27 Jan - 10 Feb
I hope you'll forgive my skipping over Ushuaia, El Calafate and El Chalten : there was a lot of hiking, and a lot of pretty mountains and glaciars and a HECK of a lot of nothingness in between to see. But you'll see them in the pictures. No great tragedies, histories or comedies to report.
I'll try to give you a short synopsis of each place....
Ushuaia: gateway to Antarctica, plenty of peripheral penguins, reclusive glaciar but pretty alpine scenery
El Calafate: bleak, bleak, bleak, flamingos. And a great big old glacier
El Chalten: tourist base camp for macho-inducing long hikes. Fell over twice to the displeasure of my left leg and walking trousers.
Thursday 4- Saturday 6 February
Ruta 40 El Chalten to Bariloche
The Marga Taqsa bus company doesn't seem to think very much of backpackers' romantic notions of travelling 30 hours up the gravel (ripio) road east of the Andes. Inspired by photos of sunsets and guanacos (llama-ish) and gauchos and the word 'legendary' which seems to inevitably precede 'route 40' on all marketing materials, we book our tickets in droves and eagerly await the epic voyage. Comforted we are too, at our memories of previous long haul bus rides including video entertainment, almost fully reclining seats, meals and wine, a pillow and blanket and at the very least free flowing sweet coffee and water, and footrests, and, er, a fully functioning toilet.
You can imagine our dismay as the esteemed Marga Taqsa's offering rolled up, half an hour late (it is cold outside you know - it may be summer but these are the andean mountains and you won't let us wait inside the off), a 42 seater seen-better-days (maybe because it spends its life travelling up and down ripio) 'coach', with none of the above comforts, and to boot, a rapidly plunging temperature overnight making me pleased about packing thermal leggings and ski socks in my hand luggage, but nonetheless envious of the ones with the sleeping bags.
We awoke on the first morning to the horn beeping at two guanacos on the road (noooo!! this is what we are suffering this to see! don't shoo them away!) then predictably nibbled our way through the packed lunch that was tossed to us as the bus pulled away at midnight (variations on themes of white bread, cheese, ham and dulce de leche). I also have 6 litres of water and kilogrammes of snacks on me: you never know what you're going to get on these journeys, or when you'll stop for supplies. Best to assume you're fending for yourself all the way.
Armed with my wad of toilet roll and antibacterial hand wash, its time to brave the toilet again.
Bariloche - Saturday 6 to Wednesday 10 February
(Sunday 7 Feb)
How much you enjoy a town depends a great deal on your own attitude. If you're feeling introverted and grumpy, you're not going to meet new people. If you've already decided you're bored of Patagonia, you're not really going to appreciate another four days of similarly stunning landscape.
Bariloche started badly: it was raining, the sister hostel of highly-recommended Condor de los Andes in El Chalten turned out to be an ugly second-cousin, and on the first day I fell over twice on the slippery pavement and did a mischief to my knee. (Yes, on the left leg, the same that got two separate batterings on the El Chalten hikes). Yes I got a lot of blog catching up done (thumbs up!), but there really aint much to do here when the weather's bad and you can't really engage in physical exercise. I'm again grumpy now looking out of the hostel window at the sunshine, having cut my day's walk short because it looked like the rain was setting in for the afternoon.
At least I sorted the hostel. Condor de los Andes wasn't bad, as such, but having been looking forward to Bariloche's famed amazing hostels, the basic bunk/bathroom/bread and jam for breakfast set-up really wasn't going to cut it. And the crowd seemed to be mostly Argentinian couples. Not great for meeting new people to go and do fun things with.
And so I sit here, in my new and improved Tango Inn living room: a bit bigger than I usually go for, but there's a young cosmopolitan crowd, sofas, a pool table, more helpful staff, sun balconies, scrambled eggs and a jacuzzi. For the same price. Sitting, I am, tapping and fiddling about and whatnot and.... waiting for some poor helpless other singles to wander in so I can pounce on them and suggest going for a bike ride tomorrow. Come closer, my pretties!!!
(Sunday 7 Feb, 10pm)
Having briefly been bouyed up by booking activity for tomorrow, and looking forward to getting out there and doing something physical (it was a hike-kayak combo which I thought would be stimulating yet not too brutal on my poor knee), hopes were dashed when, returning from my evening stroll, I was informed there's a big storm coming tomorrow and the trip is cancelled. Gawd darnit!! dang town. Why have I already bought my bus ticket and paid all my hostel nights upfront?
So I look forward to a THIRD day of facebook photo-tagging tomorrow. woop.
Bariloche day 3 - Monday 8 Feb
Finally - DOING something...
This is where, I'm almost ashamed to report, dear reader, that I discovered a rather primal female urge to be rescued by a knight in shining armour. That is to say, once saved from by a man, he becomes something of a knight in shining armour.... make sense? no..?
Ok, so there's this theory that goes that a man immediately becomes more attractive to you if he's saved you from a dragon, witch, or, you know, some other mortal danger.
(Allow me to first assure my dear parents that I was never in any real danger. Sit back, relax and appreciate my use of exaggeration for dramatic literary effect.)
So white-water rafting: one on my tick-list of adventure sports to try out while I'm here, and a seemingly good option for a day of questionable weather forecast.
So we're on the boat, cruising between rapids on Rio Manso, one of the best rafting spots in South America, and on the border between Argentina and Chile.
The other girl in the boat, sitting next to me, has already fallen out (I had a near miss, but seated as I was in front of the guide, he saw and pulled me back in as I toppled backwards). (Oh and there was that other time when I managed to bounce into the boat rather than out of it). Anyway, we approached a rather turbulent-looking beasty by the name of 'scrambled eggs', the foam tossing and peaking in a rather good impression of it's namesake, the entire width of the river. 'I reckon you're gong in on this one', suggested an English guy in the front, helpfully. 'You wanna bet???' I countered, but less than confidently, given my previous experience.
We start the rapid, all good, riding the boat like a bucking bronco, in my rather precarious position straddling one of the cross-pieces of the raft.
All of a sudden (as these things are wont to occur) the boat tips sideways towards me, our side gets a face full of our left-hand companions, and I'm in the water.
Attentive as I was in the safety briefing, I remembered the first protocol when you find yourself on the wrong side of the wall: if the boat's there, grab it. But we're still in the rapid, so the boat catches another wave and just plows straight over my head (creating the souvenir of stiff arm and neck muscles for days). Thanks guys.
I come up the other side, bashed about by the currents, far from being able to 'adopt the safety position, on your back, legs up and pointing downstream, and give a few back-paddles with your arms to slow you down', my only thoughts being about when it was safe to breathe in or not. There wasn't even time to feel scared.
In seconds, I get spit out of the rapid and the safety kayak comes up beside me, tells me to hold the handle on his bow, and the raft is on it's way. Then it came: 'Are you ok?'. And I looked up, past his paddle, between the straps of his helmet, and deep into his eyes..... and he was my saviour. He had rescued me from certain peril in the foamy, rocky depths of the Manso.
I was pulled back into the raft and spent the rest of the time on the river concentrating on paddling hard to stem the shivering, but sitting here now in the warmth and safety of the minibus and gazing at his muscular kayakers' shoulders and well-defined jaw line, I find myself sighing at the longing for this calm, strong knight in shining armour to come and rescue me again and.... aarrrgh - snap out of it!!
Please will somebody tell me this is a natural feminine response to being saved from danger by a handsome man (ok, he wasn't that handsome before, but like I said, he was afterwards), or do I belong in a Disney film??
Off to Mendoza tomorrow, where I hear there's another good rafting river. Who knows what kind of prince charming awaits me there?
Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=160733&id=522925763&l=27a214dab1
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