Week #3 & 4: Journey to the almost end of the world

Wow so the past 2 weeks were busy...every time I thought I'd have time to write the blog I would never actually have the time or the internet bandwidth to do so. It's becoming a real debate down here as to what takes longer...the internet or ordering the check after dinner, but I digress. I have a new feature to highlight...it is my 'TravelSkoot', which is nothing more than a 21st century creation for a checklist/mapping of all the places I've hit up thus far. It's cool because it's actually sinked up with Google local and easy to see, navigate, etc. Check it out. AHORA. Anyway the basic re-cap of past 2 weeks is that I finished up my stay in Bariloche and journeyed south, VERY south to El Calafate in the Patagonia region of Argentina.

The back end of my trip to Bariloche was tremendous. I was able to check out the base of Monte Tronodor and see the edge of the Ventisquero Negra (black glaciar) sitting on top of it, take a nice bike ride on the Circuito Chico where I was able to check out Argentina's allegedly most popular resort Llao Llao from afar, take a nice leisurely hike on top of Cerro Otto and relax in the forests near Lago Gutiérrez. However the real highlight of my time in Bariloche was getting an in-person viewing of this waterfall dance, as performed by a local. Leaving Bariloche was not easy because I had such a great time there...the chocolate, the hiking, the weather and the food...the list goes on. Anybody who knows me well knows that I love to eat. In the words of wiseman / wisecracker Ronnie L, "There are 2 types of people in this world. Those who eat to live and those who live to eat." Well I. LIVE. TO. EAT. So dropping me in a city / gateway to culinary heaven like Bariloche seriously appealed to me. Take a look at what the power of the consuming this Bariloche chocolate did to this cool Brit I met. Now let's all agree to never discuss this photo again. Onto El Calafate...



While in El Calafate I took a day trip to the kinda-nearby Perito Moreno Glaciar followed by a 3 day side trip to El Chaltén, where I left some really nice size 10 footprints on the Grande Glaciar in Los Glaciares National Park. To give you a little background El Calafate is very unique. It's a small, quant town and it has no inherent appeal except that it is geographically located in a convenient location. Travelers are constantly passing through to either cross into Chilé to go Torres Del Paine (i.e. the best national park in South America) or go do some trekking in some of the semi-local satellite towns in the region or do what I did which is to take a day trip to the Perito Moreno Glaciar. And here's the thing, envisaging the sheer scale of glaciars is hard to comprehend without seeing a glaciar in persion just how massive and powerful they are. My tour guide described them as slow moving bull-dozers that push mostly everything out of its way and clearing space. Strangely enough from the right angle glaciars also look like massive frozen waves. This is a nice eagle's eye view of the Moreno Glaciar that helps put this into perspective. Interesting tidbit is that if you dropped the city of Buenos Aires onto Perito Moreno glaciar there would still be like 30% empty space...it's that BIG. Also while in El Calafate I did some junior varsity trekking and kinda of just hiked where I wanted. In this case I decided to walk to the top of this but first had to walk through 3 miles of land like this. By the way those crazy yellow, green & gray colors are totally real. I think I stared at it for like a good 10 minutes in person wondering how something can look like technicolor in person...of course after staring at single funny looking bush with nothing esle around I began to see this. Nonetheless I finally made it to lookout point but ended up with shoes like this.

Also as I mentioned above while in El Chaltén I managed to go on a camping/trekking 1 night mini-adventure to have the opportunity to walk on the Grande Glaciar. Before my trip we stopped in the Ranger outpost where I shot this cool vid and I got some really good advice from the National Park guides that explicitly tells you how to behave while in the park, and other handy pointers like not smoking up to toilet paper. Before I knew it I had arrived at the base camp. And like I do at beginning of all successful camping trips I had the mandatory camping self-pep-talk of "you are not in the Blair Witch Project. There is absolutely no reason to fear for your safety despite being completely isolated and miles from civilisation". I settled into my tent and was even feeling relaxed until I saw what my outhouse toilet looked like. C'mon camping people...really does the toilet need a freaky smiley face directly above the toilet pit with bizarre hand prints and psychadelic rings on the door? An additional, ad-hoc pep-talk was then given. Nonetheless I woke the next morning where I seriously did go over the river, through woods to get to the Glaciar Grande where we walked on the glaciar and did some junior varsity ice climbing (here is a vid of my guide climbing with no ropes). All I can say is AWESOME...when I was on on the glaciar I felt like I was on the moon or something. Nothing I have ever done has ever remotely looked like this or this.

Strangely / randomly I noticed that even Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid made their way down to Patagonia way back in the day, as I stopped at a rest stop they formerly hid out in.

Lastly let me just say that for any of you who ever complained about too many people in your city/town, too much traffic, too much pollution then I recommend you come & see El Chaltén. The town has like 200 or 300 full-time residents, one main road and mountains in almost every direction you look in. I walked around the town and saw many empty, recently built homes. It was cool but gave off an eerie, Darma Initiative-like vibe that was a little freaky. Interesting tidbit is that this is Argentina's youngest town and was apparently established to beat Chilé from developing it. It is a frontier town in every sense...which means there is only one ATM, everythings costs 20-40% more than back in northern parts of Argentina and no traffic lights. However like all towns/cities big and small this town has at least 1 thief...some little 'boludo' (i.e. a fancy Argentine spanish word for mofo') stole my NorthFace jacket. How I go 10+ years in NYC without having anything big or small stolen but come to possibly the smallest town in all of the Americas and have my jacket stolen is beside me. Nonetheless I did finally catch an unexpected surprise when on my return trip from Chaltén to Calafate I caught these great pictures. Oh and I caught this great pic too next to the pot of gold that was out of frame.
Ok that's all for now. Hasta luego