Alto Road, Argentina
March 22, 2010
The Andes Mountains, viewable from pretty much anywhere in Mendoza were totally calling our name. We’d visited Las Montañas in Peru, and Chile but there is something about those tall peaks that just make you want to see them up-close, even if you’ve been there before. We scheduled ourselves for a tour along the “High Andes Road”, or Alto Road with out knowing much about the trip other than that it left at 7 AM. Yikes!
The morning of the trip, we were still waiting for the tour company at 8 AM. Another guy from our hostel was waiting too, so we felt confident that we wouldn’t be completely forgotten but when 8:15 and then 8:30 rolled around we were pretty nervous. When the company finally arrived, the tour guide was in a rather foul mood. We began to climb into the van, but he stopped our friend ‘Stijin’ saying that he wasn’t booked, even though he was holding the booking confirmation right in his hand. Apparently, our hostel and the travel agent had miss communicated (or not communicated) and poor Stijn wasn’t going to be able to join us on the trip. With that foul taste in our mouth our hopes for the day diminished a bit, but we were still prepared for an adventure.
We had the absolute worst seats on the minivan – far back row, with a speaker system or something under our seat so that there was no leg room, and the seats were a bit elevated so that you could barely see out of the window. It was going to be a long day! Luckily, we sat next to a lovely couple from Nova Scotia who regaled us with their travel stories the entire way.
First stop on the tour, the water reservoir for Mendoza. Being agriculture heavy, water is hugely important in the area. This lake here supplies water to all of the wineries, fincas, and people of the providence.
Our second stop of the day was at this bridge. We aren’t really sure why it’s so important to the region but here’s the best we could gleam from our guide. A similar bridge was built over the river in the 1500s and was used in some sort of military skirmish. The original bridge fell down years ago, but this replica was built in the early 1900s to celebrate their achievements. I’m sure if we spoke Spanish, the bridges story would have been a lot more impressive.
There were a couple of other stops along the way that we didn’t think warranted photos: a ski lift, a cloudy view of a mountain, but we were stoked when we finally made it to the Puente del Inca. These dogs didn’t think much of it, but we thought it was absolutely beautiful.
The natural hot springs here have been used since the Incan times. Those white, yellow, orange and green colors that you see come from the minerals present in the warm waters.
Throughout most of the 1900s a train used to take tourists from the Atlantic Ocean, through Argentina over the Andes Mountains. It traveled right along the road we took today. At this location, most travelers would disembark and refresh themselves at the bath’s posh hotel. The hotel builders also built these very unappealing structures around the baths. Who knows why? We thought it looked more like a Rainbow Bright Prison, but I guess everyone has their own style. A devastating earthquake hit the area in 1960 or so leveling the hotel completely, but mostly sparing the baths and this is all that remains.
Lucas posing near the closed Museum… who knows what we could have found in there!
This bike was completely loaded up with gear. The couple riding it looked like they had gone a few too many hard miles, and were very happy for a break. Lucas wants to take a trip like this someday. Mr. Price???? Get your planning going!
The last stop on the way up the high road was at the top of this viewpoint. The road was a very steep switchback for 9km before stopping at the Argentina/Chile border. When we got out to walk around we could really feel the lack of oxygen. Even the short climb to the viewpoint took a lot out of us!
Mendoza, Argentina
March 20, 2010
Mendoza… Argentina’s wine country, home of the Malbec! We were excited to take a few wine tours and taste the best the country has to offer! But first, we had to get there. We opted for an overnight bus ride since we’d had plenty of luck with that. Well, it turns out our luck had run out. Our bus made a loud beeping noise the entire ride… which made it difficult to sleep, even with earplugs. About 3 in the morning, I noticed that we were on the side of the road stopped. I didn’t think much of it and tried to go back to sleep… sometime later, a man came and told us to get off the bus… evidently, our bus had broken down and we’d been waiting on the side of the road for 3 hours while the next bus came along to take us the rest of the way. So, our luggage was transferred over, and we hopped aboard a new bus, which was NOT the nice comfortable sleeping bus we started on. It didn’t have fully reclining seats, and it wasn’t a direct bus. In fact, it stopped at each little city along the way… So, instead of pulling into Mendoza at 9am the next morning, we arrived sometime between 1 and 2 in the afternoon.
Jenn had made a reservation for a place online that had good reviews, but it turned out to be a long haul away from both the bus station and the downtown area. But, we hoofed it and eventually go there, completely wiped out from the trek carrying our luggage… We were so tired we didn’t even care how bad the room was.. .which was pretty dismal. As soon as Jenn stretched out on the bed, the entire frame broke and crashed to the floor. We thought we’d just find a new place, but the front desk person said he’d take care of it, and worked to pull the old frame out and bring in a new one. Oh well, we needed to stay somewhere, and we were grumpy, so we just decided to deal with it and find a new place the next day. This hostel wasn’t quite the worst place we’ve stayed, (Iquitos airport, New Dehli transit area, and Banda Aceh all come to mind), but it was by far the worst in South America so far.
The next morning we woke up, stored our luggage, and went to find another place closer to the action. By the time we’d found one and moved our luggage, we had killed the morning. We picked up a flyer for a wine bike tour and took off on the local bus to the Maipu area. There we rented a tandem bicycle from Mr. Huge’s bike shop, grabbed a bike, and off we went. This was the first time either Jenn or I had been on a tandem bike… I didn’t think we’d make it at first… maybe it should be called the divorce bike… but after about 2 minutes we had it figured out and pedaled like champs.
The first place we stopped was supposed to have a fabulous BBQ lunch, and we were starving. We pulled in and found a chair, only to discover they were out of food. AAAH! Oh well, we decided we’d just have the wine tasting on an empty belly… that would surely go straight to our head! The wine wasn’t very impressive here, so good thing we didn’t spend the money on a full bottle with lunch. Viña el Cerno
The next place was called Familia di Tomaso, and our hostel worker told us it was his favorite. Fortunately, they had food, and we were ravished. We ordered a bottle of Malbec and some food to go with it. The scenery was great, overlooking the winery, with old mechanical wine tools and machines placed about.
The food was fantastic. Jenn had a prosciutto sandwich, and I had some kind of stew that melted in my mouth. We finished our meal and were going to take the wine tour here until we realized it was getting late and we wanted to be sure to check out a couple more wineries. So, off we went for the next stop, although a bit buzzed!
Lucas getting the bike ready to go for the next stop after having quite a bit of wine… drinking and biking is the way to go… no drunk driving tickets for us!
Our next stop was the Laur olive oil factory. Neither Jenn nor I had EVER seen an olive tree. So it was quite cool to see them growing on a tree! Did you know that green olives and black olives come from the same tree? The only difference is how long they stay on the branch. I picked one off the tree to pop in my mouth and almost vomited. Either these weren’t ready yet, or they do some serious work on them before making them edible. Yikes! From one olive, 14% of the “meat” processes into olive oil, and only 4% of the pit turns into oil. The rest is waste. But, one olive tree can produce over 25 liters of oil. Amazing! Also, olive oil is graded on it’s acidity. Extra virgin olive oil has the lowest acidity… which is why it usually tastes the best.
Our next stop was Bodega Carinae. It was a small boutique winery across the street from the olive oil plantation. We got a nice tour of the production line, which was very tiny, everything is hand labeled and boxed. When we got to the sampling, they had quite a few options… from 30 pesos up to 130 pesos per person. We wanted to try some of the nicer wines, so we opted for a couple of the middle tier tastings. The wine here was really fantastic, and we ended up buying a bottle to take back with us.
We were the last people to leave the winery, and wince we were at the last stop on the wine bike route, we had a police escort back towards town. It was a little nerve racking being followed by a police car while you are pretty buzzed on wine, pedaling a bike down a the road. Not to mention our bags and cameras were half-hazardously attached to our bodies and we were all over the road trying to avoid potholes and not kill ourselves. Fortunately, when we passed another winery on the way back, the police pulled in there to round up that crew, and we proceeded back to the bike rental place without a glitch.
Buenos Aires, Argentina
March 17, 2010
I guess eventually we had to end up in Buenos Aires. It’s the biggest city in Argentina by far, and tourists roll in and out of there daily on their way from one destination or another. We landed in BA from El Calafate, by plane. Our only domestic flight on this leg of our journey so far!
We didn’t really have an action plan for BA but had heard that we couldn’t miss their famous cemetery, nor a tango show. So, first order of business was to do a sight seeing tour of the city. Usually I loath these things. I always feel like I’m going to be stuck with a group of old people (sorry, Gram, but you aren’t really old in spirit!) and by being in a big group I’ll miss out on the real feel of things. But, BA’s tour is rated the #2 attraction in the city so I thought eh, I’d give it a try. Plus, our knees were still killing us after our treks through Patagonia. The tour was fun – we road a double decker bus that buzzed around the city with regular stops at all the main attractions. They have these silly headphones that narrate the sites in your choice of eight different languages. Anyone speak Russian?
We took these shot of the obelisk from the top of the bus. It’s not an especially inspiring photo, but she’s it’s such an quintessential shot we had to include it.
Next stop was the Recoletta neighborhood for their famous cemetery. The Argentinean elite get buried in style: above ground, in a family shrine, and decked out with sculptures. We walked through looking at the graves of past presidents, Eva Peron (former first lady, radio personality and most beloved by her people, for those who don’t know), famous doctors and some guy who their international airport is named after. Here are a few photos from Buffy’s Land.
As the bus drove from site to site we saw tons of broken down cars on the road – old Volkswagons and Fiats were particularly prevalent. This old car kept our attention though. Looks like it’s been there a while right, so why is the guy looking in the trunk? Well, that’s where he keeps his beer cold of course! There was a cooler in the trunk and the guy pulled out a liter of beer seconds later.
Are we in Redmond or Bellevue? Nope still Buenos Aires. Looks just like their Washington State buildings, huh except for this one has a snazzy outdoor patio mid-way up. You can just pick out the tiny people on the bottom right if you squint. Anyone looking to move to a warmer climate?
Our most colorful stop on the double-decker bus was La Boca neighborhood. We aren’t really sure why this neighborhood is so famous. But during our travels we gleamed that they have a well known soccer team, that the neighborhood was originally founded by immigrant factory workers, that the buildings are really colorful, and that it isn’t safe to go out in the neighborhood at night. Even during the day time there were loads of police trolling about. I’m never sure if the presence of police is supposed to make me feel comforted or not. The neighborhood was very photographic though and it served up some awesome barbeque.
I know Argentina is famous for steak, but I really can’t get enough of their pollo (chicken). It’s hard to find, seems I’m the only one who appreciates just how good it is here. Maybe it’s all the mayonnaise they put on everything that makes it yummy!
After spending a day doing tourist things, we had to dedicate a day to camera maintenance. Lucas had really mucked his camera up early in our trip. He’d gotten dust on the sensor somehow, then gotten it even dirtier when he tried to clean it. So we dragged ourselves all around the city in the 80 to 90 degree weather, going to first this camera store and then that one. A guy a one place would tell us to check another secret place up on the 7th store of a residential building. This happened several times. The first of these ‘secret places’ seemed like they knew what they were doing and they agreed to clean Lucas’ camera. Unfortunately, their version of clean didn’t actually involve any cleaning, so the camera came back in nearly the same condition as it was before.
Eventually we found a place that did the trick, but that was only after several mis-attempts and one pick pocketing misadventure on the subte (subway). Fortunately, the pick pocketer didn’t get anything more than a credit card (which we canceled) and a driver’s license (that doesn’t them do much good in Argentina anyways).
To lift our spirits on our last night we treated ourselves to a tango dinner show. It was pricey, but we thought “Hey, what the heck. Everyone says it’s one of those must dos, so it has to be good!” And it definitely was. Complejo Tango is where we went, for anyone planning a trip to BA. The show took us tango through the years, from 1900 to the present. Each dance had the actors/dancers in different period costumes and they acted out mini-skits while they danced to live music.
Buenos Aires is one of those places you could spend a month and never see it all. Unfortunately, we don’t have that much time, so it’s on to the next stop for us!
El Chalten and Fitz Roy
March 13, 2010
We’d been doing a ton of camping and trekking lately, and the thought of going to El Chalten wasn’t the most exciting to our knees. But, after so many recommendations we couldn’t come this close and not actually make it there. El Chalten is the base for Fitz Roy, another massive peak similar to Torres del Paine. I’d wanted to see it ever since watching one of Art Wolfe’s “Travels to the Edge” series on Television. In the show, Art takes a 5 day trek around Fitz Roy. We decided we would take it easy and find a nice spot to camp with a view of the mountain and just relax and enjoy it.
After consulting some of the help from the locals, we learned of a beautiful quiet lake only 2 hours from the town that would give us the perfect spot. We packed up our gear (Jeremy and Sandra had to rent again), and off we went, loaded with booze, food, and supplies for 3 nights of relaxing camping.
The easy 2 hour hike to the lake was a steady incline, with some beautiful views along the way. Fortunately, it wasn’t up and down the entire way, just a nice healthy uphill the whole way.
A lookout through the valley on the way up to our camping spot. We saw some wild horses roaming through the valley. We weren’t sure they were wild, but they didn’t seem to be contained by anything!
We made it up to the lake in short order, and wow, what a view. About this time, Jenn and I decided to take some pictures, only to realize that we left the memory card in our camera back at the hostel. So, all of the pics we have here are compliments of Jeremy… otherwise we’d be photo-less!
We set up camp and then took positions to watch the sunset. It was pretty cold, so Jeremy decided to grab his sleeping bag to use as a poncho… aka, giant blue penis.
It was our best sunset of three days. So far, the trip was going great! We’d been so lucky with Patagonia weather, we didn’t realize how quickly things can change! The next morning, we woke up to grey skies. We were lazy about camp, cooking breakfast and taking it easy. Around lunch time we decided we’d take a day hike… just as it starts raining. So, we turn around and head back into our tents to stay dry. It rained for hours… and hours. And before we knew it, our entire campsite was flooded. We only realized it when we started moving around inside our tent and things were squishy underneath us. Our tent was setup in a level spot, so naturally all of the water ran down the hill, into our spot, and stayed there. CRAP! Somehow, our tent didn’t leak or fill with water. (Go REI tent material). I put on my rain jacket, and set about trying to build a moat around our tent. Jeremy and Sandra realized they had the same problem, and set about the task as well. Using rocks, sticks, and hands, I dug a drainage ditch out the bottom of our campsite, and then tried to dig a moat around the top to keep the water from flowing in. It seemed to work for the most part, but there was just too much rain. It was impossible to keep it out. The only thing we could do was let it drain on through. It didn’t stop raining at all… so we basically sat in our tent until dinner time. I cooked in the vestibule of our tent for us, then cooked for Jeremy and Sandra. We took turns eating, and finally went to bed to the sound of rain… at least we were dry. Sometime during the night, the rain stopped. Well, actually, it turned to ice. Ice pelted us for a couple hours, but not enough to accumulate on the ground. It was freezing cold though. Then, the wind started up. I thought we were in a tornado. The wind was ripping through the campsite so much that our tent was bent all the way down so the top touched our faces. I was sure the poles would break. But somehow they held. Our friends were not so lucky. Their tent suffered a crushing blow and snapped a fiberglass pole.
Once we assessed and put all our wet clothes back on, we decided we’d had enough and broke down camp to head back to something a bit warmer and dryer. Jeremy took this shot of the lake below, but it doesn’t do the event justice. The wind was ripping through the valley between the mountains and curling around pulling up these huge twisters of water. It looked like mini cyclones on the lake… you could even watch the wind rip across the surface of the water and know exactly how much time you had before you needed to take cover from the wind. It was strong enough to knock you down if you weren’t ready for it.
Down the mountain we went. About 15 minutes into the trip down, the weather turned again, for the better. Here we were, mostly soaked, cold, and tired, and we meet people heading up the trail for day hikes. They looked at us funny, as they said the weather was very nice back in the town. Oh well…
Pausing for a break on the downhill leg. Our GQ poses on full.
After getting settled and fed back in the hostel, we took a day hike out to a waterfall nearby. The waterfall was quite beautiful, and we took quite a few pictures. Jenn and I decided to go up to higher ground and take a downward shot of the falls. While we were up there, Jeremy took a nasty slip off the rock face and landed with his back square on a fallen tree. I thought for sure he’d broken his back, and we were all extremely worried. Turns out he was ok, just bruised a bit in the ribs, and the pride.
El Calafate & Glacier Perito Moreno
March 11, 2010
Our bus from Puerto Natales to El Calafate was mostly uneventful. The only semi-interesting part was the border crossing. When we boarded the bus, the driver asked to see our passports. When he looked through them, he asked us for a paper. We didn’t have any, and had no idea what he was looking for. Evidently, Jeremy and Sandra had the right stuff, as they pulled theirs out and the driver was happy. But, he shrugged his shoulder at us in a look that said… “you are on your own now”. I figured we’d be fine… our guidebook said there wasn’t anything special about crossing between Chile and Argentina. Turns out, when we exited Chile, they stamped our passports and made us fill out a form. 30 minutes later down the road when we entered Argentina no one blinked an eye. Sweet… We were also proudly informed that the Falkland Islands (as known by most of the world) are actually called the “Islas Malvinas” by Argentineans. In fact, there was a nasty war for control of the islands, which the Argentine country lost. However, they still claim them as their own.
Our bus arrived in El Calafate around midnight, which made finding our hostel a bit difficult. No taxis to be found, no good map, and only a slight idea of where we were headed. Jeremy pulled out his compass, pointed us in a direction and off we went. Unfortunately, that direction was uphill, and after about 30 minutes, we thought we had lost our way. We decided that we must be close, so we went one more block and magically arrived at the correct place. Somehow, we navigated a path without directions almost efficiently as possible. The hostel gave us a free beer on check-in, our first Quilmes. It was mighty tasty! The hostel sets up on a hill overlooking the city, and supposedly a lake. But it was so dark, we couldn’t see anything.
We woke up with the goal of renting a car and driving to the glacier. We had a yummy breakfast at the hostel, (our first experience with dulce de leche) got directions to a car rental place, and took off. 2 hours later, we had our mighty rental car, the Volkswagon GOL. No, it wasn’t a Golf, that would be way too nice. This was the cheaper version, it didn’t even come with power steering! We thought it really was a Golf, and the “F” was missing… but we soon saw other cars just like ours, with the same name.
Our Gol was going to take us to some lake with a nice view, and then to Perito Moreno glacier. I was driving, and Jeremy was navigating. About 1 minutes out of the city we hit unpaved road… the woman told us not to take the car off the main road, but oh well… away we went. The road was beautiful, carving a nice path between the lake and the base of a sheer mountain. There were fences running along the entire way with several different kinds of hawks on display. So, of course we had to stop and take pictures of each of them!
We were starting to get hungry though, so eventually we just pointed at all the birds and kept on going. Our stomachs had become our motivating factor. We had purchased a ton of food at the supermarket and proceeded to make a huge pasta dish. It was delicious. Fresh chorizo, mushrooms, peppers, onions, and garlic mixed in with a red wine tomato sauce, all poured over penne and rigatoni. There wasn’t a bit left when we were done eating.
Our next stop was the Perito Glacier. When we arrived at the entrance to the park, the young man who came out to collect our money must have been drunk. He and his friends were laughing at each other, making jokes, and trying to tell us how much the park entry was. He said the entry fee was 75 pesos, or 15 heroes. How convenient! We just happened to have 15 heroes in the trunk of our Gol. Seriously, you couldn’t put half a hero in the trunk of the Gol. But we told him to check anyway. He didn’t fall for it, so we just gave him the pesos, and laughed at our own private joke.
We walked around the Glacier for most of the day, watching huge chunks fall off into the water. The sound was fantastic. The glacier was so far away however, that if you didn’t actually see the ice chunks fall, by the time the sound made it over, it was too late. In the pictures, it looks like we were really close… and we were… it’s just so big and massive you can’t actually see the scale of it in the photos!
After the glacier viewing, we headed back in to town to pick up our friend Adolfo, and then proceeded to make a home cooked dinner. The kitchen at the hostel was busy, so it took a while. We played a few card games, and then called it a night. The next morning: off to El Chalten!
One of the giant hawks we spotted on the way to the lake. The wing span on this guy was over a meter!
The four of us posing for a picture with the lake and mountains in the background.
Cooking up a storm. You can see our mighty “Gol” in the background. The poor car rattled so much on the dirt road, and dust completely covered us. The windows didn’t seal well, there was no AC, and was barely big enough for the four of us. But, it got us around, and cheaply!
Here is a taste of the scale of the glacier. I’ve no idea how tall it was, but the chunks of ice that were breaking off were the size of passenger ferries.
Close up view of the ice as we were waiting for it to break off and fall into the lake. The color was a brilliant blue.
You can barely see a large boat on the left hand side of the glacier.
At the widest setting on my camera lens, I couldn’t even get half of the glacier in the shot!
Here is a chunk breaking off and falling into the water! Sweet!
Jenn, posing for the camera. 3-2-1 glacier!
Random picture of some cool weeds I saw. This is currently my background image. Anyone at Microsoft want to buy it and put it in the new Windows?
Another random picture of a fence… I liked the shadows and the colors.
