Thursday, March 30, 2006

Bariloche, Argentina

March 29th
so i finally made it back to bariloche. having seen HI´s marco polo inn flyers everywhere, and being told by several people that they were going there, i checked myself in and changed in the bathroom by the bar, as my room (which i would end up sharing with three israeli boys) was not yet ready. there was a trio eating brunch in the bar, also waiting for their room: nick, james, and paul, who are not, as i initially thought, from sydney. they are in fact, from london. guess i´m not actually getting better at identifying accents. i asked if they wanted to do el circuito chico on bikes, and james and paul were game, so we rented bikes (again, purely decorative suspension - i´m wise to their games now) and off we went. it wasn´t an easy ride, with 65 kilometers of constant up and downhills. the boys, while claiming to be 28, acted more like 8, kicking each other´s wheels and making biarre nasal honking noises at the randomest moments. good fun.

we stopped at blest, a rustic microbresery at kilometer 11.5 for some warm-up pints, and again at the halfway viewpoint for water and alfajores. paul´s river plate shirt garnered many honks and fist waving as we cycled along the road, but he is right - it did serve as a great conversation starter.

six and a half hours after we started, we´re back at blest, chowing down on munchies and beer. returned to the hostel, went out for dinner to an all you can eat chinese buffet - in argentina, with the parilla along one wall and a token asian man wandering around not doing anything - with a dozen or so english speakers - UK, USA, AUS, CAN were all represented - then to a sleepy irish pub. returning to the hostel for the night, i re-affirmed my suspicion that on the whole, the brits like to whine (or whinge (sp?) as they like to call it) as i listened to nick´s monologue about all the things he could possibly think of to complain about. "no no nick, you´re not whining, continue, dont mind that my eyes are completely glazed over..."

El Bolsón, Argentina

March 27
so i finally arrived in el bolson, which everyone i´ve met says is fantastic. having just spent the last 30-odd hours on several busses with the same bunch of israelis, and especially given Egal´s insistance on supplying antibiotic cream for my infected eyebrow ring, i accepted their invite to go along to onda azul.

nice hostel, a big ol´ farm house with a lake right alongside, a kitchen in the bottom floor, and a few horses, dogs and token sheep wandering around. sounds great, right? well, it was, and everyone was uber friendly, except...i dont speak hebrew. so i didn´t really understand any of what was going on, given that i was the only person in the entire place save the kitchen staff that didn´t speak hebrew. owners, managers, and all the guests. turns out i fell into the israeli trail. they would all say "english english we speak in english!" and then do it - for about three minutes, before falling back into hebrew. it´s ok, i understand that it´s an extra effort to speak in a language that´s not your native tongue. tho a lot of them were like me: born in argentina and moved out when 5 or 6.

i ended up spending the evening with one who claimed bush was great, and informed me that they are taught american history in israel. i hadn´t realized, interesting. then the rest of the night i spent chatting with a really cool dude who was unfortunatly stuck in el bolson for a month as he waited for his knee to heal...he spent the entire time tying macrame and making hemp necklaces.
i left the hostel in the morning.

March 28
after finding myself another hostel, the next day i went to el bolson´s famed tri-weekly market, where they sold t-shirts with slogans like: "one tree doesn´t make a difference, but no trees does" and "the people who painted these paintings didn´t reach the moon (insert patagonian cave paintings here) but they didn´t destroy their planet either".
i overheard english and spanglish, and approached two girls and a boy sitting in the park: Niki, from San Fran, Charlie, from Chicago (i think?) and a girl from Switzerland (i am horrible with names). we checked our email, bought ingredients to make a parilla and ensalada, then went to their cabin 3kms outside the city which they were renting with two spanish guys, Javier and i forget the other one´s name.

anyways, great time that night, reminded me of kaileah´s (or anyone else´s for that matter) cottage in onterrible. i left before anyone had woken up, hitched a ride with a local back into town, grabbed my stuff from my unused hostel, and headed for bariloche on a 9:30 bus (ya know me. active in the morning).

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Ushuaia, Argentina

March 13, 2006

4:30 am, i´m in the domestic aeroport in buenos aires trying to get to ushuaia. aerolineas argentinas seems to have obliterated any record of my ticket, however, so i buy another one and fly standby after waiting at the airport for 5 hours.

finally arriving in ushuaia, my hostel is amazing. hands down the best hostel i`ve been in yet. huge chill out area upstairs, communal dining area downstairs, everything is clean and new...very impressed. ushuaia is cool too...geographically, it reminds me of vancouver, with mountains on one side and the ocean on the other. the city itself reminds me a lot of whitehorse...it has that "frontier town" feel to it. the temperature is GREAT. you can out out in a t-shirt and pants and be a shade too cold, or put on a sweatshirt and be a shade too warm. nice change from the stiffling heat of brazil.

so spent two days chillin in the hostel, chattin with people, generally relaxing. watched a HORRIBLE movie with three dutch guys in the movie room at night...duece bigalow european gigalow. absolutly wretched. not recommended.

March 15, 2006

went with alexi, marcus, and ed, a trio from eugene, oregon, to the end of the world. we drove their rental jeep to the last spot you could possibly get to without leaving in a boat. so now i´ve been to the end of the world, time to go back i guess. the coast guard stationed there invited us in for mate...then told us how the water hovers around 0 degrees...very cold. didn`t stop this crazy one tho:

ate some calafate berries, they stain your tongue purple, and apparently eating them means you will definitly return. i`m pretty much garanteed to come back anyways, but i `spose another garantee can´t hurt.

found a rather lame irish pub in the evening, ditched it and walked along the waterfront, passed out in the chill out room again. good way to get to see the sunrise (which was spectacular) is to fall asleep in a room with wall to wall, floor to ceiling windows on all four walls.

March 16, 2006

pretty calm day, se largo a llover in proper west coast fashion...none of this continental torrential downpour, just rain comin down all day long. laundry got done, finally got started updating this blog thingy...

i leave ushuaia for puerto natales tomorrow...will spend the whole day, from 5 am to 10 pm, in transit. woo hoo, can`t wait. good thing i carry a small bookstore in my backpack.