Visual Feast!

Back in Buenos Aires I finally have my MacBook back and get to upload and share all the beautiful places I’ve been. Looking at the pictures reminds me how lucky I am to have visited these spectacular landscapes! Enjoy!

¿mas Malbec? ¡por que no!

Salta y Jujuly

The Lake District: “the scenes we have”

Navimag: “Bartender, a little more glacier ice in my whisky, por favor”

Patagonia: Just the tip of the Iceburg

Torres del Paine

I survived my 6 day trek into the Patagonian wilderness (also known as Torres del Paine National Park)! We completed the classic W trek adding on an extra day to do the tail of the Q. (If that doesnt make sense to you, have no fear, a month ago it wouldnt have made sense to me either.) Essentially all the really cool things to do in the park are in the center and you can trek around them all, creating a Q shape, or you can do half of the Q creating a W shape by taking 3 day long side trips into the mountains to see glacier Gray, the French Valley, and the Towers.

We carried all of our gear with us, tent, sleeping bags, food, etc, and set up a new camp site every night.

Patagonia didnt let us down in respect to its volatile weather! Our first two days were windy… even windy for Patagonia. After the first windy but clear days, rain was added to the wind on the fourth day. We tried to hike up into the French Valley despite the weather, but could only make it up so far before a clearing left us too exposed to the strength of the weather. On the fifth day essentially all of our belongings were in varying states of damp to soaking wet. I reminded myself that at some point in the future I would again be warm and dry… though it felt very far away at the time. And of course this would be the day that the Las Torres Hotel came into our view as we were heading up to our final camp near the famed towers. It was hard to resist the urge to run toward the hotel rationalizing that even though the whole national park is named after the towers (torres) that I didn´t really have to see them, right? Well I resisted, and even made it up to the towers early the next morning to see the towers at sunrise, when the light makes the towers glow! That morning I bundled up in all of my remaining dryish clothes because it had been lightly snowing since the night before. We brought our small stove along with us on the 45 minute vertical hike from our campsite and tried to stay warm with coffee as we watched the light change on the towers. Then we headed back down to pack up our campsite and then finally all the way down to the fancy Las Torres Hotel where we would catch a transfer back to the entrance of the park. Just a few hours after shivering in the snow next to the towers I had shed my bulky wool sweater and hat for a t-shirt as we neared the bottom of the mountain!

A character building, once in a life time experience to be sure!

Navimag

On my way to Patagonia via the Navimag ferry boat. I´ll arrive in Puerto Natales Monday morning!

Bariloche

Bariloche was far more wonderful than I imagined. In the winter it´s ski resorts are packed and in the summer is a beautiful lake side retreat!

I met two girls at my hostel who invited me to tag along on an ambitious hike of Cerro Lopez. I readily agreed, realizing I needed to break in my new hiking boots and do a little conditioning for our fast approaching 5 day trek in Torre del Paine. The hike was hard and far more vertical than horizontal. But the views and sense of accomplishment were well worth the pain! We made it all the way up to the first Refugio (at 1,620 km). Looking at the lone pink structure way, way, way up the mountain I had my doubts that we would make it that high. But it was a great feeling when we finally did!

From Bariloche I´m crossing the border and heading to Puerto Montt, Chile where I catch the Navimag down to Puerto Natales, Chile in Patagonia. Luckily, Chile this far south was only shaken up a bit by the earthquake but suffered no permanent damage.

Terremoto

It was through Guadalope that I first learned of the earthquake in Chile. She texted my cell phone early on Saturday morning knowing that Nick was in Chile,¨I don´t want to alarm you, but there was an earthquake in Chile. Check it out.¨

The next few hours were filled with online new papers, latest reports, maps and e-mails. I quickly researched where exactly Nick was in Chile, where exactly the epicenter of the earthquake was… where exactly the most damage was. I then wrote many e-mails detailing all these facts that were meant to clam worried family and friends (and myself) that both Nick and I had come through the earthquake unscathed.

Nick, of course, felt the earthquake quite strongly and was only about 400km south of the epicenter in Pucón (about the same distance as Santiago is from the epicenter to the north). I was in Salta, Argentina and though very, very far away felt a 5.somthing aftershock.

We are very lucky to be unaffected by the earthquake as it left much devastation in it´s path.

Update

Finding the time to write blogs on hostel computers is proving a bit difficult. But I’ll do my best to catch up. Entonces…

Cordoba
underwhelming

Mendoza
A beautiful city, amazingly green and tranquil compared to Buenos Aires. From Mendoza Nick and I were able to do a day trip to Puente del Inca and Acongagua. Acongagua is the highest peak outside of the Himalayas and quite spectacular. It’s hard to believe when you’re staring up at it’s snow covered peak that this is the highest mountain I’ve ever seen!

From the Acongagua park it was a short 2-3 km walk along the road to Puente del Inca, which is a natural stone bridge over a river formed by ice and snow long ago. The only hiccup in the plan was that from Acongagua to Puente del Inca we had to cross that river on a very narrow bridge that all the cars and buses barrel across. Our plan of attack was to wait until we saw no traffic in the distance and then run as fast as we could to the safety of the other side. This was surprisingly the better option, the other was a rusty, dilapidated train track bridge.

Salta
At this point in our trip Nick headed west to Chile and I headed north to Salta. Nick and I aren’t always the best at compromise so when I wanted to go to Salta and Nick wanted to head to Santiago, we did just that. Two weeks traveling apart in 7 months seems reasonable.

What drew me to Salta and Jujuly provinces was the stark desert landscape I’d heard about and the rich indigenous culture which is more similar to Peru and Bolivia. I wasn’t disappointed.

Salta, the city, has a beautiful town square with a pink church and a wonderful museum, MAAM. In Salta province, near the border with Chile, archeologists have recently discovered 3 small children sacrificed by the Incas on a high mountain peak. Because of the elevation and the cold the bodies were remarkably preserved and the MAAM has a very well done exhibit focusing on these children and the Incan ritual which led them that Andean peak.

Tilcara is a small, dusty, mountain town a few hours north of Salta. Indigenous cultures of the past heavily influence the present day. There are stalls of hand woven and knit items, much like you’d see in Peru. It was hard to resist the urge to empty my backpack of all my clothes and shoes and filling it with these brightly colored blankets and sweaters! Tilcara and the similar towns nearby are filled with Argentine tourists looking to explore this unique part of their Argentine culture.

Unfortunately it rained a lot while I was in Tilcara. It was disappointing because so much of what is to see there is outside. Hopefully this is not a foreshadowing of the trip ahead. We have been spoiled with good weather for much of our trip, but now heading into our Patagonia leg we will be very dependent on Patagonia’s famous volatile weather.

Cafayate is a small town south of Salta with lots of wineries. The weather improved as I headed south and I was able to do a day hike to several waterfalls that are just outside of town. Together with 2 other travelers from the hostel we headed out to see the waterfalls. Local guides can be obtained at the base of the mountain for 15-20 pesos per person. But we headed up the mountain on our own, confident that we could find our own way. After about an hour of wrong turns and backtracking we luckily came across a guide and his group and joined in with them. The group we infiltrated consisted of an Argentine family with their two grown children, Guadeloupe and Santiago, who were glad to have us as company. The path to the waterfalls isn’t marked and includes several river crossings. Having the guide plant himself in the middle of the river to offer us a stead hand as we leap frogged across the rushing river certainly made things easier.

Salta and Jujuly consist of stunning natural scenery of diverse colors and textures.

Rio de Janiero

Rio de Janiero. The beaches are stunning, the people are stunning, the scenery is stunning!

Unfortunately Rio got a little lost in my efforts to blog, but I´ll attempt to say just a few things about my time there.

We did all the regular touristy things in Rio: Pão de Açúcar, Cristo Redentor, Arcos da Lapa, and we watched a game at Maracana Stadium (where a previous World Cup was held, and the next World Cup in 2014 will be and probably the opening ceremony for the 2016 summer Olympics too!)

The beach was the best part. There were just enough waves that it was fun and the water was just cool enough to be refreshing!

(Oh wait, Acai was equally as good as the beaches! The fresh fruit smoothes are addicting and I would consider moving to Brazil just to be in close proximity to this fruit!)