This one time, in Buenos Aires:
After a farewell in Él Calafate...Kathleen took the plane to Buenos Aires but I had to take the bus. There were no flights for almost a month...I love Argentina, but travelling in January and February can be a little tricky because all the Argentinians are on vacation as well. So a little planing ahead will not be a bad idea if you are heading that way.
As faith would have it, Me and Kathleen were to meet again in Buenos Aires. She was staying at a friends place and could arrange it so that I could stay their too. Argentinians are a friendly bunch, and taking total strangers or ppl they met shortly on their travels into their homes is normal for them...a little bit like in New Zealand I feel...they are proud of their country and want to show it to everybody. Anyways...where was I...a yes..bus to Buenos Aires. I had to take a bus from Èl Calafate (did I say already that is a great place?) to Rio Gallegos on the coast. That took four hours and was the easy part of the trip (counting four hour waiting time for the B.A. bus). The bus trip to B.A. took 36 hours!!! and on the way is absolutely nothing to see!!
I managed too sleep some and that made the trip a little bit easier. It was a nice aircondicioned bus and the food on the way was included. I was happy to see that Kathleen came to pick me up at the bus station. The busstation in B.A. (Retiro) is the biggest one I have seen in my life...It was almost like an airport. After taking a cab to the flat where Kathleen´s friend Celina lived we went to meet her at her work for lunch. The rest of the day was relaxing and I used it to recover from the bustrip. Next day I slept in (had not done that for a long time) and in the evening we made dinner for us Celina and Santiago her boyfriend who just arrived from Spain (he lives in Barcelona, but is from Chile). The third day, it was sightseeing day. We took a tour that took us around the city seeing many interesting places like The La Boca cuarter famous for it´s painted houses(see photo above). We also visited Boca Juniors stadium "La Bombonera" where Diego Armando Maradona played football. We drove past the harbour which is so poluted that if you drank one glas of the water you would be dead within 3 hours (how they came to this conclution I don´t know, maybe they got a volunteer to drink a glas of water from the harbour...anyway, good advise: Don´t fall inn!!
After jumping of the bus at the famous obelix(see photo) on avenida 9 de Julio the widest avenue in the world - 140 meters wide - we headed home to Celina´s place where Santiago made dinner for us and some friends. Now, I have to mention the beef again. I have found out that after you have had argentinian beef once you can never eat beef again anywhere else in the world. What can make the experience even better is is to have a bottle of Mendoza with it...O my god! Tasting is beleiving my friends!
So the next night we went to this grill where we got a taste of various meat and the waiter even brougth complimentary champaigne. As that was not enough, he brought me and Kathleen a bottle of Mendoza red wine as a gift from the restaurant, because we were getting to know his country. I was stunned. Something I have never experienced before. WOW! And that was it! I was officially in love with this city and well...basically everything in it.
The day after we went to Celinas gratuation (doctor) and from there to her mothers house for some food (empanadas con dulce de leche!! uummm) and...yes...more wine. I think I drank between 1 and 2 bottles of wine every night while staying in Buenos Aires. Later that night we went with friends of Celina to Puerto Madero(see photo). It is a harbour where there just used to be old abandoned warehouses, but has now been transformed into a buzzling place with restaurants, cafés, bars and hotels. After sitting at a café there fore some time watching an amazing sunset and listening to a scottish guy play the bagpipes we went to have some more beef and wine:). The last two nights me and Kathleen found another acommodation because it was the last nights for Santiago and Celina together. We found this wonderful place with a family in San Telmo...maybe not the greatest neighbourhood but the family was fantastic and even invited us for a barbeque our last night in B.A. I have not eaten so much beef and drunk so much wine in my entire life as this one week in Buenos Aires; and I´m definately going back for more. Well this about does it for B.A. The next day I had a flight to Puerto Iguazú in Argentina, where I spent my last days in Argentina, and Kathleen had a flight to Santiago de Chile from where she would continue to New Zealand on her round the wourld trip. It was sad parting after 3 weeks of traveling together.! However...I just know that we will meet again :)
Next: Iguazu: The biggest waterfalls in the world
A Sort Of Homecoming
Just a quick note to let everybody know when I will be returning to Denmark.
I managed finally to change my ticket after a bit of a battle and the first date possible was 9th. of March, landing in Copenhagen on the 10th. of March at 15:15 .
I expect a welcoming committee at the airport! ;)
Take care for now...
carnival greetings from RIO DE JANEIRO,
Jon
p.s. My phone is now working again so if anyone feels like calling me or sending me a text message(sms),here is the number:+45 22509731
next:
"This one time, in Buenos Aires"
Torres del Paine
Finally I have time to continue the travel story after a busy time in Buenos Aires and Rio (Rolling Stones last night at the Copacabana...almost 1.5 million people...crazy stuff). So now I will continue where I left off:
Torres del Paine --- Map of the "W" trek
hereDay oneWe (Me, Kathleen and José) had an early start from our Hostel, it was hard to get up because the temperature in the room was about 5°c I think, felt like below cero. We got our stuff together and jumped on the bus. After about 3 hours we arrived at National Parque Torres del Paine. We took the ferry (catamaran) to the first camp, Camp Pehoe, where we began our walk. Before even starting to walk the landscape was stunning. I have never seen mountains quite as spectacular as in this national park. We then walked through Grey Glacier Valley up tho the Gray Galcier where we camped for the night. Very beautiful walk but a bit longer than it said on our map and we had very heavy backpacks. I think mine was over 20 kiloes!! It said on the map 3.5 hours but it took us about 6 hours....and at one point we thought we were had taken a wrong turn and were hopelessly lost. But everything went well. We had a nice meal that the masterchef Kathleen made:). The camp, Camp Grey, was right next to the glacier lake so we watched Icebergs float by...the coolest thing.
Day twoThe next day we had to backtrack down to Camp Pehoe and the plan was to walk on to Camp Cuernos (another 2 hours) to camp for the night, but I was not feeling so good that day so we decided to stay at Camp Pehoe for the night and make an early start the next day. This was with out a doubt my worst day physically and I was really feeling the weight of my backpack. We managed to camp inspite very strong winds and that night I really thought the tent would blow away...but fortunately it did not:)
Day three In the morning I was feeling a lot better and we started walking soon after breakfast around 10:00. It was a beautiful day and one of the best days for me. The landscape just kept getting better and better. I am glad that we did the "W" (as this 5 day trek is called) in reverse instead of starting at the Torres like most ppl. do. The landscape was getting more and more spectacular every day and it felt good to know that we were heading towards the big highlight...spirits were hight and the packs were getting lighter. José was struggling a little bit and as we came to camp Italiano he took a rest while my and Kathleen walk half way up the France valley...
what views! what splendor! Coming back to Camp Italiano we found that José was already gone of to the next camp, Camp Los Cuernos, leaving a message that he would meet us there. It took us about two hours to walk there. For me this was the best day. The weather was perfect and the views were spectacular the whole day through. A perfect day!
We had dinner and drank a nice bottle of chilian red wine. I saw a
fox that later stole some our food...just grabbed a bag and dragged it to the forrest. We were also warned to watch out for our shoes as the fox sometimes stole ppls left shoe!!
Mattias at the hostel in Puerto Natales also told us that the Puma would not bother us as long as we did nut run around as a wounded Guanaco!
Day fourAnother perfect day in paradise :) I was beginning to like Torres del paine so much that I was already planing to come again to do the full 10 day hike. The worst thing about the day was that José had to leave us to catch the boat from Punto Arenas the next day to take him on a four day sailing trip to Puerto Montt further north. It later turned out that the boat broke down and he had to take the plane. It was sad for him as he had to give up seeing the Torres the next day to make his bus back in time to catch his boat. Anyway, Me and Kathleen went on up to Camp Chiliano where we had a lunch break before the last hike up to Camp Torres. We arrived at camp Torres at around 18:00 and had dinner before hiking up to the Torres (45 min) we were also going up there the next morning to see the sunrise but thought it was good to do it also that night in case it would be clouded the next morning. we had co climb up steep rocky terrain over huge boulders, but it was fun. Even though we were very tired, we were excited to see the Torres, that had been mine "holy grail" for a long time. An spectacular it was...there is nothing that can prepair you for this fantastic sight...seeing is believing...and you just have to bee there...pictures can not do it justice.
It was hard to sleep that night, and we now had only one tent and to stuff all our things into one small tent AND sleep there was no easy task. I think I got maybe half an hour of sleep that night.
Day fivewe got up at 4 in the morning. It was still very dark and we made some coffee before starting the walk up to the torres in pitch blackness. My flashlight had just run out of batteries so we had to count on Kathleens headlight for the two of us. It worked fine and we were up just before sunrise. It was cold and a bit windy so we found a good spot and sat down tucked under my small sleeping bag thad I had grabbed with me.
We stayed there for 4 hours and looked at the magic happening right infront of our eyes...WOW! The pictures on my msn spaces link below will give you some idea how it was...notice the coulor changing. After slowly walking down again we packed out things and headed down to Camp Chiliano. We were suddenly a bit late and to catch our bus we had to walk pretty fast (fortunately it was mostly downhill). Getting close to the last refugio were the bus was leaving from, we were getting worried that we might miss the bus so I took both backpacks and Kathleen ran to the Refugio to make sure that the bus did not leave us behind. Fortunately she is a very good runner (she has run 3 marathons) so we caught our bus in the nick of time. :)
We had a relaxing drive back to Puerto Natales and that night we had a very nice dinner at the very nice Maratimo restaurant by the lake. A perfect end to a perfect trip.
The day after we went back to Él Clafate in Argentina promising to return to this most magic place of all places. Magic that will stay in my mind for all times.
Click to enlarge
More Pictures from my Patagonia trip
HERE!(the first pictures are from Argentina, Fitz Roy National Park and the Perito Moreno glacier)
coming up soon:
Buenos Aires
(allt í fína) From Argentina part II
El Chaltén was great! Small town thet thrives mostly on tourism. People going on trips to Parque Nacional de los Glaciares. The day after arriving we: Me,Kathleen(Scotland), Sara(Taiwan) and Josè(Spain)from the Route 40 tour, took on a four hour trek to see
Mount Fitz Roy (the highest mountain on the picture above). Fantastic day with fantastic views. We even met a professional photographer who took our picture with Fitz Roy in the background for his book that he is making about Patagonia. That night I took the bus to El Calafate leaving the others until we would meet agian the next day in El Calafate.
El Calafate is a very cool town...I had roasted lamb with mashed potatoes that evening ...jummy!!
The next day a used for practical things like washing clothes and arranging trips for the next days. in the evening I went to meet the others at the bus station and after they got settled at the Calfate Hostel and we had a couple of beers before turning in.
Next morning we all went to Glaciar Perito Moreno (photo left, with the gang: José,Kathleen, Sara and myself). A huge glacier where we sailed out to the face of the glacer watching huge pieces breaking off which was quite spectacular. We had a fantastic buffet dinner together that night with a nice Mendoza wine and unbeleavable Argentinian beef (the real thing) wow! The next day Sara had to stay behind in El Calafate as she did not have a visa to Chile. The rest of the gang: Me, Kathleen and José took the bus to Puerto Natales in Chile where we arrived at midday. There we arranged (at the fantastic hostal:
Erratic Rock) the greatest trek I have ever been on...it even tops the Inca trail!! You can read all about it soon, and see some unbeleavable pictures, in the next chapter.
