a quiter, tinier, tamer, older looking version of BA. This is true but also a little unfair. The downtown, Ciudad Viejo, area of Montevideo does sort of look like a quiet, slightly run down neighborhood of B.A., with French Art Noveau turn of the century buildings that are a bit run down looking, but the city is growing, developing and expanding outside of the city center. That said, it is MUCH smaller and quieter than BA. There are only 3 million people in the entire country of Uruguay and a third of them, 1.3 million, live in Montevideo.  That night we went to a sleek, modern, new Brazilian bar in the shadow of the sleek, modern, new World Trade Center not too far from where Christel lives to hear the wife of a US diplomat sing. Picture a sassy, blonde, buxom, 40 something year old from Kentucky. Now picture that woman winning the Urugayan equivalent to American Idol when she'd not really had a musical career before and then launching a music career by playing at local bars and venues. Boom. That was our concert. It was great.

The entire trip everything seemed to just fall into place for us and the next day was no exception. The weather was perfect for a beach day, which was what we had planned. We spent 3 hours just relaxing, reading, and sleeping on the beach and then ambled back to Christel's to watch a movie in which Christel starred. Christel is Dutch and she was a teenage actress so we got to watch the first movie she was ever in (and she had the starring role). It was really fun to see. That night we went to a parilla (grill house) just around the corner from her house and I had the best steak I've ever had in my entire life. Delicious!

The next day was the last round of CELTA farewells. First saying goodbye to Christel, then to Ollie, and then, finally, to Kari. On to a bus I went and now I am writing from the apartment of my Swedish-Argentinian couch surfing host in Cordoba...and now I have to figure out what comes next...I'll keep you posted.

Buenos Aires

Two weekends ago was a national holiday in Argentina and everyone got a four day weekend. The reason? There is a presidential election coming up and the current president, in an attempt to gain some popularity votes, gave the entire country a few extra days off. I had considered leaving Buenos Aires for the long weekend, but laziness won out and I stuck around the city and pretty much did a whole lot of nothing.

After a few weeks of long days spent in classrooms getting outside to soak up some late summer/early fall sun seemed like a wonderful idea. A fellow CELTA trainee met me at this massive park area between our apartments. At one end of the park is a botanical garden and a zoo. Then there are typical large, tree dotted, grassy fields one usually finds in a park. Past that there was a large lake (which we determined was man made) encircled by a wide avenue of sorts for people biking, walking, running, and rollerblading.

Rollerblading. In the United States it went out of fashion sometime in the late 90s. Rollerblades were relegated to roller skate rinks and off-season hockey practice. Here in Argentina they are still in vogue. I could not get over how many rollerbladers there were. The park was full of families and couples and I swear that half of them were probably on rollerblades, decked out with knee and elbow pads. There was even a place that you could rent them! The 90s are still alive in Buenos Aires.

In addition to renting rollerblades you could rent peddle boats or row boats and paddle about the lake. We decided to rent a peddle boat, which was mildly entertaining. We tried to run over the geese (they were very slow to get out of the way, Argentinians must not operate peddle boats in the same manner they drive, cause if those geese were pedestrians in this country they would´ve known to move it) and at the end discovered that peddling backwards (and in circles) was much easier and more fun.

The park also had a lovely rose garden, which made me a little nostalgic for Portland. It was really a beautiful and wonderful place. As we were starting to leave we noticed a guy, wearing a fur coat without pants, setting up a stage. He was going through an elaborate miming of smoothing out a circus like mat and we decided to sit down on the hillside, buy an ice cream from a guy selling them from coolers strapped to a bike, and see what the show was all about. It was a treat, really wonderful "street" theater. Underneath the fur coat were various "cave man" outfits, which the performer took off in a strip tease of sorts that would never have been tolerated in an American park with kids in the audience. He mimed strutting like a model and even when he took of the last item pretended that he was naked, before revealing leopard print panties. The conclusion of the show was an acrobatic routine on a rope slung between two poles.

On Saturday night Buenos Aires had a city wide arts festival called Noche en la Vela. There were free events, concerts, and shows all over town. A fellow CELTA trainee, Ollie, and I spent hours wandering around the city taking in different shows and missing plenty of others. We saw a large scale tango band and could see many couples dancing tango in the street. We saw a group of people dancing to Reggatone on a street corner, following the instructions of a gym like instructor. We caught the end of an amazing outdoor concert with an accordian band and energetic music that you couldn´t help but dance to. People were dancing in circles and starting folk dance style chains where you went under arches formed by peoples´arms. We also listened to wonderful tango music in a little cafe that looked like it belonged in turn of the century Italy. It was crowded so we couldn´t see the band at all (if we moved away from the bar to try and get a better look the older Argentinian women would yell at us for blocking their view, even though they couldn´t see the band either). At the very end of the evening we caught the end of an outdoor Argentinian folk concert. It was incredible because it seemed as though everyone in the audience knew the words to the all the songs. The band was cheered on stage for an encore and the crowd went wild when they began the song. All of sudden handkerchiefs appeared out of peoples´ pockets and all over the street and plaza people were dancing an old folk dance that clearly was well known. There were probably 10 couples dancing right by us and there were handkerchiefs fluttering in the air all throughout the crowd. Ollie and I looked at each other in disbelief, where did all of the handkerchiefs come from!?!

I´ve been very bad about blogging lately. I started this post a week ago and even then I was writing about things that had happened a week or so earlier. Today is the end of my Celta course. Yesterday was my last teaching practice. We all just shared a glass of champagne with our Celta tutors and most of us are meeting up for dinner tonight. It feels so odd to know that this is probably the last time I will sit in this computer lab. I will most likely never see these people again. My life has been incredibly structured for the last month. Every morning a subte ride to school, school followed by lesson prep...repeat. Monday I start traveling again. I haven´t touched my backpack in over a month. It feels very odd to be in this position, to know that I´m going to have to figure things out day by day again. If my plans don´t change I have about 2 months of traveling left. When I landed in Peru three months ago five months seemed like forever, it felt too long. When I came to Buenos Aires two months ago I felt as though I had already been on the road for ages, much longer than two months. But now the last month has flown by. It honestly feels as though I just started this course two weeks ago, not five weeks ago. I know that the next two months are going to fly by as well and in the blink of an eye I´ll be on my way back to the United States. Or who knows what.

A bit about BA

Oh Buenos Aires. I did not instantly fall in love with this city the way that I did with Santiago, but its slowly been growing on me. Here are a few random thoughts and things about BA.

(1) Tread carefully. You must be very very careful when you are walking down the sidewalk, primarily for two reasons. The first, main, reason is dog shit or landmines, as I heard someone refer to them. Porteños (aka people from Buenos Aires) love their dogs. I think that they are a status symbol of sorts. If you have a dog, especially a pure bred one, and you can hire a dog walker then clearly you have a good cash flow, right? I wouldn´t be surprised to discover that 85% of porteños have pet dogs. It isn´t uncommon to see dog walkers with 12 or 13 dogs traipsing along next to them (or to see that many dogs leashed to a pole with the dog walker no where in site, probably getting a coffee). This is especially intriguing to me because in Chile and Peru there were lots of dogs but there were nearly all stray dogs lounging about the streets. I have only seen one or two stray dogs in Argentina. Anyway, they love their dogs here but they haven´t quite jumped on the "pick up your dog´s shit" bandwagon yet so tread carefully.  The second reason to watch your step is that in many places the tiles that compose the sidewalks are missing or loose or broken half off. I re-twisted my ankle probably 5 times the first three days here (it was already swollen from hiking in Torres del Paine).

(2) Schedule. Argentina is on very different schedule than the United States. I´ve already talked a little bit about "latin time" and having to adjust to it, but Argentina (and especially BA) takes latin time to the extreme. Restaurants literally don´t open until 8:30pm. People typically don´t go to eat dinner until about 10pm. Finishing dinner at midnight or 1am is completely normal. Many clubs don´t even open until 1am and, just like in America, you don´t want to be there at opening. This means that staying out on the weekend until 5am means you are going home early. Funnily the subte (aka metro or subway) closes at 10:30pm. The buses run all night though. Because everyone stays out so late stores don´t typically open until 10 or 11am. On the weekends this gets pushed back even more. I´ve left my apartment at 12:30pm on a Saturday and only one of the many business near my apartment was open.

(3) Car headlights. I would estimate that 60% of taxis do not use their headlights. They only use their parking lights and I´ve even seen cars that just have blue lights, not those bluish white lights but full on blue, aka I can barely see you, lights. I have not gotten a satisfactory answer as to why this is. I´ve watched cars go past the corner I live on with their dim parking lights on and seen them flash their lights as they approach saying "Yo, I´m coming through! Car here!" A teacher at my school said its because when their headlights stop working they won´t take it to a mechanic to get fixed because they don´t trust the mechanic to not steal other parts of their car. My response is "You need a mechanic to change your headlight lamps? Don´t they just pop in and out?"

(4) Pedestrians DO NOT have the right of way. Cars will run you over. I swear to god. You just gotta get out of the way. This is complicated by the lack of stop of signs and an apparent dislike of signaling. Even when you have the walk signal a car turning right will practically plow into you.

(5) Could you walk any slower please? My American sense of impatience comes out full force here, especially on escalators and sidewalks. Argentinians seem to have a knack for lazily strolling down a busy, crowded sidewalk, four abreast, idily chatting. I want to scream "MOVE IT!" Instead I perform a weaving dance, avoiding the doddering grandmas, the baby strollers, and the perfectly abled adults that just seem to enjoy walking 1 mph. I have to just do deep breathing exercises on the escalators. They do not have the same "stand on the right walk on the left" room that all Americans are born knowing. A guy in front of me even set his briefcase down on the left side of the escalator the other, effectively blocking all traffic. Drives me crazy.

(6) Prices I have yet to figure this out. Some things seem to be super expensive. For example, it isn´t uncommon to spend $3 on a cup of a coffee or spend $6 on a beer. But a haircut will cost you less than $10. A friend and I went out for dinner, ordered 2 main courses, a huge salad, a bottle of wine, and two bottles of water and the entire bill came about to about $30 (and you don´t have to tip here and when you do you never do more than 10%). BUT I´ve also gone out and spend like $10 on a hamburger at a completely non-touristy cafe and I wasn´t ordering the most expensive thing on the menu.

Buenos Aires is a beautiful city. If you were dropped here and no one told you were in South America you would never guess it. Everyone says it so it feels almost cliche to say it but its true; Buenos Aires is a very European city. There are tons of cafes and many of them have a very old European feel to them. There are cobble stoned streets and tree lined avenues, tall, stone apartment buildings with art nouveau intricacies. Its a lovely lovely place. I recommend visiting it.

Okay, that is all for now. Next time I write I´ll actually tell you about some of the stuff I´ve been doing here. And maybe, if you are lucky, you´ll get some photos.

Buenos Aires

I have been in Buenos Aires for nearly 3 weeks now and I have essentially written nothing about it. I will try to fix that without going into long diatribes and boring you all.

I am in Buenos Aires to do a CELTA course, which is four weeks long. The course teaches me how to teach English as a foreign language and, at the end, I will have a certificate that is recognized by language schools around the world (unless I fail, of course, but I doubt that will happen). The course is rather intensive and I haven´t had to use my brain like this is quite a while. Hell I haven´t even had to wake up and be somewhere at a certain time in a long time unless it was to catch a bus or take a fun tour. Its been exhausting but also fun. My fellow CELTA trainees are wonderful. Four of us are American (1 New Yorker, 1 Texan, and a fellow Washingtonian), 2 are Dutch, 1 is Argentian, 2 are English, and 1 is Canadian. The youngest is 21 the oldest is probably in their late 40s or early 50s. We have fun. We laugh a lot. We support each other. We got drunk as a group on Wednesday. Its great fun. I´m going to miss them all and I´ve known them for less than 2 weeks.

I am living this fake little domestic life in my own little apartment, going to the same greengrocers to get my vegetables every few days and recharging my cell phone at the same kiosk. (These are practically the only places that I´m speaking Spanish and the workers at these places are sweetly patient with me). How I found my apartment is another one of those "the universe has my back" stories. I decided to do the CELTA course only a few weeks before it began so I was pressed for time when it came to finding a place to stay. I spent some time on Craigslist and Couchsurfing and sent out a few emails. The day before I headed to Puerto Natales I thought that I had found a place but when I arrived in Puerto Natales I discovered that someone else had claimed the room before me. The next morning I was headed to Torres del Paine, which meant I would be away from internet and phones for 5 days and then I would have just three days to find something before arriving in BA. Luckily for me I had managed to take the morning but to Puerto Natales.

The morning bus from El Calafate to PN had been full when I tried to buy a ticket, but I showed up at the bus station in the morning anyway and crossed my fingers that someone wouldn´t show up and I could snag their seat. This is precisely what happened and just before the bus pulled out I was waved on board. As I headed towards the only empty seat on the bus the long haired, 50 something year old man next to it gruffly proclaims, "Ah, shit. I thought I was gonna have the whole seat to myself." I apologize as I sit down. "Well, you´re small and you speak English so its okay," was his response. This is how Tom and I became friends of sorts. Turned out that in addition to living 5-10 minutes away from the hotel I stay at while LA working for Trek America Tom had been renting an apartment in Buenos Aires that he is planning on leaving around March 8th, which is the exact day I am flying to BA. Upon further investigation I discover that this apartment is quite inexpensive to rent and is two blocks from the metro line that goes to my school and in a neighborhood the school recommended staying in. When I arrived in PN and found out that my apartment had fallen through Tom sent out an email to his landlord and when I emerged from Torres del Paine I had an apartment and Tom was there to meet me when I arrived in BA a few days later. To add to the good fortune of this event, while I was on the bus with Tom I realized that my going from El Calafate to Puerto Natales and then back to El Calafate before going to Rio Gallegos was NOT the most logical thing to do. It would've made much more sense to spend a few days in El Calafate before going to Puerto Natales and to then go straight from Rio Gallegos from Puerto Natales. I hadn't figured this out cause I hadn't looked at a map that showed BOTH Chile and Argentina with the cities marked on it. AND my guide book said nothing about going to Rio Gallegos from Puerto Natales (Tom´s older version of Lonely Planet did). How lucky was I that I hadn't realized this? If I had I wouldn't have met Tom and I wouldn't have lucked into my apartment.

Tom didn´t leave BA on the 8th so we ended up sharing the place for about a week, which was an experience. Tom is an interesting character. He has never married and He can be very chauvanistic. He travelled from Alaska all the way to Patagonia, only flying between Seattle and LA, yet spoke little Spanish, which meant that he was often that kind of tourist I roll  my eyes at, you know the one speaking loudly in a shop and pointing at something. He spoke his mind at all times, even when he knew what he was saying would be offensive. This also involved saying things like "Hurry up Grandma" in a loud voice when an elderly Argentinian woman was taking too long to get on the bus. He was completely over the top in that regard. He got really frustrated by some cultural differences and sometimes expressed these frustrations in ways that I considered inappropriate. But at the same time he was great to be around. He was kind and generous. Despite not speaking any Spanish he had an uncanny ability to develop relationships with people, like the doorman or our building or the waiters at restaurants. He made friends with all kinds of people. He would say some chauvinistic comment in one sentence and then praise me for being a strong independent woman in the next. We had a few wonderful afternoons, evenings, and conversations together. On my first afternoon he was showing me around the neighborhood and we sat down at a cafe. He ordered a beer and I ordered an ice cream, claiming I didn´t feel like drinking. Somehow this turned into both of us drinking. We would finish a beer and order anther one. I have no idea how many beers we had. I do know that I was drunk at 7:30pm and for only having known each other for a day or two we had just had a very intimate conversation about our lives. These type of meal repeated itself at least twice. :)

Next post: Interesting tid bits about BA, for example the trash pick up system, dogs, and taxi headlights.

Catch up posting

It has been quite a while since I last posted anything, which is mildly ironic because I´ve had access to and been using a computer (versus my iphone which is slow to write on ) more than at any other point in my travels. I have been in Buenos Aires for two weeks now and have another 3 weeks before my CELTA course is over. But before I talk all about the wonders and annoyances of BA let me catch you up on the events prior to my arrival here.



Glacier Perito Moreno

I have now seen about five or six glaciers in my life (I haven´t counted really, its possible I´ve seen more) and the most amazing of all of these was Glacier Perito Moreno. It was incredible. Perito Moreno is rather unique because, unlike so many glaicers today, it is growing rather than shrinking. This means that is also a rather active glacier. Chunks fall off every day, hell more like few minutes. The glacier is also pretty the main people come to El Calafate and why the town has transformed from a tiny Patagonian outpost to a booming tourist town with quaint buildings, cafes, fancy outdoor stores, and a population of immigrants all corners of Argentina. There are few native "El Calafatians."



Clarence and my host´s GF, Ani, on the way to the glacier

Me, Clarence, and some adorable Argentinian girls who were enthralled with Clarence

The cheapest way to get to the glacier is to take the public bus, which leaves twice a day and gives you between 3 to 5 hours at the glacier. Cost, $25 (aka 100 pesos). Entrance to the glacier (which is part of national park) is another $25. If you go with a tour the cost starts to rise. OR you can go with your couchsurfing hosts and pay...nothing. The fee to enter the park is cheaper for Argentinians and free for locals from El Calafate. My fellow couchsurfer was one of those people who likes doing things just for the story and he has been hitchhiking around the world for about 2 years so his budget was extremely tight, meaning he didn´t want to pay $25 to get in to the park. So a few kilometers away from the entrance we stuffed him in the trunk (it was a hatchback, so not too bad, though he was like 6 feet tall so it was still a tight squeeze.) When we got to the entrance my couchsurf host´s girlfriend handed me the mate gourd and thermos and told me not to talk. My couchsurf host showed his i.d. to the entrance person, his girlfriend spoke in Spanish, I stayed silent, the guy in the trunk stayed silent. And in we went for free. Couchsurfing is the best (I also got dinner free that night cause my couchsurf host took us to the hotel he manages).

It was stunning how quickly time flew by at the glacier. I could´ve stared at it for hours more and could easily have gone back the next day to see it again. My couchsurf hosts said they never get tired of bringing couchsurfers to the glacier, even though they´ve been over a dozen times, and I completely understand why. The quality of the light constantly changes the glacier. The tones of the blues shift. They can seem to be glowing, they can be pale, they can be deep...its amazing. And then there is the fact that huge chunks of the glacier can fall! We spent at least half of the time we were there staring at one large chunk that looked like it could fall. That chunk never did but while we were staring at it, willing it to tumble into the water, the entire face of the glacier next to slid into the water, with a resounding boom, and created a wave that soaked our couchsurf hosts who were all the way on the other side of the water 2 km away! It was pretty hilarious because there was a group of probably 15 of us staring at this one part of the glacier and then the piece next to it was what fell. There was a collective scream from everyone. It was great. I do not have the words to describe how beautiful this place was. So I will show you photos.

Wave created by the collapse of piece of glacier face (you can sort of see it sliding down). The jutting out piece on in the right corner is what we were willing to fall.





Post slide. Notice the new baby icebergs in the water

 After a few relaxing days in El Calafate I took the bus to Rio Gallegos. Everyone talks about how Rio Gallegos isn´t worth your time, there is nothing to see, its a waste of time...you get the point. For this reason I took the latest bus that I could. I arrived at 8pm and had a 3am flight. I saw very very little of Rio Gallegos. A very kind cab driver took me from the bus station to the city center. I told him I wanted to get dinner at a parilla, which is a type of restaurant that usually specializes in grilled meats and such. He said he knew a good cheap one and dropped me off at an all you can eat Chinese buffet/parilla. It was neither cheap nor good yet I ate there anyway, reading my book in the corner. It was amusing just to watch the people there, it was very popular (despite being neither cheap or good). I planned on eating and then walking around but I ended up spending 3.5 hours at the restaurant. Argentinians eat really late, the restaurant was fairly empty when I arrived at 8:30ish and started filling up after 9pm. I befriended two middle aged gentleman and sat and talked with them for over an hour. They wished me happy International Women´s Day, which surprised me. March is the Month of Women here in Argentina and people actually know and celebrate International Women´s Day! In the USA there is typically an event (for example in Portland there is always something at PSU) but its not a common knowledge holiday.

The airport in Rio Gallegos is quite nice and new. My trip through security was the EASIEST by far I´ve had since 9/11. I didn´t have to take off my shoes. I didn´t have to empty out my water bottle. I didn´t have to take off my sweater to go through the x-ray machine. Incredible. After 2 hours of restless sleep on the place I arrived in BA, where the air was muggy and warm and completely different than Patagonia. I´ll write tomorrow about the serendipity involved in finding my apartment here and my first few days in the city. Slowly I´ll catch you all up.



Torres del Paine

Advance warning. Long blogpost. I really did try to keep my retelling brief, but apparently I'm incapable of that

Puerto Natales

 The bus ride from Puerto Natales to Parque Nacional Torres del Paine is about an hour and a half. The sound of rain on the metal roof of my CouchSurf hosts' house had woken me up at 3am and was still drizzling down from the grey sky as my bus my headed towards the park at 8am. I sad there staring out the window and the drenched yellow green of Patagonia hills and thought "What the hell am I doing? Why am I going to go hike and camp for 5 days? That is five days of mostly alone time, that is about 7 hours a day of just walking where I'll have nothing to do but stare at the scenery and think. Just me and my little brain. Plus this bus if full of tourists! I don't like hanging out where all the tourists are! I want to be around the locals, get to know the local culture. What am I doing this for?"  Those of you who know me pretty well know that the idea of me and my brain having 5 solid days alone together with few distractions can be a very frightening prospect as I tend to think too much. Turns out the five days, even with all the thinking time and the plethora of tourists, was worth it.

Puerto Natales

The park felt very busy and full and I can't imagine what it would be like in January, which is the height of the season. This time of year the number of visitors is declining but with the exception of the first campground I stayed in the campgrounds seemed full to me (though I'll admit not packed to the gills). A lot of people do the hike that I did, the W (named for the shape the trails take on the map), and I passed the same people over and over again on the trail. My first couple of days I mostly kept to myself, actually savoring some of my alone time, but by the end of the 5 days there was a sense of comradery with the people that I'd been seeing everyday and I spent a lot of time talking with a couple from Redding, CA, a couple from Quebec City, and a young guy from North Carolina. I was told that Torres del Paine gets about 200,000 visitors per year. To the people telling me this 200,000 clearly seemed like a very large number and, sadly, a huge number of these people have little experience camping/hiking but do the W (because its very feasible to do with little experience) and end up damaging the park. However, to put this number in perspective...Yosemite National Park received just under 4 million visitors in 2009. About 80% of TDPs visitors are foreigners, which means that prices are high and the local economy is clearly thriving on digging deep into visitors pocketbooks. It cost me $100 to rent gear, $30 to enter the park, $24 to get into the park and back to P. Natales, and $22 to take a catamaran from one of the entrance points to the start of the most popular trail in the park. Not cheap. (It costs a Chilean $10 to get in and the entrance fee plumments in the off season).

Torres del Paine, Lago Grey

The first day was grey and wet and I couldn't see anything on the trip into the park. All of the mountains were obscured. Luckily it cleared up when I hit the trail though. My first two days hiking were the hardest, not just cause my pack was laden with food. Most people stop and camp 4km closer to the start of the trail than I did, but that campground costs money and I'm my father's daughter. The campground was right next to a viewpoint for Glacier Grey and was delightfully empty. There were only two of us there when I went to sleep, me and an 18 year old kid from Pennsylvania, Sam, who was taking a year off from college. However, the trail up to campground was fairly steep and wet and I was ready to scream and start hitting trees with my hiking poles when the campground kept not being visible from the top of hills. I was very happy when it appeared. I had been able to see the glacier for a lot of my hike, but it didn't beat the mirador near the campground. The blues in the crevices and crack were what mesmerized me. Sam had just tried traversing a glacier in Northern Patagonia so I got an awesome miniature lesson on glaciers, including how incredible it was that it was dead calm, no wind at all, where we were.

Glacier Grey

Day two was NOT fun. My shoes had gotten wet the day before and hadn't dried out so my feet were instantly wet when I put them on. The first 2/3rds of the hike was retracing my footsteps from the day before and I  had 23km, which is a little over 14 miles, to hike. Luckily the weather was nice but my feet were KILLING me when I arrived at camp, which was the dirtiest and most cramped of any I camped in. (Apparently it was supposed to be closed but that information wasn't being shared with hikers so it wasn't being enforced by the Guardaparque).

View from Valle Frances

Day 3 was the most amazing. Valley Frances is the "crown jewel" of the park (as told to me by a info guy in P. Natales and was my favorite part of the hike (maybe partly cause I left all my gear in camp and did it with just a daypack). As you hike through the valley there is a mountain with a glacier on your left. Every once in a while there would be a sound like thunder and if you were lucky you would be able to spot where a chunk of ice or snow was tumbling down a cliff of the mountain. You could see waterfalls of glacier melt and the weather was perfect and the sun kept dancing on the cliffs and the snow. If you looked over your shoulder you were greeted with a completely different vista, lakes and rolling green hills. It was beautiful! The hike up the valley ended at a mirador where the mountains and rock formations formed a U in front of you. What ever direction you turned was just stunning. There is no way that a photo could capture it.

Valle Frances

Valle Frances viewpoint

I was really lucky with weather during my hike (As you can see from the sunshine in these photos). Torres del Paine is known for unpredictable, quickly shifting weather and strong winds. I only experienced those strong winds on day 4, but I could hear them throughout the hike, especially on night 3. Where I was camped there was nothing more than a light breeze but I could hear the roar of the wind coming off the mountains and could see the wind pushing, swirling, and blowing the clouds. It was mesmerizing just to sit there and stare at them, which I did for hours (aided by the fact that it doesn't get dark until 10pm this time of here down here.)

Me at Valle Frances viewpoint

Day 4 was the day that I got to actually experience the infamous TDP weather. Most of the hike was through open grassland, the result of a fire caused by a careless hiker a few years ago. It rained most of the hike, starting off as a light mist but turning into real rain later on. But it was sunny so when I put on my raincoat I instantly started to overheat so I just let myself get wet. Then I hit a point where the trail through the grassland meets a trail that runs up the edge of a ravine. That was where the weather hit. The wind was so strong that the drops hitting my skin stung. It felt practically identical to what it felt like when I rode my scooter 35mph in rain with exposed skin. I walked up the hill hunched over like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, my head down so that the wind didn't catch the brim of my hat and blow it off and with sunglasses on to protect my eyes. Without the aid of my hiking poles I am not sure I wouldn't have ended up in the ravine that plunged down hundreds of feet on my right side. Thankfully I could see a refugio (a hotel/camping area) in the distance so I managed to brave my 20 minutes of famous TDP weather easily. After the refugio the trail headed into the woods, sheltered from the wind, and the rain cleared up. By the time I got to camp it was mostly sunny and nice.

"grassland" area

Day 5 was a bit of a disappointment. If you had talked to me about Torres del Paine after day 5 I would have given you a "meh" assessment of the park and my time there. It wasn't until I started detailing each day in my journal and looking through my pictures that I realized/remembered how incredible the scenery and experience was. On day 5 I got up before sunrise and hiked, with pretty much everyone else in the campground, up to the viewpoint for the torres (which is towers in spanish) from the name Torres del Paine. Supposedly they are supposed to be amazing when the sun hits them. I'd hiked up to the torres the night before just before dusk and was looking forward to seeing the sun hit them and light them up pink and make them beautiful. This did not happen. Instead they just came into clearer view as the sky lightened and clouds swirled around their tips and I got to sit there and silently curse the loud Israelis. When I finally headed down to break camp the sun finally caught the torres and danced on them for a second, but it wasn't anything awing or jaw dropping.

Torres del Paine

It was fun to see a shift in all of us W hikers the last day. The last day of hiking was easy, pretty much downhill, and ended on the lawn across from the fancy schmancy hotel that costs nearly 1000 USD per night. For five days we had been mumbling "hola" as we panted past each other or had grunted what worked as a greeting. We had been tiredly smiling at each other at campgrounds and some of us had built little two day long friendships over campstoves. Now that we all collapsed on the ground the energy suddenly became a little festive. There were jokes about mobbing the kiosk and stealing on the ice cream (we had the numbers to pull it off) and comments about stinky feet and armpits and sore knees. It was as though we had unknownly created our own little community during the last few days and this was our last hurrah.

Twisted tree

 The weather was brilliant my last day in the park and as the bus drove away I looked over my shoulder and realized what Torres del Paine looks like from a distance. All of the land around it is low, rolling, and grass covered. Out of this pampa rises this circle of mountains and jagged rock formations, seemingly out of nowhere. It was a stunning sight to see and suddenly made me appreciate more where I had just been. I have had this realization that the combination of growing up in the Pacific Northwest and my work with Trek America has raised my standards of what I find incredible. I have seen many of the most beautiful and awing places in the USA. My parents live in one of the most beautiful regions of the USA. On a clear day in Portland you can see not one, not two, but THREE large snowcapped volcanoes. Sometimes these high standards mean I fail to really give credit to the beauty and wonder of what I'm seeing. That almost happened with TDP. But luckily it didn't.

Leaving the park (aka being too impatient to wait for the $3 shuttle so walking 7.5km cause alerady having walked like 50 wasn't enough)

I really want to write about the AMAZINGNESS of glacier Perito Moreno (where I went yesterday) and the fabulousness of my current couchsurfing experience, but I think that this post is long enough already. So...that will wait for another time.

Cosmic Forces of the World Watching Out For Me

Yesterday I returned to the land of civilization after spending 5 days camping and hiking "The W" in Torres del Paine. I will write all about Torres del Paine and my hiking later. Right now I have about 15 minutes to write and I want to tell you all about how the cosmic forces of the world apparently currently have my back.

A couple of weeks ago I bought an airline ticket from Rio Gallegos to Buenos Aires for March 8th. The flight leaves at 3:30 and lands at 6:30. I assumed that this was 3:30 and 6:15pm. I was making plans according to this, ie there is a bus that leaves El Calafate at 3am and arrives at 7am that I figured I would take cause everyone keeps talking about boring, bland, and awful Rio Gallegos is. On the bus back to Puerto Natales from Torres del Paine I sat next to two guys from New Zealand who had also just finished hiking the W. We had been passing each other on the trail for the last five days, mumbling "hola" as we huffed past each other, and now that we had energy and we shared the comraderie of the hike we talked for the hour and half bus trip. As we pulled in to Puerto Natales they said that a group of W hikers were getting together for dinner at 8pm if I wanted to join. I was going to be eating dinner with my couch surf hosts but I decided to go and meet up with the group for 1/2 an hour or so and grab a beer.  We were sharing travel horror stories (passports misplaced and returned, flights missed etc) and sharing our plans for the coming days (some us heading south, some heading east, some heading north) and one of my fellow travlers mentioned that he had to figure out how to get to Rio Gallegos cause he had a flight on the 8th. "Really?" said I. "I´m flying out of Rio Gallegos on the 8th too. You can take a bus from here, I think that you just have to transfer in Rio Turbio..." He asked me what time his flight was and said "Mine is at 3:30am, cause that was cheaper." "Weird," I commented. "Mine is at 3:30pm..." "Landing at like 6:15?" says he. "Cause that is when my lands. but in the morning." Our brows furrowed. How strange that we had morning and afternoon flights at the exact same time...So I double checked my confirmation and realized that, silly me, they use the 24 hour clock here and my flight is at 3:30 NOT 15:30, meaning it is in the morning!! If I hadn´t met up with these folks for drinks I would´ve completely missed my flight to Buenos Aires.

Thank you universe. Thank you for letting me figure this out days in advance. And thanks for the wonderful weather too! Seriously.

Hiking tales coming soon. ish.