It was a tough decision to cut out Brazil and Uruguay but in the time I've got left here in South America I would not be doing them any justice. Besides, the Rio Carnival ain't for a while so perhaps I'll come back some time and do it in style. Pink dancing shoes, a pair of speedos and a feather up my arse. Hola Chicos!
The airport here in Iguazu is pandering graciously to its daily consignment of sunhat-clad obnoxious Americans from the generation who refuse to acknowledge their dream is dead. They're not taking the bus outta here because they might not make it back in time for their own funeral. Phil, Ella and myself think we're joining them in the sky until the desk clerk informs us our tickets have been mysteriously cancelled without any explanation and sold on to someone else. Usually I'd go spastic at this point but I manage to keep a lid on it while we figure out our options. The abridged version of events as follows. We have to wait until the desk closes to see if there are any spare seats and finally purchase new tickets at a more expensive price. It all works out, but I still don't really get what happened here. Suffice to say, I won't ever be using AirProjects again.
My plan when we get to BA is to get another flight straight down to El Calafate. Phil and Ella are long-hauling their arses down to Bariloche by bus so we say our goodbyes and I head to the LAN ticket desk thinking, if I'm lucky, I might not even need to leave the airport tonight. "When's the next flight to El Calafate, mate?". "Three weeks, geezer". (OK, he didn't actually say that.) Shit, shit and double-whipped shit! School's out right now, it's the height of the domestic travel season and Patagonia is a big draw. I fair a little better at the Aerolineas ticket desk but I don't think I can bear to spend another six days in BA when I know where else I could be so I retire to the coffee bar to assess my options. The original plan was to fly down and take the bus back all the way back so perhaps I can do a little switcheroo. I hop in a taxi and once again head to the safety of The Milhouse where I make plans to mimic Phil and Ella's route the next day.
I've covered so much ground since Xmas yet the Milhouse is still home to a bunch of people I met back then. Most of them I remember but there's some I don't which is a bit scary. Was I drunk? How do I know these people? Do I even want to know? Are these all rhetorical questions? I'm reminded of the inert Irish lads back in San Diego. I couldn't sit still for this long. Despite its warmth and charm there's much more interesting places than this. At least San Diego had a beach and something approximating a breeze.
As I think I've mentioned before, South America does bus travel with a dash of style. In addition to the option of "nice seat" and "pretty damn fine seat" which are available with most bus firms, Via Bariloche offer a first class seat which reclines into a bed. It's a pretty audacious way to travel and reasonably priced too. They serve you food and wine while you watch a selection of movies on your own screen before gently drifting off to arrive refreshed and ready to go.
Bariloche is in Northern Patagonia at the heart of a region referred to as The Lake District which bears more than a passing resemblance to a Swiss ski resort. Indeed, during their winter months it's perfectly adequate in that role but trekking and water sports are what it's all about during their summer months. It's a popular holiday destination for Argentinians and right now it's real busy. Thankfully I've managed to secure a bed at Penthouse 1004 which I'm assured will not disappoint. The taxi drops me off at the foot of the ugliest building in town, a residential tower block which sticks out like a excruciatingly sore thumb. It would appear that the owner of apartment 1004, situated at the end of a corridor on the top floor, has converted his home and is systematically snapping up adjacent properties as and when he can. These are knocked through to create a unique space with the best lakeside views in town. To his credit, the owner has handed over day-to-day control of this place to two lovely local girls who've got this place running like clockwork. It's not listed on Hostelworld and you have to follow up any email reservations with (wait for it) a phone call to get your bed confirmed. Somewhere along the line, while she's cleaning the kitchen for the eleventeenth time that day, I tell Cecilia how impressed I am at how she runs this business. Straight-faced, she replies, "It's not a business, this is my home!" Speaks volumes.
I chill out here for a day or two without doing very much before I catch up with Phil and Ella to shoot some pool and vino at The Marcopolo Inn. They're paying almost twice what 1004 are charging for a double room. Sure, they get an evening meal thrown in ... or is that thrown up? OK, so I didn't get to sample the Spag Bol myself but I've seen street kids eating better looking stuff than the watery shite they served up that night. They're off to El Bolson tomorrow for a day but vow to join me at 1004 upon their return.
The next day I sign up for a bit of white water rafting with a guy from London named Kieran. It's not exactly cheap at about 70 quid a pop but it's a new experience for me so what the hell. After a little mix up with the buses (our bus departs with the wrong passengers and leaves us scratching our heads at the side of the road for an hour) we finally get going. The scenery en-route is spectacular. The lakes are perfectly still at this time of the morning and create incredible mirror image reflections of the tree-lined mountains beyond. After about an hour we hit a dirt road which we bounce along for another hour before we emerge at a wooden cabin on the banks of an enlarged section of the Rio Negro surrounded with trees and a shady beach. Local families have gathered to wile away the day sipping mate. I get the impression not many people know about this little gem and the sunbathers here would like to keep it that way.
The rapids are category 3-4 (i.e not small) so once we're kitted out with out wetsuits and lifevests the guide wastes no time in going through the do's and don'ts before three dinghies head off in tandem. Despite a few sketchy moments over the bigger rapids, mostly caused by the infuriating horseflies which were biting the shit out of me incessantly, I manage to stay in the boat until the guide forcibly tips it over for his own amusement. The eight of us are left to float downsteam for a few hundred yards, at one point tumbling over a small rapid. The water is crystal clear. Only by peering down under the bubbling torrents where we can see the rocks flying past our feet do we get a sense of how fast we're travelling. In total, we're on the river for a couple of hours. When we stop we're actually over the border in Chile. Weirdly, there's no passport required here as it's private land which makes an absolute mockery of the over-zealous customs officials elsewhere along the border. The bus picks us up from here and transports us back to the cabin for a steak-themed banquet. A nice day out with raging water, loads of beautiful scenery and juicy fat steaks - pity about those pesky horseflies. Next time I'm hiring a bodyguard. No, scrap that, get a SWAT team. Boom-tish!
The next day I try but fail in my attempts to catch a bus to Cerro Catedral and retire once more to the comfort of the hostel for a lazy one. Determined to do something constructive the following day, five of us (including an American guy named Tino who I met previously in Bellavista, Santiago) hire a car so we can check out The Seven Lakes route. The car hire and petrol weighs in at about 20 quid a piece and it's money well spent. We're out for about seven hours, and cover 300 kilometres. It's half tarmac, and half dirt road so I get to demonstrate my finest rally techniques. It feels good to be behind the wheel again after so long. Highlight of the day is the viewpoint high above Traful Lake. It's late afternoon and the is sun starting its descent. It's so stunning here we're all struggling to tear ourselves away - the light here at this time of day is just perfect. Towards the end of the dirt road the tree-lined route opens up into large areas of rugged wilderness lined with mountainous backdrops that look like they've been airlifted straight out of a cowboy movie. Every turn here yields new photo opportunities and the distinct possibility that I may rubberneck us all into an early grave. I hold steady until we reach tarmac and loop back into town. Awesome day out with great company. If you only do one thing in Bariloche, take a car round the seven lakes loop. You will not be disappointed.
1004 celebrates it's fifteenth anniversary in the evening with a party. The owner's in town and the staff, inexplicably under-dressed in pink for the occasion, are fawning over him and laying on a pizza bonanza for the assembled guests. Bariloche is not exactly the cheapest place to go out so, again, there's simply no need to leave our cozy refuge. The night's a pretty sedate affair if I'm honest but this ain't exactly party central. Besides, I'm pretty tired after the driving so it's just what I needed. Before the night's over, someone makes a passing joke about the owner being the Hugh Heffner of Bariloche. Probably best not to dwell on that thought, way too close for comfort.
The weather takes a turn for the worse so it's another lazy day for me before Phil and Ella arrive at 1004. They've returned via the supermarket and knock up an amazing stuffed butternut squash which has the other guests salivating. Nice one Phil, need that recipe. We booze it up until the early hours by which point the group conversation descends into a hilarious cacophony of toilet humour, knob-gags and politically questionable anecdotes. No need to head out into a rain soaked town with an atmosphere like this indoors.
The next day is my last in Bariloche. I've spent almost a week here which is very unusual for me but I need to make plans to move on so a group of us go down to the bus station to weight up options for travelling further south. I'm heading for El Calafate and the shortest, most popular route is a torturous 28 hours away. Only one company here, Marga (aka Taqsa), offers this service along the notorious Ruta 40. It would appear that the other bus companies avoid this route as the rough terrain has a nasty habit of destroying their beautiful buses so Marga are there to fill the void with their battle-scarred cattle-trucks. The remaining seats for Saturday are looking pretty shabby by South American standards but my travel buddies snap them up while I dither. By the time I realise we're all beggars in this charade and head back to pick up a bovine-class ticket the clerk's pulled a fast one and buggered off for a five hour siesta. Grrrrr! These guys need the equivalent of an EU working time directive, not for their own well being which is undoubtedly fine but that of their customers. In the grip of a mini-panic I hastily decide to take an "alternative route" south with Don Otto and get back into town to climb some mountains and forget about the highway to hell which awaits me. My cama for the weekend has been made and I must lay in it. Let's hope I'm fortunate enough to get a little shut-eye in it too.
Back at base, Tino, Katie, Jess and I set off on a packed local bus towards the foot of Cerro Campanario with no-one really knowing where to disembark but we manage to find what looks like the right place about 30 minutes out of town. Being adventurous types we avoid the convenience of the chair lift in favour of a short but steep trek to the top. The views down to the lakes from the top are beautiful and we celebrate with a quick beverage and empandadas before the two girls and I begin to head back down. Lost in random conversation about music and film we take a wrong turn which takes us almost to the foot of the hill before the trail quickly disappears into thick impenetrable bushes with the tantalising sound of traffic beyond. Can't be this hard. We back up and try another route ... and another ... and another until finally in the confusion I end up losing them completely. I can barely hear them and certainly can't see them so I yell out that I'm making my own way down and I'll see them later. I battle on for another thirty minutes until, out of pure desperation, I decide to head back up to the top. Can't go wrong there. By the time I reach the peak for the second time I'm shattered and head straight to the pussy chair lift for a gentle ride back down. No sign of the girls at the base so I wait until the bus arrives and do the only thing a modern gentleman can do. "Single back into town, please mate?" Three hours later the girls arrive back at the hostel looking surprisingly upbeat if a little dehydrated. The safe return of our battle-hardened trekkers was never really in any doubt, was it?
That evening I get chatting to the "internet guy", Jonathan. He's up at the crack of dawn every day to be found hunched over a laptop in the corner. What are you doing man, get out there! Turns out this dude is a web designer of no fixed abode. He travels around from hostel to hostel, living on a shoestring budget taking in the local activities on weekends. He's also a pretty awesome cook and for a small contribution I get to sample the most phenomenal steak ever. No fancy overpriced restaurants with pretentious menus, just a few bottles of red wine, a huge dark red slab of rib eye beef done to perfection and a table of blissed-out carnivores. Food heaven. Cheers buddy. I want your job!
My bus is at 3pm the next afternoon but I need to check out at 10am so I pack up and sling my rucksack on top of the lockers in the hostel. With about an hour to spare I notice someone has accidentally trapped a strap from my bag in the padlocked locker directly beneath and it will not budge. Now this presents a major dilemma for all involved. I need my bag but I'm not about to destroy it to get it free. The padlock owner is nowhere to be found. The hostel doesn't want to break into a locker unnecessarily. It's a mini stalemate but my negotiation skills have improved marginally whilst travelling. By capturing and emailing some photographic evidence of the situation and nimbly cracking a spare, but locked, padlock at reception as a replacement for the hapless lockee (I know, I had a wasted childhood) I manage to persuade the receptionist to dust off the hacksaw. Job done, hugs all round. I was on the bus and long gone before the proverbial was due to hit the fan back at 1004. I spent a week here and loved every minute. If you're ever in Bariloche, I hope you can check it out too.
And so begins the longest bus journey I hope I ever have to endure. I can't even bring myself to look at the ticket coz I know it's gonna be a bitch. It doesn't get off to a great start when the police pull over the bus. A sniffer dog signals my rucksack and the cops grab it. I see the commotion and head down. "Is this your bag?" "Yes", I reply. "You have any marajuana?" "No", I reply. "Any medicine?" "Yeah, sure." They take my malaria tablets away for testing before sending me away. Cushy job or what? This isn't even a border crossing and these checkpoints are everywhere needlessly wasting our time. Where the fuck were you guys when I was getting robbed a couple of weeks ago, eh?
I travel overnight and try to get some sleep before arriving in the east coast city of Comodoro Rivadavia at 5am. It's Sunday and no shops are open in the bus terminal. The bus company refuses to look after my rucksack, shifty looking local dudes are drifting in and out all day and my cheese and ham sandwiches which looked so desirable yesterday are wilting into a sweaty mulch. I manage to kill a few hours nervously watching films on my laptop until finally, fourteen hours later, my overnight southbound to Rio Gallegos arrives. It's yet more uninspiring dead-time on a bus but I couldn't be happier to get out of that place.
I arrive at stupid-o'clock on the Monday morning. I'm still a good five hours from my intended destination. The bus terminal at Rio Gallegos is heaving with backpackers and they're all scrabbling around the Taqsa booth snapping up the remaining tickets for the buses along the final north-east stretch today. My lack of planning is once again fully exposed. When I get to the front of the queue I'm out of luck. Nothing on the 7am bus (that one sold out two days ago), Jack shit at 11am, Bob Hope on the 2pm. I'm initially informed I need to wait until 6pm until the ticket clerks colleague kindly leans over, asks if I'm travelling alone and snares me the very last 2pm ticket. So, only about eight hours to wait, a minor victory given the circumstances methinks. This stuff is childs play to me these days and as a bonus they have free wifi in the bus terminal which, as you should know by now, always keeps this lone ranger happy.
After some more minor delays, I finally arrive in El Calafate. I tell the taxi driver I need to get to The Marcopolo Inn so he casually dumps me at The Marcopolo Suites situated high above the town on a disused airstrip which they've turned into an outrageously wide street. The receptionist shakes her head when I attempt to check in and instructs me to head over to a yellow-roofed building across the runway and way off in the distance. When I'm finally united with my bed for the night it's a mere sixty hours since I set off. Two and a half days travelling in the same clothes with no shower. I'm a sorry sight, exhausted and seriously miserable. I disappear into my shell for the best part of two days to overcome the urge to kill someone and emerge from my slumber, ready and refreshed for the short journey up to El Chalten. I want to see for myself what all the fuss is about.
El Chalten is a sleepy, windswept, ramshackle town of half-built houses and prefabs deep in the foothills of the Los Glaciares National Park. It attracts hikers and extreme mountaineering types from around the globe. My new home here is Aylen Aike, a hostel run by a family with young children who never appear to go to bed. If I'm gonna make the most of my time here I need to crack on and forget about how I'm gonna stay sane without internet access or a locker for my essentials. I arrive at 10am and make a flying start, dumping my bags and making tracks for a three hour hike up to Laguna Torres. I hike through all variations of terrain and face all four seasons along the way. I go from dusty boulder-lined trails to swampy marshlands to dense forests and raging rivers before I emerge from the riverside onto a snow-speckled path up to the tempestuous laguna. As you draw closer the wind goes all hurricane-force on me. I see a guy up ahead walking towards me being chased by a mini tornado of thick dust. He doesn't even see it coming. As it hits him, it spins him round on the spot and lobs him to the dirt before thundering down the path towards me. I drop to the ground to avoid the same fate. The guy ahead of me is unhurt so I carry on as the wind picks up even more to the point where I'm crouched and inching my way along sideways. A few minutes later I arrive at the top of the trail and turn left to see the laguna itself with the glacier pouring down the mountain into the water like thick ice cream. The wind is so strong it makes it hard to breathe let alone stand still and it's kicking up three foot waves on the lake itself. I can only liken today's experience to some kind of fantasy novel adventure with our protagonist on a quest to answer some important questions about nature, only to be told to piss off home. I feel rather small and insignificant so I spin round and do as I'm told. Incredible stuff.
On the second morning I'm feeling a bit achy and opt for the relatively easy two hour waterfall trek. It's nice enough but Iguazu spoiled me so it's just a gentle stroll for a quick photo op and back again.
Kate, who I met in Bariloche, took Ruta 40 down to El Chalten. She arrived at Aylen Aike earlier today and is back at base to greet me. As with much of Patagonia, many of the travellers here are already in their Spanish speaking cliques so it's nice to see a familiar face. There's also an extreme sports group forming here and some of the stories I hear are frightening. "Hi mate, where's your buddy this year?". "Oh, he took a tumble on the Matahorn in December. Didn't make it." They all shake their heads in unison, knowing exactly what he means.
Later on, some dude is showing off photos on his laptop, referring to his compadres conquests by surname only. "Yeah, Wilson tackled that peak a couple of years ago but got beaten back. He says he's going back up with Taylor later this year. They're gonna try going round the southern face, but Williams and Clarke might beat him to it" As he's flicking though the photos he says to his mate, "Oh dude, you might not want to see these next couple of shots. We found her body first. She'd been up there on that ledge a good few days already" Whooaa! These freaks are downright certifiable.
Adding to the nightmare, Anu, a girl from Finland also arrived today looking like she'd seen someone die. In truth she just had. On the journey into town by bus, a car ahead of her had overturned. This girl had just resigned from her anesthetist post to take some time out before embarking on a new career outside of medicine. She needed this just like the large hole in the drivers head which she had tried to hold together while they uprighted the car he was trapped in. Real horrorshow stuff for the poor girl. You could see was struggling and I really felt for her.
On my last day I want to tackle Mount Fitz Roy. A group of us from the hostel get bus tickets which take us ten miles up the valley. Everything I said about Laguna Torres applies here again, but this time there's a real climb at the end of it. We're not actually gonna climb Mount Fitz Roy, that would be suicide, just get up to a point high enough to get a decent view of it. The round trip still takes us a full eight hours of proper hiking and it's a satisfying end to an awesome few days of outdoor adventures. El Chalten? Rocks!
I'm not done with El Calafate just yet so I head back, but I am finished with The Marcopolo Inn. It's a real karma-assasin. Just as yellow and black spell danger in the animal-kingdom, yellow and red are surely the hostel world equivalent - take my advice, approach with caution. This time I head for I Keu Ken, a sweet, friendly little hostel high up on the opposite side of town. It's playing really chilled-out tunes all day and has dogs, cats and a sheep roaming around like they rule the place. I book a ticket for a bus to take me up to the real jewel in this regions crown the following day and kick off my boots.
The Perito Moreno glacier is a spectacular one off and I'm tackling the half-day hike. This gives me time to hang around the viewpoint walkways which face the towering blue wall of the slowly advancing ice giant. Every couple of minutes, vast slabs of the ice come crashing down into the water below in a phenomenon known as calving. You never know which bit's going to collapse next and by the time the sound of the crack and splash reach your ears it's often too late. Once every few years the ice wall reaches land and the water beneath carves out an ice bridge which eventually ruptures and collapses in spectacular style - imagine capturing this! You could stare at this gargantuan freak of nature trying to outwit your senses for hours but my crampons await and we head to our boat. This transports us to the southern tip of the glacier where it meets land and we strap spikes to our boots and follow our guide up onto the glacier. Over the next two hours we see some amazing stuff and my trusty little camera captures some of the most amazing images I've ever shot. The tour is concluded with a glass of whisky accompanied by fresh glacier ice. There are glaciers, then there's Perito Moreno. The sixty hour journey might just have been worthwhile after all.
I fly out of El Calafate to Buenos Aires the following morning and spend one last night at Milhouse before I finally depart South America. It's been a monumental couple of months and I hope I can come back soon to fill in the gaps. My greater hope is that you too can sack off the phony-arse high street travel agents pushing their Costa Del Bullshit package holidays and get some yourself. Go on, you know you want to!
Next Stop, New Zealand via Australia.
Choon of the day: Beach House - Used To Be
White water rafting on the Rio Negro - I'm second on the left hand side of the boat
The view from Penthouse 1004, Bariloche
Traful Lake
Towards the end of Ruta 65, Seven Lakes trip
View from the top of Cerro Campanario, Bariloche
Laguna Torres trek, El Chalten
Laguna Torres trek, El Chalten
A tempestuous Laguna Torres, El Chalten - a little bit "breezy"
Laguna Torres trek, El Chalten
A pond on the northern descent into El Chalten
The Mount Fitz Roy trek, El Chalten
Viewpoint on the Mount Fitz Roy trek, El Chalten
Perito Moreno glacier, El Calafate
Perito Moreno glacier, El Calafate
Perito Moreno glacier, El Calafate
Perito Moreno glacier, El Calafate
Ice trekking on Perito Moreno glacier, El Calafate
Ice trekking on Perito Moreno glacier, El Calafate
Ice trekking on Perito Moreno glacier, El Calafate
Ice trekking on Perito Moreno glacier, El Calafate - my new favourite picture!
Ice trekking on Perito Moreno glacier, El Calafate
Walking like this all day can be a bit tiring, plus you look like a bit of a retard!
