Standing in the main plaza of San Carlos de Beriloche, known as the NW
entry-point of Argentine Patagonia, I watched as the rain poured down
ruining almost the entire list of adventures for this area.
After
Santiago, Chile aka ¨smog city¨, I rode a 20 hr bus through dozens of
upward switchbacks across the Andes and arrived in Mendoza, Argentina
just over the border. I spent 3 days there, meeting up with a few Irish
friends whom I´d met in Santiago. The main event in Mendoza was wine
tours. So on a mild Saturday we rented bikes and rode to several
wineries, chocolate shops, and more gorging ourselves with tasty
spirits and food. This western city is the wine capital of the
Argentina (produces 70% of the entire country´s wine) and partly of
south america. Over and over again I went for the cabernet sauvignons.
For dinner the same night I experienced another Argentine specialty...
juicy and hearty steak. It was easily on my top 5 best steaks of all
time; cooked to perfection, not to red, not overdone, 2 inches thick,
and covered in a pepper gravy.... YUM. And the price? $50 bucks or more
in the US... here $15 US bucks (45 Arg. pesos). I could move here for
this reason alone.
Up next was Bariloche, one of the Patagonia´s adventure capitals.
Very popular in their summer season, January and February, and winter
season, June-Sept. While I didn´t think about the season before I
arrived, it suddenly came to me that I might not see the sun too much.
In other words, visions of me and Bear Gryll´s trekking through Andean
peak-lined sceneries under blue skies flashed through my mind until the
morning of the second day in Bariloche; when the rain started. First I
should note there was not a glimpse of sunlight until almost 9 am. I
spent the entire afternoon the day before planning what was suppose to
be a good adventure day, but found out that trails were closed due to
high altitude snow and other activities finished for the season.
Ultimately I had 3 options- (1) Ride a bus 30 min NW along the lake to
a small peninsula where there were a few easy trails totally 2 hours of
hiking.... baby stuff, moving on... (2) Bus 1 hour SW to a high
altitude trailhead and snowshoe to the only open hut in the park, spend
the night, and possibly see the edge of a glacier... or (3) bus 2 hours
south to small city El Bolson where micro climates rule presenting the
possibility of no rain.
Although option 2 was enticing, I had no snow gear option 3 it was.
Arriving the next day at 11 in El Bolson, it was pouring harder than
Bariloche. I had come well-equipped however, gore-tex rain jacket,
extra layers, water proof pants, and gortex boots. I soon found a 15km
suitable hike from the nearby tourist office (in addition to some ¨this
guy is crazy to be hiking on a day like today¨ looks) and set off. The
path was dirt road with views on one side of an emergine canyon
ultimately leading to a rocky structure that when viewed from the right
angle, looked like a face. Everything was going great until halfway
through the hike, i lept over an enormous puddle, and my tight fitting
pants ripped right in the crotch. Rain poured in and by the time I
carried my sorry butt back to the bus terminal... let´s just say
ëverything¨was wet!
Most of the other time in Bariloche was spent hanging with a couple
from scotland and england (stewart and linva) and another couple from
the camen islands and london. After this town, I headed out to Buenos
Aires, big city time. After a 20 minute walk from the bus terminal to a
central suburb, I found a very cheap single room for 50 pesos per
night. Looking in the bathroom here, I started to notice a funny
pattern. Many of the places in south america, consider a shower any
place where there is water flowing from above.... to clarify, most of
the bathrooms just had a shower head in the most random places and
would usually soak EVERYTHING... toilet, sink, floor, toilet paper,
etc. Often they would include a squeegy to clean up the floor a bit.
Buenos Aires was not the best for me in short. The first incident
was right after I checked into the hotel and cleaned up. While walking
down the bustling pedestrian path outside my place a guy outside handed
me a flyer that said Club Clear (with a picture of some cocktails and
beer) and after looking it over, I was seriously interested in checking
it out for a potential place to hang out that evening. He said he would
show me where it was... just around the corner. Big mistake on my part
for following. Next thing I know is I sit down at the bar, 2 girls in
lingerie come on either side of me and hand me a drink and started
drinking 2 of their own. I refused now realzing this was a strip club
or something and got up to leave when a security guy blocked my path.
The bartender and him demanded that I pay for my untouched drink AND
the girls´ drinks other wise they wouldn´t let me out!!! I argued for
15 minutes and got pretty angry, but soon gave up and forked over a
hefty 200 pesos, a good 2-days worth of spending cash. It was 2 pm in
the afternoon and I was in there for probably 2 minutes!!!
The second thing that happened was on my 3rd day while innocently
exploring a few popular, touristy plazas. While walking around the
first one, Plaza de Congressio, a boy about 14 came up, put is hand on
my shoulder and started shouting... ¨money amigo, money, money, now,
now¨. I was really confused at first and then a second boy, same age,
came up on my other side and did the same thing. Speeding up at first,
I soon saw 2 more boys come over a fence in front of me and recognized
this to be a trap of some sort. One of the guys in front of me put his
hand under his shirt, prentending to have a gun. Luckily I easily
caught this and knew not to be fooled. While they kept up at my pace,
they started kicking my heals and reaching for my pockets. At that
point I shoved the front 2 kids and ran a block to get away.... PUNKS.
But everything was ok, I was just a little shook up and decided to call
it a day after that.
While I wasn´t getting robbed in Buenos Aires, I had a great couple
days hanging out with a past Peru travel buddy, Ben from Austrailia. At
one point we met up with an actress and teacher I´d met in Peru as well
and saw one of her plays titled ¨The Lovers of Autofanes¨. Although we
were confused by the language barrier on all the small details, we
managed to capture the overall plot. It was staged in the Roman empire
times in which the men were fighting a war. The ladies who disliked the
war used sex and appeal to lure the men out of the fight... very funny
and Belen was the lead too. The last night in BA we met up with Belen
again and had a huge steak dinner, an Argentine specialty which Ben had
not experienced yet (mine came in Mendoza).
After BA, specifically the kid incident, I had walked straight to
the bus station and booked my ticket to the NE corner of Argentina,
right on the border of Brazil to Iguazu Falls. This is where I´m
writing this message from. I spent 2 days exploring both the Argentine
and Brazil side of a shared famous national park that boasts huge
waterfalls. The Argentine side included a boat tour and 4x4 cruise
which left you completely soaked from a waterfall dip at the end.
Finally today, my last day here, I hiked to Tres Fontera, a point that
you can see Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay, all serperated by large
rivers.
So this is the last of Argentina! Going to watch some NBA finals
tonight at a local pub and then off to Porto Alegre Brazil tomorrow
(Sunday 5-31). When I arrive I´ll be spending a couple nights with an
HP buddy, Rodrigo Victor and doing a video Halo meeting with some guys
from San Diego HP, the GF Angie, and a few others in Oregon. Today
marks about 12 days left on this South American trip and I´m getting
excited to come home. Sao Paulo Brazil and Rio De Jienero Brazil are
the final 2 cities.
Thanks again to you mom, for probably being the only sole reader left on this blog and I´ll be home soon!!
