Last Week

These days are running together. I try to call Melissa and its hard to get a hold of her, not a promising sign. I try payphones and locutorios, indoor phone booths, to no avail and then I go back to email. I set up a date, an appointment she calls it, and the distancing has officially commenced. We meet in San Telmo at a mediocre café and it feels a little off. It may be the persistent crick in my shoulder that is healing very slowly and putting a damper on my mood. Or else it could be the stale medialunas and disappointment, mine, her’s, or me sensing and reacting to her’s. Nevertheless I get the feeling that this will be the last afternoon I’ll be spending with her and that’s the correct notion.


We take the subte to vast and snooty Palermo District and to the modern visual arts museum, LUBA, where she can’t get enough of the crazy shit pasted and random scribbles framed and put on the walls, and I have a hard time understanding, but I’m in no mood for debate, so I politely agree. We head to the museum gift shop and I look over her shoulder at a nude photo book of stars and prostitutes until the movie begins.




Rio Arriba, a documentary about Iruya highlighting the exploitation of the sugar industry there, is genuinely affecting and one of the best things about the museum that day. The shaman and spokesman for the people of Iruya who I met a month and a half earlier is highlighted in the film. I met him in the San Isidor cultural center that day and drank coffee with him in Iruya. My time in Argentina is unifying strangely. The story is an old one: the gringo stealing the land from the peasants and renting it back them with the sweat of their labor, hardship and blood.

The traditional farming terraces, with their tenders working the plantations, washed away in tremendous mudslides, erosion events known as volcanoes to the people. They were indebted to the company store and grew even more dependent on the sugar plantations once their former livelihood was washed down the river. Technology eventually made the slave labor obsolete and the people returned to their diminished land and diminished futures.


We take the subway back and say some compulsory goodbyes with a promise for a future meeting that will never happen. So it goes.

I return to LUBA a couple of more times to buy a Rio Arriba CD and to watch a silent Western in the auditorium accompanied by a live band playing the background music. I watch a few movies of varying quality. Little Miss Sunshine is a black comedy gem. The Secret Life of Words is sad and reminds me of the recent history of Argentina with its torture and executions, and I feel the undercurrent of sadness that must still be alive here.


I chronicle the stencils and graffiti along the streets passing more Pizza cafes and parillas then would seem supportable even in a giant city like Buenos Aires, but they almost always have a decent crowd. For the most part the weather is stifling. I find a percussion performance one night on Sarmiento, off of Corrientes in an industrial yard. The music is infectious among the crowd which includes a sizeable hippy following.




Sometimes I’m bored, sometimes frustrated with the pollution and the traffic and throngs. I never find myself in the mood for one of the adopted national dishes, Milanesa. I’m being antisocial at the hostel. My heart isn’t in it and I need to conserve money regardless. The soccer championship passes and I watch the waning minutes with Boca faltering, just as they did two months ago, but even this seems like a depleted experience. I’m merely waiting out my time. I’m getting a little restless to move on to the next step in my life, wanting it to be a true step, not one that is disingenuous to myself.

Through the motions

For the first time during many days at this hostel, I make it up in time for breakfast. I reacquaint myself with the streets of Buenos Aires. I head back to Palermo walk for a while, but I feel tired and vaguely ill and not in the mood for exploring. I have no plan, and though this often leads to the best kind of adventures, today it is leading no place in particular.


I go to what some consider to be the best pizzeria in the city, which is saying a lot, on Corrientes. Old men stand by counters with knife and fork, eating a rarity in Argentina, pizza by the slice. I choose to sit down and the pizza is very good indeed.


My shoulder is still stiff and in pain and I’m walking around like a whiplash victim. I make it another early night and save quite a bit in beer money, but not having much fun, really, and starting to question why I arrived in the city so early when I could be relaxing on a beach.

A long, cramped ride

I attempt to find a position I can sleep in and put a good crick in my neck and shoulder from contorting in the seat. The AC is cranked way too high and I brought nothing warmer in my pack than my safari shirt. An old, somewhat befuddled, gentleman boards at some vague juncture midway up the coast and removes a styrofoam cup jammed in the vent, the only thing separating me from hypothermia. I suffer through it cursing the blameless codger and finally stuff my hat inside the hole to quell the flow.


A sublime sunset looms out my window with clouds lit up like embers. Storms rage in the distance, every crack of lightning visible over the fathomless pampa. We catch up with the rain, and a rivulet of water flows through the bus.


The old man leaves, mercifully, in Bahia Blanca, about the time to sleep. In the morning we pass thousands of head of cattle and almost at the point where the estancias end, Buenos Aires begins and it feels like a kind of home. Its warm, but not as stifling as I feared. I check back into Che Lagarto and in my room are naked people in bed and it’s a strange sort of symmetry with my very first night in the city. I stop at a café and eat more pizza and then sit down for a very nice dinner in San Telmo. I return to the hostel and start catching up on sleep.

Norte a BsAs

I ask to quiero pagar and instead the girl at the desk asks my name and wonders why I’m leaving so soon. I like her instantly and has me questioning beyond reason why I AM leaving so soon. There’s nothing more on earth, though, I want to do here. She phones for my bus ticket and I go back to my reading.

I buy food for the ride and finish up some last minute chores. I’ve been eating a great deal which makes sense considering my recent physical stress. I still haven’t fully recovered as I’m reminded every time I climb a modest hill or some steps and feel the burn.

As I walk back towards the hostel, I meet the desk girl on the road. She says goodbye and gives me the customary kiss on the cheek and a nice hug and we chat for a bit and she hugs me even tighter, and by this time I do feel like staying longer, if only momentarily. I arrange my stuff at the hostel and leave and an older Dane in my room does the same.

He went on an Argentina trip 28 years ago, when he said that the country looked much the same except that there was a palpable tension in the air. It was the height of The Dirty War. He met a family with a small child and became close. She found him recently through the internet and urged him to come back and visit. The child is now a mother of her own child. The woman that he met is now the director of the theater in Buenos Aires and has colaborated in creating a play about 1978, Matri, based on generations of women dealing with the crisis.

We are in Rio Gallegos again, back to the refugee camp. It is going on evening and much warmer than my first visit, and I only have to wait a couple hours. I board the bus for my first sustained trip North in a month. The seats in front of me crank way back, but I relax and spread out as much as possible and read the final chapters of Moby Dick. It’s a dull read for me, but it passes the time, and there are thirty hours of traveling remaining. The movie is a bad drama about Flight 98, and seeing it makes me feel slightly ill.

Amazing sights, but I must go...

I wake up too early. Two South Africans I met the day before join me for breakfast of toast, dulce de leche, marmalade and even a scoop of cereal.

The glacier is huge, booming and calving sometimes in dribbles and other times whole boulders of ice tumble into the ice clogged corner of the lake. Other, relatively rare times, whole sides of the glacier cleave off and collapse and everyone rushes to the fence, telephoto lensed cameras in hand. Its large and amazing, but hard for me to enjoy. I want a quiet corner without the bustle, the cooing and striking of poses, but that’s impossible.

I sit my butt down on a rock and eat and watch and wait and eat and get up whenever something promising happens glacierward, then fade back again, and repeat until it is time to board the bus again. We take the long ride back to El Calafate and I’m tired and realizing now that its time to make the longer than seems sane ride back to Buenos Aires. I walk town again, cook ravioli, read Moby Dick and turn in early.

El Calafate

Omar calls me through the bathroom door. My bus is not picking me up at the hostel, as I thought, but three blocks away and I have five minutes to get there. I take off running with two full and heavy packs, but I make it. Customs, this time, is relatively smooth since we are going to Argentina which is not as strict as Chile. El Calafate is a pleasant if not particularly notable town. I walk up the dirt road to a nice hostel and its finally warm again.


The main drag of town is as touristy as advertised but pleasant nevertheless with a boardwalk and chalet like facades. I eat my umpteenth mozzarella pizza and drink yet another Fanta, and find a bus ticket to the Perito Moreno Glacier the following day. I try to find a quiet corner of the hostel to read and relax. My trip back north is scheduled to begin in two days, but with the ticket office closed until Monday, this isn’t written in stone.

Recovery

Today I chill out and do laundry and take a much needed rest after one of the most strenuous weeks of my life. I find a nice, if gringo oriented, café and eat a cheese and avocado sandwich on artisan bread and sip a doble in a narrow yellow ceramic cup. I browse an English rock magazine highlighting the comeback of the NY Dolls and Bjork plays on the sound system. I spend the afternoon reading and watching movies like American History X and Twelve Monkeys. Its time for bed and El Calafate tomorrow and the end of my Odyssey through Patagonia is within sight.

The sun appears as I leave

I heat up cup after cup of Milo and soup. I compact my food and throw away, trying to make it an easy hike out this morning. I dry all my things in the sun that finally emerges this morning. In combination with the wind, this doesn’t take long and I feel revived even if my feet feel iredeemably soggy and cold.

The Torres make one last appearance, and it isn’t from the perspective that I had hoped, but I felt blessed all the same. I start down the road towards the Lago Amarga station where I began. I spot large cat prints in the sand and follow with caution.

A wilderness guide from Minnesota who I greeted briefly at Perros is also waiting for the bus at Amarga. Soon a middle aged German with an earring who gave in after a day, joins us. Despite his lack of tenacity this time, he has been trekking and bike touring worldwide. It feels good to be on the bus, though it takes a while for the engine to turn over. We pass untold numbers of rhea and guanaco on the way through the pampa. I return to Omar’s hostel and take a long and lovely shower and go out to eat a full meal and some fruit salad. I drink a beer. I return to the hostel and drink more beer while I watch Return to Neverland with female Finlandian hostelmates and then The Big Lebowski with a group of American and Canadian guys who also completed the circuit that day, starting, untypically, at Lago Pehoe via ferry shuttle.

Hobbling in Rain and Gales

The light, but persistent, rain this morning makes it difficult to get up and start the day. My plans to go to Camp Chileano to the base of the Torres will be waylaid by the afternoon. The wind seems to have abated compared to the day before, but as I approach the next refugio, this proves to be a false assumption. The trail passes a lake with colors one rarely sees away from tropical lagoons, but this was anything but. The ferocity of the wind compares to that of a bonified hurricane. I crouch to wait out the onslaught, but once or twice the gusts catch me off guard and I am knocked down into the bushes. While walking up a hill the wind lifts me up a steep embankment. I am close to flying.

The cold rain fallls harder and I duck into a refugio for the first time on the circuit with the pretense of buying camera batteries. I bask in the warmth and marvel at working toilets before moving on. I don’t want to be spoiled by comfort. After laying dormant for several weeks, my injury sustained in Mendoza resurfaces. Its what I feared most the whole journey, but at least I am only a couple hours this time from completing the circuit and being safe. I can barely walk on it, though. I sit and stretch it out as well as I can and not wishing to be stranded, I limp on. A group of Israeli students ask me how far it is to the next refugio oblivious to my predicament.

My knee loosens to some degree, then came back in full force along with the rain and the cold. A young American guy sees my limp and asks "estas bien" and offers to carry some of my load. It is only one hour to camp and I estimate that I will make it there. I pass by the crossroads, with the alternate trail leading to Chileano and the base of the Torres, but the weather and my condition make the choice a no-brainer.

I pass the immense hosteleria and I’m tempted for a few moments, to check in, even as I look like a wet rat, but I know how expensive it probably is and hobble on. I walk to a campsite full of exuberant high school kids gathered around a big pot of food. They have a big fire stoked and I want to be a part of it. I start setting up the tent. A high school girl gives me a sweet hola, and I ignore the warning signal. One of the leaders, I presume, warily asks me "Necesitas ayudar?" Oblivious, I reply "no, gracias" and continue setting up until my weather and fatigue addled brain comprehends that I don’t belong here. I check the signs to confirm this and stuff my dripping tent back into the bag while a gracious student offers me food, and its tempting.

Everything is wet as I set up camp in earnest. I flop myself inside the tent and light up my stove going through the arduous and ultimately futile task of drying out. The camp host comes by to collect fees and she notices that my fly is being held to the ground tenuously by rocks. In the hasty process of setting up, I bent my stakes trying to penetrate the hard ground and she comes by with her own stakes and puts me back in business while her little boy directs her where to place them. Even in sogginess and disappointment, I sleep very well that night.

Pulling my tent out of the sky

The Americans take off earlier than I do, but I get the feeling I’ll see them again that day. The pack feels good today after two days of lightening the food weight, not to mention a full day’s rest.

Its a lot of up and down once again, but nothing to compare with the previous leg. This is the start of the shorter, and much more popular, W route and backpackers and daytrippers are around every turn with metal hiking poles clacking and taking up the entire trail. They don’t yield, and after a few incidents I barrel straight towards them.

The wind kicks up in a big way. In exposed areas I’m fighting to stay on the trail and I often don’t, pivoting my foot off of rocks and banks to recenter myself on the trail. My American cohorts come wandering back onto the trail after straying onto a side trail and we’re together again.

As I go down the valley towards Lago Pehoe, the wind is especially persistent. The lake looks like a sort of turquoise jewel in the distance. It burgeons into a full blown lake, a large ranger station and a luxury hotel on the shore. A crowd of backpackers queue up in the bluster by a fairy stop. I get temporary respite from the wind behind the ranger station and eat another cookie lunch. The Americans join me not long after and the pilot calls me a show off. He estimates the wind at 50 knots and asks noone in particular if anyone has ever seen water picked up off a lake like that.

I leave them and continue on to Italiano through occasional showers and the imposing and truly majestic backdrop of peaks. The hiking goes quickly and I cross a bridge over a turbulent mountain river carrying glacier water from the famously scenic French Valley and I walk into Italiano.

Now that I’m no longer burning calories at tremendous rates, I feel the cold aided by the howling winds. I get the poles into my tent in a wrestling match of sorts and I weigh it down by placing stones inside the tent. Regardless it takes off like a kite and I catch it before it enters the tree branches. With the aid of much heavier rocks, I erect the tent and hunch down inside and cook my dinner there forced out only when I run out of water and need to piss.

Ice Trekking

I wake up to showers. My sole intent, today, is to trek the glacier, no matter the 70,000 Chilean pesos it may cost. The ranger from the day before hikes by wearing purple gaters and a backpack. He has to hike to Grey for his days off to catch the boat across the lake and out of the park. I walk up to the cabana aside the tents that sell the tours. A college aged guide is doing chores and he tells me that the next tour is full. I give my story, that I arrived the day before and they promised me a space, so he assures me he’ll ask.

He comes by my tent in a little while and tells me I’m on. I go back to the cabana to chat with him and get out of the damp, chilly conditions for the rest of the morning, and part of the afternoon, and drink mate. It feels good to be next to the fire on such a day. I read comments in ten different languages from the guest book, only comprehending the English and Spanish, about how this was the highlight of their Patagonia trip, if not their life. The guide cooks dinner and listens to the Pixies.

A large group of mostly English and a couple of middle aged American tag alongs enter the cabana while a guide barks out instructions. One of the Americans is a Dallas, Texas pilot and he asks who the other American is, and I volunteer. Juan, the guide, overhears me talking about doing the circuit and says that I’m lucky I’m not doing the pass today. The clouds lift enough to reveal the fresh snow on the mountains. Juan guided a group in the middle of winter, in July, when it was possible to jump down the trail leading steeply from the pass. The snow was almost hip high.

We gather on the zodiac on a cold ride with pelting rain across the lake and around dark blue icebergs. Its an odd contrast to my rainy but tropical power raft ride through Iguazu almost a month ago. Juan notes how far the glacier has receded in just over a decade, hundreds of meters at least.

We climb out onto a rock and gear up. We slip on crampons, the complex strapping we leave to the guides, and pick up an ice axe and step into harnesses. After a few quick lessons on the correct technique of walking on different grades of ice, we walk up what has the appearance of fused ice cubes, intermingled with stone along the first stretch. We pass deep crevasses and small streams running through tunnels in the glacier and end at a waterfall and pull out cups to take a drink. In just days, due to the motion of the ice, all this terrain will be vastly different.

We backtrack to a wall with ropes set up. The ice climbing feels a little unwieldy at first, but once I trust the ice will hold me, I’m able to climb without much trouble, though I never get my legs wide enough for stability.

The sun makes a brief appearance, illuminates the glacier and forms a weak rainbow over the lake. The rain begins anew once we cross the lake in the puttering zodiac towards camp. Back at my tent, I cook more pasta and exchange pleasantries with the Americans. We’re all headed for Camp Italiano in the morning. I gather my cooking utensils and hunker down in my tent for another rainy night.

Over the Pass

Its getting cloudy today, but its pleasant enough. I make tea and cereal from the vestibule of my tent and pack quickly, eager to hit what appears to be my most difficult day as early as possible. Everyone else seems to have the same idea, but I get out before the rest and I feel strong once again. The way is steep, extremely marshy with mud that sucks my boots to the ankles. Woods and marsh give way, at last, to the tree line and I continue on dry land, rock and talus. I rest spotting a group of ten not far behind, and then dig my boots into the footprints up the steep snow fields and get surprisingly good traction.

I hike over the pass and on the other side is a spectacular panorama of Glacier Grey, spanning for miles from the mountains, larger than what I imagined and seeming to engulf whole mountains. I’m in awe once again. I descend quickly into the woods. The trail winds steeply and relentlessly down and I’m grateful for the ropes tied on the trees along the way. My left hip is stiff and in pain but not injured. It’s a muscle that is not accustomed to the stress and weight of a full backpack. Every once in a while I hear the thunderous report of glacial calving.

I arrive at a ranger station where the young ranger asks me in for tea. He asks about any hot girls at a previous camp. All old German women I tell him. He says that it isn’t often that someone arrives here from Perros so early. I ask him why the trail was marked closed a few days ago. He tells me a landslide hit one of the canyons, but if I move through the area quickly, I should be fine. Soon the German tour group arrives, so I eat my lunch of bran cookies and move on, merely a few hours from Camp Grey.

And if I was expecting the going to be easy after the pass, I’d be wrong. Narrow, cliffside trails rise and descend over loose dirt and stone. Tall, wooden ladders are rigged to descend and ascend the landslides. It feels precarious with my heavy pack that weighs about half of me, especially on a ladder that is tilted to the side against the rock. The pack wants to pull me flat and twist me off the ladder. I walk past a "peligro, no entrance" sign and down the final hill towards Grey where the glacier flows into a large lake with scattered icebergs.

I arrive in Grey close to 4pm, a hard, long but very satisfying day. I set up camp with the crowd and eat another big pot of pasta, drink some warm Milo and fall asleep with the sunset.

Un perro, los perros

It’s a beautiful day. I sleep in for as long as I can, but how long that is I can’t say. I eat, pack and still embark before almost everyone else in camp. This morning a group gathers around, with cameras in hand, a wild canine of sorts that has wandered into camp for some easy vittles, no doubt. I climb a hill to some more amazing vistas to the mountains and walk towards my first large glacier of note. A Brit and his guide pass on horseback going the opposite direction and I ascend some rocks to a small glacial lake and the rumbling of some snow and ice eroding off the glacier, Los Perros, hanging on the cliff.

I slip and fall down a silty path, but brush myself off with no injury. I walk by some amber colored ponds and into the woods where I see the next camp, also called Los Perros. Its early, and I contemplate, just for a moment, making a push towards the pass while the weather is good and I’m feeling strong. But, no, I reason, better to go off in the morning when I feel my best. I cook a big pot of pasta and sleep very well, very long.

Overstaying breakfast, Trail Kinks

I wake up at 6. I sit at the breakfast table at 6:30 to find a French couple, who want to speed through the Circuit in five days, diligently shoveling Muesli. Bleary eyed, I pour cereal and reach for the milk and the French girl says politely in Spanish that it is their milk and that’s when I notice "Greg" written on the carton in big letters. Regardless I get the urge to choke them with their Muesli for being so petty. Omar arrives and makes a plain omelet for me. The table gradually fills with other trekkers and as I reach for another tea bag, Omar says something about other people. I assume that he means that the tea is running low so I put it back. He grabs my plates from me and tells me, sorry, he must wash them, others must eat. I shrug and leave the table and he rolls his eyes like I’m an idiot, and he complains, in Spanish, about how long I’ve been at the table.

The bus arrives at 8 and we ride down another dirt road toward the park. We soon approach the jutting towers on the horizon. They are clearly magnificent. We stop at the admission gate to buy our tickets and I realize that I am at my stop. According to a sign in the office, The Circuit is closed, but I decide almost immediately to disregard this. I shoulder my pack and walk down the road with the Torres looming on my left. My pack already is weighing me down and its so cumbersome, I have an ominous feeling about the next week.

For the first few hours I think I am alone on this stretch of trail, but I take a break and another couple passes me. I walk through a cow pasture and around cattle into muddy fields, and this trail is not feeling very wild. After a mere 18 km I’m doubled over with fatigue on a flat, smooth stretch of trail. I pale to think how I will make it up passes and over rough terrain. I eat my lunch at Camp Seron, a small horse ranch, and think about it. I start fiddling with the straps on my backpack trying to get a better fit. I see what I imagine to be an American redneck and his son smoking and taking a break. As they pass me its clear that they’re two young Norwegians finishing up The Circuit in the opposite direction.

The adjustments make a big difference and I get a renewed burst of energy and confidence for the next stretch of trail. And just at the right time, since my first test is ahead of me, a steep hill crosses a very windy saddle. When I cross I see a dramatic bird’s eye view of mountains and Lago Paine. In the mood for celebration, I shout down at the lake. The way down is rolling and I eventually hit woods and water again and I’m getting very tired again. The last 5km to camp drags and I overtake small hill upon small hill expecting Lago Dickson to be visible from the crest. I consider, as the light fades, making an illegal camp on the spot and risking expulsion from the park, but saving my tail. The trail broadens and turns sharply uphill. I have a very good feeling this time, and there it is like a beacon, horses grazing, a group of tents and a refugio cabin, Camp Dickson.

I nearly slide down the loose rock into the valley. When I arrive, the young caretaker asks, "Como estas? Cansado?" Si! I set up camp and quickly boil two packets of ramen before darkness sets in completely.

Getting Ready

Everything today revolves around getting ready for my trip on the circuit. I eat an Omar breakfast and do some food shopping, then replace water bottles that are now rolling in the holds of various Argentinian buses. I buy a map from the store and a bus ticket from Omar. I stop at Erratic Rock to get a briefing on TDP from the mate sipping American . His information is helpful to be sure. I rent a backpacking stove and at that point my preparation is complete and I pack my bag. I watch DVDs the rest of the afternoon with some Irish blokes. Requiem for a Dream is particularly strange and good. I eat and I return to packing mayhem in my room. Everyone is prepping for a trek. Everything settles, soon enough, and I call it an early night for the early one tomorrow.

Early Departure

I spend my last day in Ushuaia in rest. I send out postcards and do a little reading and relax for the challenging Torres Del Paine circuit. When I tell Luca, the Italian, cigarillo smoking proprietor, I’m leaving, he says "finally! I thought you were living here."


The hostel is still noisy when I try to get some early sleep. I’m in for a restless night. The Irish woman on the lower bunk has an early bus into Rio Gallegos. At my request, she nudges me awake at 4:30 AM. I eat my remaining fruit, since it cannot come with me across the border to Chile, and walk down the street already glowing in first morning light.


I board the bus with a large group of mostly Germans and a few French for another 15 hour journey. We ride the ferry once again and file through customs. It soon becomes apparent that we are running too late to make the connecting bus. An Israeli girl with a nose ring walks to the front of the bus to inquire and she comes back with a dubious answer. The head of a German tour group goes to the front to ask more questions. We are dropped off at a police checkpoint outside of Punto Arenas where we will be picked up by the connecting bus.


We stand along the side of the road in the coming dusk and wait. The bus arrives and we are shuttled into a rainy Puerto Natales. I walk to the popular Erratic Rock Hostel and have a bad feeling about my chances for a room, and alas the gregarious balding Oregonian proprietor confirms that they’re full and points me around the block to another hostel. I walk in on some backpackers eating dinner and they tell me to shout "Omar!" The beds are lined with plastic and have no sheets, but it’s a place to lay my head. Omar tells me his home is my home.


I walk to a restaurant where half my bus is by this time eating, as well as one of the bus stewards, an odd, but funny guy who uses mime to communicate. I eat salmon and an avocado salad and pay 4300 pesos for it, which could be $100 for all I know about the Chilean exchange rate (Note: about $8). Nevertheless I pay it and return to the hostel for glorious sleep.

Canon de las Ovejas

The bus to Pto Natales leaves on Wednesday. Today’s Monday so I decide to explore the last of the trails that originate in Ushuaia. I weave my way through the omnipresent schoolchildren who just completed the trail. The way goes along a stripped railbed which transitions into a muddy pasture road. This leads to a waterfall. I cross a beautiful, marshy, sloping horse pasture with bogs and stands on dead trees and fallen logs against a backdrop of craggy peaks.

This is the start, a sign indicates, canon de las ovejas, so intrigued I follow the pasture road into a valley surrounded by tall peaks and towards a snowy range in the distance at the end of a stream. I climb a ladder over the pasture fence and find markers for a trail. It gently slopes up into the forest paralleling the stream through more swampy terrain. The way turns sharply downhill and then out of the woods for good and onto a sizeable scree slope. The trail then follows narrow banks in the scree undulating up the slope until it finally continues up the valley again, where I want to go.

The yellow markers guide me across the exposed slope intermittently through bushes across more scree and over steep slopes of lingering snow. I dig my boots into the snow hoping I don’t slide into oblivion. My boots, after drying in the past day, are soaked once again.

I reach the range with small glaciers clinging to the rockface and narrowing to thin waterfalls cascading down the cliffs into the canyon. One large scoop of snow has fallen off one of the glaciers causing a big scar in the glacier. The trail winds up to a pass and I cross some snow to the top.

It was getting late, 7pm, as I retrace my steps through the horse pasture. The horse eyes stare at me either out of curiosity or malice, but not wishing to test the correct interpretation I step gingerly past them. I make it back to Cruz del Sur at 9, dinner is in full swing, but I manage to cook and eat a decent meal for once.

No Direction

I eat a long breakfast, chat a bit with Mia, then I take off down the road in search of Valle de las Ovejas. As I go down the highway I come to another town, this one more intensely industrial than Ushuaia with cargo crates piled along the shore, more barges and less frills. I cross a bridge over a river and check my map and turn around and pick up the road I missed. I walk by cabanas and homes, horsefarms and a nursery with greenhouses. Roads with no names, no signs spur out everywhere and my map fails to give specifics so I continue on faith, which isn’t often reliable. The road narrows and becomes deeply rutted. I pass a perro cuidado sign and the dogs in question track me down. A sheep dog shoots me a wary look and his cohort slinks underneath a gate and they cut me off and start growling. This convinces me I’m going the wrong way.


The next way I try seems wrong as well, so I acknowledge defeat and turn around. I settle in at the hostel finding lunch and starting Moby Dick. Mia comes back, not to thrilled with TDF, or Ushuaia, a cynic if there ever was one. She' s disappointed in the lack of beavers, of all things. I let her read my journal, as I promised the day before, and I continue reading. She leaves to fly back to the north of Argentina and suddenly I’ve lost my entertainment in Ushuaia.

Two Paths

I head towards the top of town not quite sure where I’m going but I manage to guess my way there and I find the Glaciar Martial trailhead, and I have another muddy, boggy yet beautiful trail to myself. I cross a road and see the chairlift to the top. But chairlifts are for skiing. The way gets steeper and muddier and then emerges from the woods, crosses a stream and leads past a refugio based at the top of the chairlift.

I skip across logs and rocks to cross a bog. A young American couple complain, "Why did we come this way? Because we’re stupid, that’s why." The crowded snout of the glacier is populated with everyone from old Argentinian couples to European backpackers and American tourists. I walk across the well trodden glacier and continue up a steep trail with loose stone. And the way becomes noticeably chilly and windy.

After a long slog, I cross a couple more rocky hills and some snowfields to face a bowl of craggy mountains. A girl gazing off one of the hilltops turns around and motions to me. She’s used up her batteries, she explains to me in Spanish, and she wants to borrow mine. She snaps a few pictures and tells me MUCHisimo gracias and offers me her trail mix. I lunch on the vista before turning back toward warmer climes. On the way back the trail I encounter a Norwegian couple I noticed on the bus to Ushuaia. She gives me a cute smile while her boyfriend grunts out a hello.

There’s a lot of daylight remaining when I reach the road so I walk towards another trail further east. I pass through meadows and enter the woods once again, climbing and feeling the fatigue starting to settle in. But I press on compelled by the curiosity of where the trail will end.

I surpass the treeline and cross some deep snow. I’m chilled and rain showers start falling. I set a deadline for 6:30 and keep moving finally spotting a sign for a laguna. I lose the trail so I point myself towards a saddle and cross the mossy talus.

The laguna is slushy and nearly frozen over even as it approaches summer. I turn around and follow the stream back down, having lost the trail hopelessly this time. As I hop dead trees and push through vines and bogs, I’m still not sure, so following the stream is still my surest bet. Once the way becomes too treacherous, I climb up the ravine and search for the trail in earnest, and I find it fairly easily.

I make it back, a 26 km day, and eat whatever’s left in my pack for dinner. In my dorm an Israeli girl, Mia, comes in and immediately talks about her adventure around South America. She makes me laugh so I’m happy to listen.

A ride home

I decide to hike to Tierra del Fuego 20 km away. Its spitting rain and I layer clothing, this time, pull on gloves and a hat not wanting to get caught off guard by the weather. A group of backpackers in front of me try to hitch their way to the park, unsuccessful the whole time they’re in my sight. Beautiful snow covered crags and horse farms line the muddy dirt road along the way. I pass by the Tren fin del Mundo, that looks like an amusement park ride, that shuttles back and forth to the park.

I sidetrack onto a trail and down a mossy, muddy, ferny, boggy hill full of roots and clover, a nice switch after a month or so of desert environment. I walk to the lake and down a muddy path and I have the place nearly to myself passing a tour group on occasion, or a backpacker couple. The drizzle continues, but I’m walking briskly and I keep warm. At the end of the lake trail I pick up a road to a campsite and look for batteries for my exhausted camera at the confiteria, to no avail. I eat my lunch at a picnic table.

Now 27 km into my day, I continue down another trail and climb a mountain stepping up slippery footholds and muddy slopes that slide beneath my soles. My feet sink into bogs and saturated moss. The four kilometer trail seems much further. I finally cross a mud pit alongside a small stream to another mossy bog. Snow and crags are all that’s ahead of me. I can’t resist climbing, but its getting late, even for me, and my day is eclipsing 30 km. The summit appears elusive so I turn around knowing I’m setting myself up for a dark walk home, but at least not in the wilderness.

At km 35 a young man in a transporte van asks me "a Ushuaia?" He insists, "suba." and I get in. He asks others, along the way, the same question, so I assume he’s collecting fares. He sings along to the latin faux Brittany on the radio and shows me points of interest along the way. We dodge a swooping hawk in pursuit of a rat or a rabbit, he says.

He lets me off in front of my hostel, my small noisy hostel, and when I ask him the fare, he plainly states "nada." I thank him profusely. This leaves me time to drop off laundry.

Fifty hours to El Fin del Mundo

I start a fifty hour journey on an old bus sparely supplied with a liter of water and weak, sugary, coffee. The steward hands us each a packet of Maty’s cookies with a psychotic looking clown pictured on the front. I find out that the dull, coastal, oil town of Rivadavia is my layover of eight hours until my next bus to equally bland Rio Gallegos, my second stop on the way to Ushuaia. It’s a blustery Patagonic spring day with snow flurries. To pass the time, I surf the net and go to a café and a pizzeria. The espresso doesn’t even dent my fatigue.


The bus to Rio Gallegos is almost an hour late, and we cross the desolate beauty that is Patagonia. We arrive at an hour late, as well, 5am, but this works out for the better. The next bus to Ushuaia is not until 9am. I rush through the cold and into the bus station with its sheet metal that makes it as inviting as a warehouse, but its gloriously warm and I snooze in fits and starts. Other travelers, as buses arrive, do the same, and the whole place has the feel of an emergency shelter. A whole line of backpackers are splayed out napping atop their bags on the floor.


The boleterias start opening at 8am and I go in search of a ticket to Ushuaia. They’re sold out, at least the company I first try, and I’m sunk, until I find their competition the next booth over. The bus leaves in an hour.


Another eleven hours and no food on this bus as well. We go through Argentine, Chilean, Argentine and then Chilean customs once again. Our bags and passports are scrutinized for the small strip of Chile we happen to be passing through. We reach the ferry on an extremely windy day and the bay is whipped into a frenzy of whitecaps. Once our bus pulls onto the ferry, several people get off to explore the boat. We have to brace ourselves on the deck in order not to fall over and into the drink. I’ve had my fill of storminess and get back into the bus. Out on the water, waves of spray wash over the eight foot sides of the boat and inundate the entire bus.


We are squarely in Argentina and the Andes reemerge in the horizon. Lakes and snow filled craggy peaks pass by the window, and then there is snow on the ground. We descend into the beautiful, if no longer so much frontier town of Ushuaia in the light of 9pm. I check into the Cruz del Sur hostel, shower and eat and sleep with great anticipation.

Trouble on Cerro Catedral

I’m up too early. I’m up before the hostel lobby is open. But the clock finally strikes eight and I have three cups of peach yogurt and head out the door on another showery day in search of a bus to Cerro Catedral. I wait in the chilly breezes for what seems like hours at the bus stop. Several groups of people are picked up and more take their place. I’m about to start walking when I see a sign that tells me for sure that the bus will stop here eventually. It finally does.


I start climbing Cerro Catedral. The rest of the bus scouts for lift tickets. I’m in my windbreaker and I pull on a llama hat. This feels like plenty as I generate heat plodding up the mountain. I jump a stream and lumber straight up the slope of a steep hillside. I reach patches of snow which soon coalesce into a full mantle of grainy slush and ice. I see patches of pure white scattered here and there, fresh snowfall.


I dig my boots into the sloping snow until I pick up a snowcat trail which leads to a lodge halfway up the mountain. I catch up with the snowcat digging a road through the snow which is still layered several feet thick at this altitude.


The wind accelerates as I go higher and it starts to snow. I follow slalom poles to the top. When I get there I’m buffeted by the stiffest wind gust I ever felt in my life. A several story tall cabin, lodge and refugio stands at the top with a long menu of hot food and drinks and a sign, abierto. But its most definitely cerrado. There are picnic tables on the deck if it wasn’t for the howling winds and snow squalls. Snow is piled six feet high on the side of the cabin. Even in this weather I go in search of a back trail down the mountain.


But I never find it. Instead the snow sandblasts my face from the wind that nearly knocks me off my feet. I follow the rocks that jut from the mountain crest and try to keep in constant motion so the cold doesn’t overwhelm me. I reach an impasse, a very steep slope of snow which may be possible to pass, but the consequences of slipping or the snow breaking away look dire. If I break a bone or even twist an ankle, death is a possible outcome.


After scouting the area, I scramble down a rock outcropping towards a lodge a quarter mile away but hundreds of feet lower. I cross a small slope to another outcropping, but it soon becomes clear that the slope is still perilous. The choices are narrowed down to one, I’m turning back. The cold aided by the wind is penetrating by now. I repeat a mantra of reassurance that all will be well and that I can do this. I retrace my footprints and the way back goes by surprisingly quickly. I lope downhill as quickly as I can manage. I’m soon on a muddy, snowless road with a light mix of rain and snow falling on my head. I tell an instructor of some sort how far the snowline begins so he can bring his class there, and then I pass the group themselves noisily negotiating the hill.


I end up back at the bus stop feeding on cookies as I wait. I doze on the bus and nearly miss my stop. I go in the hostel bathroon and peel off my mud stained pants and soaking socks and change into clothing of questionable cleanliness, head out the door to catch my next long bus ride with a half hour to spare.

Chocolate by the Lake

I pack and finish American Psycho. We gather outside. The hostel mates I never knew hand the bags to the top of the jeep and we start the precarious ride down. And I’m staying in Bariloche for at least one more day. The way to Rio Gallegos, the stop before my ultimate destination, Ushuaia, is not just long, but in two legs and not catered the entire way. It doesn’t leave until tomorrow. The clerk hand writes my ticket, not very auspicious.

I sign in at 1004 Hostel and go into Bariloche to find some famous Mamuschka chocolate. I eat over half the delectable box on a bench overlooking Lago Huapi. I read The Jungle Book that night while the rest of the hostel divides into cliques. I feel isolated once again. I can neither read or summon up the gumption to join anyone, so I go to bed.

Mulling over espresso and American Psycho

I wake up on a showery day and a rainbow arches form town to over Cerro Otto. I am up early, way before everyone else. I finally master the Italian espresso maker and decide that I want one of these.

The rain continues, and I feel beat up, so I stick to the indoors today. The showers arrive in blurred waves over the mountains. I read a hostel copy of American Psycho, the most disturbing book I ever read, but hard to put down for the same reason. I turn the pages while watching the day pass. A loud group of Dutch stoke the fire. I read through the afternoon and evening getting up only to change position and then make dinner. I fall seventy pages short of finishing the 400 page novel. I tell the hostel hostess, a Swiss immigrant named Ana, that I want to leave in the morning, but she’s not sure there will be room for me on the jeep, but shortly after she concludes that there is.

Walking a Bike

I get out the door as early as I can muster to walk into town. I pass a group of gauchos on horses gathering in the parking lot wearing traditional garb for a parade I have to skip in favor of adventure. I'm outfitted with an old orange GT mountain bike and a bag, but no map. I find an outdoor shop that sells a good one with icons to indicate mountain biking trails.

I ride towards Cerro Catedral, this time bypassing it to circumnavigate a sizeable lake, Lago Gutierrez. I find a dirt road aside the lake that passes campsites before climbing towards the village of Cerro Catedral once again. I pass wild apple trees and encounter a couple with a child taking a walk. A truck fishtailing wildly passes me, but nothing else does until I enter the village. I eat my lunch and determine the rest of my route, unsure of which road I take next. I spot a group of bedraggled trekkers head up a dirt road and that’s where I go. I find a narrow path of smooth singletrack and follow it. I cross a stream over a precariously angled log with my bike shouldered. The mountain streams by this time become more frequent and are filled with spring melt. The trails are barely maintained and often washed out and I spend much of my time pushing my bike up and down steep banks. I reach a brisk, but somewhat narrow stream with no bridge and I have to get my feet wet. A trekker on the opposite side helps me across the icy flow by grabbing my bike.

From then on, I’m mostly walking. I reach a washed out stream and lug my bike on my back, and tossing my bike on the bank while I climb. After a few kilometers of this, I find the junction, to my relief, leading downhill to, I’m hoping a level and smooth path around the rest of Lago Gutierrez. There are precious few more opportunities to ride. I pass a couple of more mountain bikers, a guy and his frustrated girlfriend and I soon find out why the consternation. At the bottom is a lengthy string of deadfall and overgrown trail, icy stream crossings and a trail that undulates up and over cliffsides. The map lied. This is not mountain bike territory no matter the skill level of the cyclist. I struggle through bamboo stands. I say a little prayer before I balance the bike on my back and cross a narrow log above a turbulent river.

The trail ends at the base of a spectacular waterfall cascading in several stages off a mountain face and I hear the distant shouts of people swimming in a lagoon too far away for me to see. But I’m tired and its getting late and I press on along the edge of the lake. The highway and some cabanas come into view at long last.

I reach a dirt road, but I am disheartened. The lawns look too freshly manicured to be public. I soon spot fences and private property signs and I tense in anticipation of the imagined guard dogs, but they never appear. I’ve reached the grounds of exclusive cabanas which I find no apparent way around. I finally decide to crawl beneath the fence balancing on the narrow strip of rocky beach aside thorn bushes that border the fence. I am forced to wade through frigid streams and to step into the equally cold lake several times. I follow a group of Argentinians ahead of me to a road where the fence finally ends. The road leads to a packed campground and I continue until it leads me to the highway.

I wearily pedal against the wind, even small hills testing my endurance. Ordinarily this highway would be a magnificent ride along a white capped lake and a horseshoe of snowy peaks. I have just over an hour to arrive back in Bariloche, but the missing variable is the distance. I’m not sure where I am. I grab handfuls of wheat crackers and press on, refusing to check my clock again until I reach town. I finally do with fifteen minutes to spare before the bikeshop closes.

The bike shop clerk asks if I’m alright. Where did I go? I show him and he congratulates me. With dirt smeared shorts and abrasions covering my shins and calves, I return, in the dark, up Cerro Otto. A wave of fear comes over me as three dogs seem poised to attack me, and bark in warning. I hold my breath and the dogs let me pass, all bark after all. I soon reach La Morada and a crowd eating dinner at 9:30. After a rejuvenating shower, I cook a big meal and I relax before getting some richly deserved sleep.

Taking my new, shoddy camera to Cerro Catedral

I tromp, gingerly, down steep Cerro Otto, not accosted by any dogs this time. I make the 5km lakeside walk back into Barlioche passing the chalet style cabanas in construction on every spare bit of land. I go into one of the famous chocolate shops. One of the clerks donning a red scarf on her head asks if I need help, but I don’t know where to begin, so I feign miscomprehension, though I briefly stare down some tiramisu and shaved chocolate. The day before, I had discovered a jammed lens on my camera so I take it today to one of the many shops. Repair is futile so, after a few moments, I pick out the cheapest Kodak digicam, which is still no bargain, and half heartedly pack it away feeling the sting of 500 pesos.


Half the day is already past. I eat a brief lunch and trek away from town borrowing my Irish roommate’s map, but not sure of my destination. Before too long, many lakeside cabanas later, I spot a sign for Cerro Catedral and this looks intriguing. I turn down the road leading eleven km further to the ski resort not sure how I’ll get back before dark.


I follow the road and look for a trail and I find a jeep road and try that instead. This leads to a cluster of multi story chalets at the base of the ski resort, Cerro Catedral. I dunk my head underneath a roadside spring to take the edge off the heat. The resort is mostly deserted with several ground attendants working and tourists milling about and riding the ski lift. A lovely, modern gondola station lay
idle for the season.


I find a maintenance road on the ski hill and take the twisting and steep way to the top, my knee barely holding on. I cross remnants of snow fields and a way station below the summit. If I turn back now I will make it back, but the last kilometers will be in the dark. I hobble back down the hill with my gimpy knee and spot a public bus stop in the parking lot. I hobble even faster hoping to get a ride into town. I make it in plenty of time. I am about to board when the driver mumbles "alli" and gestures towards the kiosk packed with people. I board with the rest finding the last seat in the back of the bus.

Bariloche

And we arrive, as advertised, in the Alp-like resort of Bariloche, also a former Nazi hideout. Christmas trees and snow capped peaks abound, but they're not nearly as high as those to the north. Most top out at about 2000 meters, slightly below my home of Flagstaff.

I start my slog form the bus station and as the kilometers pass, I realize the center of town is much further away than I thought when I looked at the LP map. Four kilometers further, balancing two backpacks and my LP, I find my way to the Bariloche Center and up a cargo elevator ten floors to the penthouse hostel, 1004. I want to go to their sister hostel La Morada, isolated on the slopes of Cerro Otto, and I’m only here to wait for a ride. I’m instructed to buy groceries and come back in two hours.

After wandering the town, I lug my groceries up to the tenth floor and wait. I’m piled into the back of a jeep with a bunch of bricks while my new Irish cohort scores the front seat. We switchback up and increasingly steep and rutted jeep road as I wait for the pile of bricks to tumble down and crush me. Instead, my eggs fall on the floor, but I lose only one.

We are here at La Morada and the view is amazing like a Lake Tahoe vista. I eat and take a late afternoon hike up Cerro Otto following a trail that leads straight up following the gondola lines that go to the top. I walk a road for the last short leg and walk past a refugio, a revolving restaurant and a kiosco all closed for the season. I stop at a mirardor and follow the raptor like journey of some paragliders first being uplifted above the summit by updrafts and then slowly swooping into town far below and landing in a soccer field.

I try to find a more gradual trail back down that won’t aggravate my sore and possibly injured knee. I finally find one that starts to descend at a slight slope past a refugio cabin, but quickly turns impossibly steep and I begin to notice a pattern. I’m impeded by a fence blocking the trail and as I try to find a detour I’m met by a woman speaking rapid Spanish which soon transitions into perfect English once she realizes who she’s dealing with. She’s a middle aged missionary, I assume, originally from Poughkeepsie, NY, now living in Bariloche after spending some time in Chile. She leads me down the mountains past innumerable dogs and I thank her and am silently glad she didn’t try to minister to me. I find the cerro trail back up once again and push my diminished legs towards the hostel, dinner and sleep.

Into Caves, Under Bushes

Over dry toast, I talk with an aging German woman who was visiting friends in Brazil. We talk about travel in the Middle East and she tells me that, apart from the kidnappings, it’s a very nice place to travel. I leave to start my day of nothing, stopping off at Norte supermarket and getting food for the day. I nap underneath a bush along the beach and then wander to the pier and back again. Then I head off to the post office, after their long siesta is over, to mail some postcards and meet my Irish friends and we exchange awkward hellos.

I return to my bush, lazing on a warm day after some chilly weather in previous days. A group of teenage girls engage in sand wars screaming and chasing one another. The blonde one instigates, and torments the rest until they finally surround her, take her down and smother her in a barrage of sand.

I walk to the end of the beach to find a place to urinate. The beach tapers to a white, moonscape outcropping of rock in which I find a small sea cave and relief is at hand. The rock is pocked with pores that make perfect footholds and I climb until better sense and cowardice overwhelm me.

Coming back from the cave, to my surprise, I have to wade across the incoming tide. It pounds in at a surprising rate. The cave I was exploring minutes before is quickly filling with gulf water. I climb the rock at a place with a less daunting slope. It is not long until my bus so I walk back along the suddenly narrow beaches. My Irish friends are waiting for the same bus as well. I board and find my assigned seat in the back of the bus and sleep until I’m awoken to eat a cold spinach crepe.

Whales and a Dusty Tour

I wake up to another breakfast of dry toast, marmelada and weak coffee before being called, along with the Irish couple in my room, to the tour bus. We are touring the wilds of Peninsula Valdez today, guided by our tall, unshaven reggae loving guide, Marco. We see capyberas, rheas and guanacos. The driver slams on the brakes and backs up every time we spot some Patagonic fauna.

We start the morning at Puerto Piramedes where whale watching vessels are being towed to and fro on the beach. A retriever wades in the gulf for a long while. Groups pass by in long yellow raincoats and the standard orange life jackets to board raft style boats which are situated closer to the water and closer to the whales. One such raft was named "Moby Dick." We board one of the regular boats.

We quickly spot a right whale and her calf. The captain of the boat has a timbre of genuine excitement in his voice when we spot the whale breaching or showing tail. At one point we are surrounded by whales. A calf comes up to investigate the boat and slides underneath. They sometimes surface showing the white, wart like growths on their heads.

Our group boards the van and continues on to a long peninsula composed of a sand deposition, also the beach side haven for a few dozen sea lions. I spot the tall Israeli and his red headed girlfriend who I hiked with at Aconcagua. I wave and say hello, but don’t linger for small talk.

We file behind an endless string of buses each one towing along a dust plume. The rumbling ride over gravel is growing monotonous and I am reminded why I avoid tours. I think about getting back and picking up my laundry and buying a ticket to Bariloche. I eat one last pizza, from the favored café, with Serrano ham, which I can barely tear through with my teeth.

Cruising the Coast

The bike rental place I’m looking for is an empty shop, out of business. LP promises that the waterfront is full of bike rental shops, and I have plenty of opportunities to rent a car, but not a bike. I go down the beach a bit further and find a gear rental shop with working bikes. I procure efectivo and comida and I start pedaling to Punta Loma.

My first stop is Ecocentro, a multimedia marine information center, that is full of beautiful displays. The modern and clean bathroom alone makes me happy. I browse the displays and climb the stairs to a tower overlooking the ocean. There’s a library along the wall in case one wants to hang out there for a few hours which wouldn’t be a bad idea.

I continue down a wide, sandy road, never getting deep enough to bog me down. I reach Punta Loma, a popular sea lion viewing point, and the attendant tracks me down to greet me and collect 10 pesos, but I decide to move on. I soon reach an impasse. Large dunes eclipsing 100 feet hem me onto the coast and the road peters out in some smaller dunes. I scamper up a road on a larger dune barely keeping my footing on the steeply pitched pebbles and sand. I’m not sure who in their right mind would and could follow this road with a vehicle.

I roll and carry my bike through thorny flora, occasionally stepping over guanaco guano, but never spotting the actual animal. I cross and climb washes and finally come to rest on a dune overlooking the ocean and eat my lunch. I return along the beach and the sand and rock shelf on the coast is a great medium for riding. I head towards some sand cliffs riding atop the undulating white rock intermitantly growing seaweed in its divets. I catch my tire in a colony and slip into a murky seaweed filled hole which sucks me in and I have a difficult time getting out.

I steer as far as I can from the seaweed on the way back and find my way back to the road much quicker than my journey from it.

I cruise back, passing the familiar landmarks quickly. All’s well until I pedal up the last hill and feel myself starting to bounce and fishtail. I have a flat tire almost three kilometers from home. Rather than trying to negotiate the tiny pump I start to hoof it home pushing the bike. This is when I fully realize the pain and stiffness in my left knee. I aggravated it while riding the leaden bike in Mendoza and now its reaching its full, painful, potential. I hobble down to the beach and plot out the straightest line I can to where I estimate the rental place should be. I return the bike, which in addition to the flat, is splotched with sand and bits of seaweed. The young attendant wishes me suerte.

I while my time away writing postcards and sipping a submarino at Havannah before dinner which is a much worse version of pizza than the night before.

Nemo

I arrive after the longest bus ride of my life, 24 hours, which I spend, mercifully, almost completely on my own. For the last couple of hours a mother and child sit next to me, and the child started screaming. The mother had forewarned me about ruido. Astutely the steward cues up the next DVD, Finding Nemo. "Nemo!" the child squeals. "Que suerte," coos the mother, "Nemo! Que suerte!"

In Puerto Madryn, I find my hostel through some afternoon sprinkles. I go out in search of food. Towards the pier, a rainbow is superimposed against an orange sky. I’m officially in Patagonia and the prices go up accordingly. I can’t find a restaurant meal for under 30 pesos. I find a restaurant specializing in forty varieties of pizza and it is among the tastiest pies I’ve had in my life.

Sweet Idleness

It starts out as a brilliant day. I take a book along and sip a doble at Havannah café, an Argentinian chain, and also a freshly squeezed jugo de naranja with an ice cube. Noone says a word as I linger over an hour at my table on the pedestrian mall under the sycamore trees. I get up finally and mill around town and settle in the park to continue my general laziness and its sweet.

Towards midday I migrate south of town in search of a renowned lomito (an Argentine style steak sandwich) joint. As appetizers I get bowls of peanuts and potato chips and my usual Fanta. The main course is a lomito on a toasted long roll topped by tomato and cheese, a sweet thousand island type dressing and a couple of fried eggs. I find another park in the center of town and lay beside the fountain and continue reading.

At first I’m not sure if the stray drops falling on me are diverted from the fountain by the wind or coming from the sky. But the grey clouds tell me what I need to know. I high tail it to the gelateria down the street. As I cross the street towards the shop a young man holding fliers looks up and smiles at the rain. The customers eating their gelatos stare at the downpour as if it hasn’t rained in years.

In the commotion of securing the outside seating from the rain, the waiter never takes my order, but I get shelter out of the deal, if not another sundae. My bus for Puerto Madryn is leaving in an hour. As I mount my backpack on my shoulders, the downpour renews itself with and even more torrential reincarnation. I wait underneath the pavillion of the Facundo Parilla for the rain to abate. It never does completely, but after weeks in the desert I can use a little watering.

Aconcagua

I do force myself up, somehow, at 5 and I’m out the door walking briskly across the deserted city except for a popcorn stand that for whatever reason remained open throughout the night. I get there early. We pile on the bus, a few tourists, but mostly locals. One of the river guides from my raft trip takes this bus to work.



The barren foothills gradually transition into towering Andean peaks over 4k meters. We pass a small ski resort and then stop at even smaller Puente del Inca with a small Quechan souvenir market with llama wares and a few crystals thrown in.



I walk to the orange creamsicle mineral formation this site is renowned for. There are barriers blocking entrance to the site and with the gaping holes on the boardwalk leading there, it becomes apparent why. I walk back and find a small market selling provisions and purchase fruit juice, bananas, tangerines and a salami and take off for another unknown destination. Another group of travelers stop me and ask if I speak English. When they ask if I know what I’m doing, I shrug.



I meet what turns out to be a group of four Israelis on the road again. They found out about a small lagoon on the way to Aconcagua, so I join them. They’ve been to most of the places I’ve been so far, but stopping at Cachi and Calfayate as well. The tall one hands me a brochure for bikes and wines, an organized bodega tour, but I’ve had my fill of bodegas and bikes for now.


A valley opens up to give a clear view of Aconcagua, caked in an impermeable layer of ice and snow. It’s a month and a half until trekking season which doesn’t seem like enough time to melt much more of the snowpack. Footpaths weave up the valley, so it appears reasonable to follow and assume they lead someplace and they do. We take a break and the Israelis share a roll filled with dulce de leche with me. They urge me to see Puerto Madryn and the whales since the mating season is winding down within a month.



The sign I spot for the ranger station makes it official, we are on the right path. A large St Bernard belonging, aparrently, to noone in particular follows us, comically walking in and out of my path and body checking me. The red headed girl asks me if I ever saw a dog with such a big head before and I shake my head incredulously.





We reach a snowfield and the Israelis start snapping pictures. The tall one tells me there is a single mountain in Israel that gets sufficient snow to support a ski area. The St Bernard, meanwhile, is having a blast. First he eats the snow, then he rolls and writhes on it. He runs full tilt around the snowfield looking as if he was about to plow down one of the Israelis.

At the ranger station, a young female ranger emerges and hands us maps for the kilometer trail around the mountain lagoons. The wind funnels through a gap in the mountains with such intensity that it is hard to walk at times. It picks up bits of gravel and dust that blasts our faces. We reach an Aconcagua lookout and the St Bernard poses with some schoolchildren and then abandons us for a younger crowd.



We explore up the trail further and a German couple directs us to a large snowfield one kilometer more. The tall Israeli hopes this is a good place to take pictures. And they do take picture upon picture, at one point trying to take one of the reflection of Aconcagua in a pair of sunglasses. I feel compelled to head up the mountain further, as far as I can in the time that’s left, but I quell that impulse and practice being satisfied with the moment.



Back down at the ranger station, a new ranger explains why the way to an intermediate peak is closed. Originally, the Israelis were going to trek and camp here, but the season for doing so is almost two weeks from starting. The search and rescue is not fully staffed and only they have access to emergency equipment. The ranger himself has summited Aconcagua many times, the first time when he was 16.



I go out ahead of the group somewhat anxious I won’t make it back in time to purchase a return ticket. But I get to the ticket kiosco, that doubles as a souvenir stand, in plenty of time. I linger on a bench waiting for the bus and watch groups of retirees and schoolchildren in turn walking to the puente and through the souvenir market pawing the crystals and crafts and returning to the tour buses. Clouds gather and the wind picks up again and I put on every piece of clothing I brought that day. The Israelis sit in the snack bar, but I feel a little alienated at this point.