Wednesday, March 10, 2010

the last leg. for now

desert middle of nowhere border town. it's not often, but this time i suggest the road morefrequentlytraveled. i waited. and waited.

One car passed. No room for me.

A bus pulled up and a long line of tourists filed out for their border tramites. I visually singled out the driver, waited until the moment is right, pulled out my best helpless backpacker look, and explained my situation. I must have pulled it off because in the next moment I threw my backpack under the bus and took my seat next to the driver. Two new stamps made themselves at home in my passport and we were off.

Muy buena onda el chabon. We chatted and chatted. He even bought me an alfajor to accompany my mate. The day was perfect. And I had the best seat in the bus.

We watched guanacos dart out of the way as we bounced along the narrow highway. Sand, shrub, and sun everywhere. The bajada into the city of el Calafate sported an outofthisworld view.

I found Luz working the reception of mirador del lago hotel. Luz is a friend from Bariloche and invited me to stay with her while in el Calafate.


For 4 nights I stayed in the staff house behind the hotel, hiding from the authorities. For 5 days I entertained myself by walking up and down the one and only main street in town, going on a 4x4 excursion, making pizza, admiring the spectacular perito moreno glacier and doing a lot of thinking.






You see, it was in El Calafate that I realized that I was tired. Both physically and mentally. I had spent a month and a half on the road adventuring. Putting my faith in the kindness of strangers, packing and unpacking my backpack in which I carried all of my possessions, exchanging life experiences with those I met along the way, sleeping wherever the day left me, living, smiling, talking to myself, rolling my eyes, writing, learning. I was very very content, but also very tired.

And above all, I realized that I had completed my two goals for the trip (successfully hitchhike to Ushuaia and figure out what kind of traveler I wanted to be through experimentation and reflection) and at that point I was just going through the motions of traveling without the same passion and enthusiasm that I had when I started.

I realized that with my previous goals completed, I lacked direction and purpose in my travels. And I perhaps it was time for a period of relative stability while I figured out my next move. Even though this would mean tossing out my original plan, I was excited by the spontaneity of a drastic change. I began to day dream.

I left el calafate in a black pickup. 2 hours of cumbia. I'm not a fan of cumbia.

The day was perfect. We had a rare view of all the mountains, that are normally shyly hiding behind puffs of clouds.

I was so excited that I took a video.


El Chalten is awesome. A little town barely 15 years old at the foothills of such mountains as Cerro Fitz Roy, Cerro Torre, Cerro Solo... to name a few. I liked it because it was small and intimate. I didn't like it because I knew that within a few years it would no longer be small and intimate. It would become a touristmagnet monster.


Marcus and Cez are Aussie climbing friends from Bariloche. They spend the summer season in El Chalten. They invited me to stay with them on my way through. I was ecstatic to see them. One problem, I had no way to find them. I didn't have their address. There's no cell phone service. Internet was expensive and hard to come by. But I had a plan.

I know what their car looks like. My plan was to run down every street in town and look for their car. So I did. I got to know the town quite well. I didn't find it. But I had a plan B.

Plan B was to find rockclimbers. I figured the community, and especially the rockclimbing community, was small. Everyone must know everyone. So I started asking people. Long story short, I met a lot of people, knocked on a few random doors, approached strangers, and had absolutely no luck... until I gave up.

I pitched my tent in the cheapest campgrounds smack dab in the middle of downtown. The guy who worked there was a climber and gave me the name and address of another climber. I knocked on his door. Really super nice guy who was only mildly weirded out by me. He gave me another address. No one was home. But some nice Brazilians told me that, yes, Marcus and Cez did in fact live there. I was overjoyed. My 5 hours of search ended in success!

En fin, I spent 5 nights and 6 days trekking to my heart's content.





Highlights include: following random pircas to a hidden off-the-map lake, stunning sunny weather conditions, hiking by myself, going for a run to a peaceful waterfall. Lowlight: having a camping stove burst into flames in my hands and almost burning down the forest. Sadly no picture available.

When it came time to leave el Chalten, I faced my biggest thumbing challenge yet... Route 40. I had purposefully saved the toughest for last. Very infrequently traveled, graveled, never ending stretch of highway made famous by a Che Guevara. I was ready.

Armed with snacks and a smile, I joined the line of backpackers with their outstretched thumbs. I was second in line and waited perhaps an hour. A vacationing German couple dropped me at the cruce on their way to El Calafate. Munching on fruitigrans for aprox 30 min on Route 40, I flagged down a Bahia Blanca family who squeezed me into their car. They took me to the beginning of the gravel. A firery local couple suggested that I wait at the gas station and pounce on stationary cars. 3 or 4 hours passed. I became aware that the chances of spending the night at the gas station was steadily increasing as the minutes passed. Chatted with some truckers. Sipped mate. Flipped pages in my book. Waited.

My ride came in the form of a supremely packed car with a young couple inside. In hindsight the car was completely unsuited for the trip ahead. It sat dangerously close to the ground and was driven by an increasingly stressed out, chain smoking Italian. Recipe for an adventure.

Looooooooong story short, they were going straight to Santiago, Chile. Straight. They didn't want to stop. I urge you to take a look at a map and check out the distance from El Chalten to Santiago. And calculate about 600 km of unpaved road. And imagine driving straight through the night, getting lost, stopping at darkened towns for gas and road munchies, and a very very strung out Italian.

I had planned to stop in Perito Moreno. I had planned to stop in Esquel. I had planned to stop in el Bolson. Ultimately I spent 30 hours hitchhiking and arrived in Bariloche. Why? As I mentioned earlier, I was tired of living on the road. The opportunity presented itself and I made a split second decision. The idea of friendly Bariloche was an extremely attractive one. And besides Esquel, el Bolson, Lago Puelo are all a hopskipandajump away.

I arrived in Bariloche to the surprise of all my friends who expected me a week later. We arranged an impromtu asado after mates on the lake shore. I had the opportunity to feel my first earthquake. En fin, I'm still in Bariloche over two weeks later. Still figuring out what to do next