June 8, 2011. Gaelle, William, David and I rested all day long.  I had to retire my boots because I had worn the soles so thin that water would leak in through the bottom of them.  I was a little bit sad to retire my boots because they’d been all over the world with me over the years.  I thought maybe I should hold a decommissioning ceremony, perhaps say a few words in their honor and then cremate them.  In the end, I just tossed them in the trash.

Later in the afternoon, Gaelle, William and I said our goodbyes to David and hopped on a bus to El Calafate to make our journey towards Buenos Aires.  We arrived just in time to buy groceries before the supermarket closed, had dinner, and then went to bed.
June 9, 2011. Gaelle, William, and I inquired about buses to Buenos Aires.  We took the “cama” class, which means “bed” in Spanish.  In reality, the “camas” are just really wide seats with an angled footrest.  It was four hours to Rio Gallegos, a 2 hour wait, and then 38 hours all the way to Buenos Aires.

Food was served and movies were played on the bus.  The movies played were mostly romantic comedies and Pirates of the Caribbean, all in Spanish.  The best movie they played was Fast Five, which I liked because not only was it was set in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, but it was also in English.
I read my Kindle and connected to the internet whenever we arrived in the towns along the way to drop or pick people up.  The skies between Rio Gallegos and Buenos Aires were grey with ash from the Chilean volcano Puyehue, which had recently erupted.  It was like witnessing a nuclear winter.

June 11, 2011. We finally arrived in Buenos Aires!  Gaelle, William and I parted ways on the metro to go to our respective hostels.  They went to a hostel in the San Telmo neighborhood and I went to a hostel called “Tango Backpackers” in the Palermo neighborhood.  I called up Kayla, the American girl I met in Ancud, Chile, because she lived in Buenos Aires.
We got together at her place and ordered some empanadas to be delivered.  We shared some mate, which was awesome because I had just acquired the taste for the Argentinian drink while I was hiking in El Chalten.

After drinking mate and eating empanadas, Kayla and I went for a walk around Palermo.  We stopped to watch a band playing in the park before continuing to get ice cream.  The high-end shops and restaurants reminded me of Georgetown in Washington, D.C.
We continued walking around Palermo.  I was really impressed with how up-scale the place seemed to be.
June 12, 2011. Kayla and I walked around San Telmo.  We walked to the Plaza de Mayo, saw the Casa Rosa, saw some tango dancing in the street, and perused through local vendors hawking their wares.

Later that night, I got to experience my first Argentinian parrilla, or grilled meat at a restaurant called Las Cabras.  I got the bife de chorizo, a thick sirloin steak grilled rare to perfection.  The steak only cost about 12 USD; with wine and sides, the total cost was about 23 USD.  During my career as a pharmaceutical sales representative, I’ve had the luxury of fine dining in the fanciest restaurants and, in comparison, the parrilla that I had in Buenos Aires offered far more value than any of those fancy restaurants in the US.  Buenos Aires takes first prize for best steak in the entire world!


June 13, 2011. I bummed around the hostel all day long.  Later that night, I met up with Sibylle, who I met while hiking in El Chalten.  It’s great to run into fellow travelers a second time!  Even though I knew her for a few days and we had seen each other just a few days earlier, it felt like I was meeting with a long-time friend.  We went out for parrilla, and though I had just had parrilla the night before with Kayla, I didn’t mind.  I love parrilla!

June 14, 2011. I met up with my dear friends from France, William and Gaelle, in San Telmo.  From there we went to visit El Caminito in the neighborhood of La Boca.  The buildings on this street and some of the other streets nearby were very colorful.  There were live tango shows which were really nice to watch.



After walking around El Caminito, we went out for dinner.  Afterward, I said goodbye to Gaelle and William since they were leaving town the next day.  Goodbyes aren’t so hard because deep down inside, I’m always optimistic that they’re only temporary until the next encounter.  I might see Gaelle and William again in Bolivia, maybe in Peru, perhaps even in Marseille, France.

Later that night, I joined some other travelers and went to La Catedral in the Almagro neighborhood of Buenos Aires for some tango lessons and dancing.  That was fun and I learned as much as I could in the little time that I had.  There was a live tango band, too!

 

I only got about 4 hours of sleep that night because I was up early the next morning to go to Colonia, Uruguay, for the day.  I’ll write about that in the next post.

June 16, 2011. I went return a textbook via UPS to Chegg in the morning.  Later, I met up with Kayla and we went to McDonald’s because I was craving some gringo food.  She helped me buy my ticket to Puerto Iguazu and we saw the Hangover 2.

June 17, 2011. I went to La Recoleta cemetery, where “Evita” Peron is buried.  The cemetery was really cool.  It’s full of large mausoleums where Buenos Aires more affluent citizens are buried.

 

 

 

I made friends with two Irish girls, Deidre and Ailbhe, and we walked around some of the city parks that were nearby.

 

Later, Kayla and I went out to her favorite Japanese restaurant for some delicious sushi.  I ordered two entrees because I was so hungry.  I loved it.  After dinner, I was on a bus to make the 23-hour bus journey from Buenos Aires to Puerto Iguazu to see the world renowned Iguazu falls.

P.S.  Special thanks to Kayla for hosting me, showing me around the city, and giving me her insight on Argentinian culture!  You’re the best, Kayla!

 

June 5, 2011. David, Gaelle, William and I went to El Chalten to do day-hikes around the base of Mt. Fitz Roy, located in Los Glaciares National Park, Argentina.  We added new travelers to our group, Sibylle from Switzerland, Nick from Australia, and Jean from Brazil.
El Chalten was a ghost town.  Perhaps only 2% of the city was open for business.  Since we arrived early in the afternoon, all of us ran errands, shopped for food, withdrew money from the ATM.  Later in the afternoon, David, Sibylle, Jean and hiked two of the shorter trails, Los Condores and Las Aguilas.  They took us up to heights overlooking the town.

We were very lucky to have clear views of Mt. Fitz Roy.  The weather in this area is notoriously variable and many a traveler have come to see Mt. Fitz Roy only to be disappointed from never having even caught a glimpse of the mountain during the length of their stay.

We hiked to the viewpoint at Las Aguilas.  We saw a wide plain, a road that went off into the distance and a large lake off to our right.

We went off the trail to explore some higher hills.  We encountered a frozen pond and played on that for a short while before hiking back to town.  It was a good, easy day of hiking.

June 6, 2011. William, Nick, Sibylle, David and I hiked up to Lago de los Tres at the base of Mt. Fitz Roy.  As we neared the lake, the trail got really steep and icy.  We went so high that I began to think that maybe we were on the wrong trail.  Nick had to turn back because he thought it was too treacherous to continue.  The rest of us pressed on.  Up and up we went; the trail cutting across scree slopes.
We were rewarded with the satisfaction of meeting our objective.  Lago de los Tres sat at the base of three peaks just below Mt. Fitz Roy.  It was frozen over so we walked on it.  What a cheap thrill!


I walked a long the bank of the lake to the left and discovered a bright blue, frozen lake, Lago Sucia.  It so beautiful!


Even the walk back to El Chalten was beautiful.

June 7, 2011. David and I were up before sunrise to eat breakfast before another day of hiking.  He told me to look out the window to see if the skies were clear.  I saw snow on the ground.  “Uh oh,” I thought.  “This is going to make it very hard to see the trails, and if the trail was anything near as steep as the trail to Lago de los Tres, it would be very, very dangerous.”  In addition, my boots weren’t waterproof and if I got them wet, my feet would freeze.  I had doubts about going hiking that day.
Being from Australia, snow was a novelty for David, and he was very excited about hiking in the snow.  Sibylle, being from Switzerland, was also comfortable with going out in the snow.  William, from France was willing to go, and so were the two Argentinians, Pablo and Solange, and another Australian, Nick.  Since the group was going, I figured that I ought to go, too.  I was curious to see how bad the trail was.
Like what my friends and I used to do when we were kids, I wore plastic bags over my socks to help keep my feet dry.  We went out on the trail and the first part was really steep and slippery.  A few of us slipped and fell.  We hiked through this winter wonderland and had great views of the mountains since the skies had cleared up.

We reached Lago Torre.  It was frozen over.

The Argentinians, Pablo and Solange, had brought mate, a hot tea made from the yerba mate plant, and they shared with everyone.  Mate has a bitter taste and this was the day that I acquired the taste for it.


Like all the hikes in the Patagonia, the way back was just as beautiful.
We encountered Gaelle on the way back.  She had been hiking for almost two hours alone, following our footprints in the snow.  Here’s a picture that we took with all of us together:

Gaelle had left messages in the snow for us.  How cute!

At the end of the day, my toes felt like they had frozen.  The plastic bags around my feet only delayed the inevitable wet feet.  The trails weren’t as bad as I thought they’d be.  I was glad that I went hiking.  All it took was a little peer pressure.
 



 
 

I’ve fallen behind in my journal and my blog over the last week! I haven’t yet posted about the incredible experience that I had in Torres del Paine during my 6-day/5-night hike, the exhilarating sensation that I felt walking right in front of the Perito Glacier as it advanced towards me with gigantic pieces of ice falling off of it, or the day hike in El Chalten where we hiked up to the frozen lake at Lago de los Tres right below the towering peak of Mt. Fitz Roy!
I’ve just been so tired lately. I’ve been waking up early to eat breakfast and to be prepared to hike just as the sun rises. At night, I’m busy cooking, eating, and socializing with other travelers. It’s really beginning to wear on me. I can feel my body craving for rest, and all I can think about is that next hike or catching the next bus to my next destination.

I left Puerto Natales this morning at 7:30 for the roughly 5.5 hour bus ride to El Calafate, Argentina.  The ride was very scenic with open grassland.  At one point, I could even see the Torres del Paine in the distance, where I had spent 6 days and 5 nights having my soul blown away by the natural beauty that the Parque Nacional Torres del Paine had to offer.  (I’ll post an article on that soon enough.)
My first impression of Argentina is that I’m starting all over again with learning a new country.  For starters, the money is different.  While considering options to go visit the Perrito Moreno Glacier, I kept calculating Argentinian pesos into U.S. dollars.  Also, since I don’t have a guidebook to Argentina, I’m slowly discovering what the Argentinian Patagonia has to offer through research on the internet- Wikitravel seems to do the trick.
My second impression of Argentina is that I really love starting anew!  There’s so much to learn just from being in a new town or in a new country.  Impressions form instantaneously.  El Calafate in the low season is still expensive explained by the laws of supply and demand.  Based on the cost of my accommodations and food, Argentina seems to be slightly cheaper than Chile.
I’ve been traveling with two French couples and an Australian guy, David, all of whom were on the same bus to Parque Nacional Torres del Paine in Chile.  They’re a great group and I’ve taken it upon myself to learn some French while I’m with the French.  I spent my entire time in the park with David since we were hiking on the same itinerary provided to him by the Erratic Rock hostel in Puerto Natales.  David’s really down-to-earth and as adventurous as I am.  It was great to have him around to share what an amazing experience Torres del Paine was.
I’m still trying to mentally and spiritually process my experience in Torres del Paine.  At some point soon, I’ll post the blog report about it.  Stay tuned.

View Puerto Natales, Chile to El Calafate, Argentina in a larger map