Day Seventeen and Eighteen-Do Not Taunt Soccer Fan, Do Not Communicate With Soccer Fan, Do Not Look Directly at Soccer Fan, Just Nod Politely and Run

As I finish this post, Colorado has just upset West Virginia in overtime, and Sideline Twinkie Erin Andrews is interviewing Coach Dan Hawkins. Coach Dan is reassuring us that "we expected to win the game." Really Dan? Then how come your entire team, and half the fans, are on the field screaming and wailing like banshees right now? The field looks like that scene in the second Matrix movie where everyone in Zion participates in that ridiculous tribal dance scene as the machines are trying to gnaw their way through Zion's defenses and Lawrence Fishburne is looking all angsty. What would your guys do if they hadn't expected to win the game? I guess that's just what happens in Division I football.

Back to Argentina. Have I mentioned that Aerolineas Argentinas is Spanish for “Hot Babes in the Sky Airline”? Eschewing contemporary equal opportunity standards, the main hiring qualification at Aerolineas appears to be how successful your modeling career is (or was). Totally mega-hot babes have staffed the cabin on each of the numerous flights I’ve taken. They wear very flattering and fashionable uniforms, and pay close attention to their hair and makeup. “Reapplying” appears to comprise a major part of “preparing the cabin for landing.” Kind of like riding Southwest Airlines in 1979. This by the way is the national airline.

This greatly helped erase the memory of my equally visceral reaction, in the other direction, to the El Calafate metropolitan area’s landscape as my shuttle bus headed to the airport. Or put another way, near El Calafate (like "Near Waco" during David Koresh's 15 minutes of fame) is a big old garbage dump with gravel roads and flying debris. Empty grocery bags, cans, plastic sheets, rags, broken garbage bags, and leftover building material all cover the countryside. But its difficult to tell whether it helps or hurts the natural dirt and scrub scenery that it obscures. Port Arthur thinks these people should do something about the scenery. Mind you, the town is growing as more people visit the area, and this is where they’re building the new hotels. El Calafate reminds me of that Jeff Foxworthy line about you may be a redneck if the directions to your house include “turn onto the dirt road.” That would qualify half the town.

Today I took the flight to Trelew, a town originally settled by Welsh farmers in the late 1800s, en route to Puerto Madryn and Peninsula Valdes. Ian and Julia from Australia were already in the waiting area when I arrived; apparently they didn’t know the shuttle bus would arrive in time for the flight. They told me that when they flew out of Iguazú to Bariloche, the pilot detoured slightly to pass by the falls, then turned around and made another pass so that passengers on the other side of the cabin could see the falls as well. Something like that could never happen in the US. Too many FAA regulations, too much paperwork to fill out, exemptions to obtain, schedules to keep. I mention it because it’s a great illustration of one of the many differences in our respective cultures. Here, time is a more flexible and elusive concept. Who cares about a business meeting if you have a chance to see one of the great wonders of nature? Or, what good are rules that prevent something like that? By the same token, I noticed that lots of people pay no attention when the flight attendants announce not to get out of your seats before the airplane has come to a complete stop. That sort of thing is fine, until the plane has to stop suddenly and everyone gets tossed around and breaks their hips. In the US, I guess the airlines won’t allow people to stand because it knows it would get about 100 lawsuits if something bad happened. Other places like Argentina, I guess, are more willing to let you do what you want to do as long as you alone bear the consequences. Joe Jamail probably wouldn’t earn much here.

Peninsula Valdes and the nearby Punta Tombo nature preserve, according to the guidebooks and local info, is a sort of quasi-Galapagos Island, where whales feed, penguins frolic, and one can see all sorts of rare and unusual bird and animal species. I had planned to fly into Trelew, where the main airport is located, drive to Puerto Madryn (the main town in the immediate vicinity), then head over to Peninsula Valdes to see what feeding and frolicking I could before nightfall. That, however, did not take place. Before I arrived in Trelew, I learned that the roads to and at Peninsula Valdez and Punta Tombo are all gravel, which my rented standard transmission and paper thin tire treaded Chevrolet Corsa won’t negotiate very well. In arriving at Trelew, I also noticed my energy level was very low ("running on empty," except not from being a cokehead like 1975 Jackson Browne). Too many nights of too little sleep-staying up late after a full day’s action, and waking up far too early the next day to catch flights or buses, had begun to catch up to me. So in Trelew I decided just to head to the little town of Gaiman, about 20 minutes west, then north to Puerto Madryn, where I would reassess whether to head futher to Peninsula Valdes. Trelew itself, according to the guidebooks, was just another town, and had nothing to see. Flying into the Trelew airport, I noticed that a squadron of the Argentinian Air Force was based there. What I actually noticed was a two-story building and several rusty looking 1950s era camouflaged tanker planes alongside, reminding me of the old song, “Free Mexican Air Force.”

Well, Gaiman turned out to be a total waste of time and gas. Its located at the edge of the pampas-a dry, scrubby area suitable for raising some types of sheep and cattle, and not too much else. Gaiman turned out to be much like the surrounding land. Not too picturesque. Travel books had described it as a small Welsh village, that still celebrated Welsh customs and spoke the language. That may be, but it still looked just like Clinton Drive in Galena Park, so I decided to head on to Puerto Madryn. This drive involves taking a two-lane highway for about an hour. The provincial government is either expanding the road or building a new one alongside, so the whole way there (and back the next day), I found myself behind smoke-belching trucks driving about half the posted speed limit, chooglin’ up the road. This greatly slowed down traffic in the process and prompted the rule-averse Argentinian motorists to attempt hazardous passes, generally in posted no passing zones. So although the drive was only an hour, it was a great deal more tiring than this would suggest.

By the time I arrived in Puerto Madryn, around 3:00 or so, I was pretty much exhausted, and extremely hungry. So I made the executive decision that I’d just see whatever I could in Puerto Madryn and call it a day. Puerto Madryn essentially is a beach town out of beach-going season. I saw photos in my hotel and in some shops and restaurants of the local beaches in season, chock full of sunbathers, swimmers, dogs, and sailboats. Today, however, it was very brisk, around 55 according to the car’s thermostat, but the wind whipping off the ocean making it seem much colder. Fortunately, it was a bright sunny day, making the cold seem a little more bearable.

Puerto Madryn is located alongisde the Golfo Nuevo, a fairly sheltered bay bordered on the north by Peninsula Valdes. Because it offers something of a shelter from the Atlantic, the waters are calmer than other Argentine coast towns, and that attracts marine wildlife. Puerto Madryn is probably about as big as Galveston, but the main tourist areas are the beach, the Navy pier, and the street one block off the beach (Avenida Roca, of course-all Argentina towns have basically the same street names) with most of the bars, restaurants, and hotels. Everything else in town is local, and I quickly got the impression that the locals did not mix with the tourists, and vice versa. After eating some very average pizza at one restaurant on the strip, I checked into my modest hotel at one end of the avenue, put on some tennis shoes, and started walking. I made it down Avenida Roca, then headed back along some streets further from the beach. What stood out most were some very small, but elegant looking cottages. These weren’t the usual pre-fab, built in 30 days’ type of habitable space units generally built in beach towns, but older, individualized homes in a mix of Spanish colonial and other styles. I took several photos, which you can see on flickr. These cottages were generally tucked into small tracts, often right alongside buildings next door.

At the main plaza, lots of people were out enjoying the day. This includes several couples just blatantly going at it with no regard for time and place, a practice that I discussed in a previous post. Some local "youts" were working on their sweet break-dancing skills alongside the soccer park. Hey kids, its not 1985 anymore. On a side street, I saw a mother outside a little shop trying to hug her boy, who appeared to be about 9 or 10. The boy was trying to squirm out of his mother’s embrace, yelling that he didn’t want to hug, and then ran away when he broke free. It reminded me how my own mother was always trying to hug me her whole life, and how at that age and for many more years the most I could muster was an annoyed acceptance of such hugs, like the boy I had just seen. It made me think that now I would give everything I have in the world for just one more of those hugs.

I next made it to the Navy pier. This by no means resembles the Chicago Navy Pier, a very large district with meeting facilities, restaurants, a “boardwalk,” and carnival rides. This Navy pier literally is a pier run by the Navy, where people walk, or fish. It extended about 1/3 mile out into the bay, giving an excellent view of the entire town, the beaches, and the coming sunset. The water was very rough, rocking the small tugboat and coast guard patrol boat moored at the pier. I took a video shot of these vessels being tossed about, despite being tied off at the slip. Amazingly, while looking on either side at the bay, seeing a few sailboats out for the afternoon, I noticed whales breaching the surface. During the 20 or so minutes I spent out on the extremely windy pier, I guess I saw about 15 whales altogether. I never could get a good picture though. By the time I saw a whale surface, trained my camera, and zoomed in on the whale, it had already gone back below the surface. So all you can see in my photos are some shots of tail fins and whales swimming just below the surface. Nonetheless, it made me feel less cheated in not having made it to Peninsula Valdes. I think I would have just seen more of the same, at perhaps a closer distance.

Venturing on from the pier down the main walk along the beach, I observed lots of people out. Many were at some park facilities, while others were gathering at a local artists’ exhibition. I also scouted out the restaurant I would go to that night.

After heading back to the hotel and again having an unplanned nap, I woke up around 9:30 to head out for dinner. Unfortunately, the restaurant I’d planned to visit was closed, prompting me to look for alternatives. There weren’t many. Plus, several blocks of the main street were in the middle of a power outage. Let me observe at this point that nearly everywhere I went outside Buenos Aires, I went through some sort of power outage. These didn’t last too long, maybe in the 20-30 minute range. The one in Puerto Madryn, which did not affect my hotel, appeared to last much longer, and had no apparent reason (i.e. no bad weather). No one seemed particularly upset or alarmed in any of these outages, telling me that they’re a pretty common occurrence. As someone involved in electricity regulation in Texas, it took me aback that reliability performance we would consider scandalous is acceptable in Argentina, with no apparent cause for concern. This offers yet another example of how we’re fortunate to live in the US, despite whatever inconveniences we may suffer from time to time.

At the restaurant I ultimately settled on, they had a soccer match playing on about 10 TVs (maybe they hoped it would be more interesting on at least one of their sets). Just after I ordered, they seated this mildly crazy looking guy at the table next to me, which meant that he was seated pretty much right next to me. He spoke not a word of English, and appeared to be slurring his Spanish as he declined a menu and instead ordered an entire bottle of red wine and a small bucket of ice for himself. He appeared to have a fairly elaborate discussion with the waiter which I couldn’t follow, but the gist of it seemed to be the waiter trying to follow exactly what the guy wanted. After he got his wine, he would pour the wine into his glass, then add a few pieces of ice. Red wine and ice. That sounds completely normal. Signed, Socks on a Rooster. Sometime around when I was served my meal, the guy started talking to me a mile a minute. Although I protested “no hablo español” and “no entendio”, he kept on talking. He became more and more animated as I tried to insist I didn’t know what he was saying. I could only catch a tiny bit of what he was saying, but I think it was something along the lines of “why are you in Argentina if you can’t speak Spanish.” As visions of this guy being overtaken by the innate Soccer Fan urge to start a drunken riot began to come to mind, I began to feel that familiar "run for your life" instinct, and it looked like it was beginning to become a bad scene, so I ate quickly and got out. Soccer Fan, not unlike Raiders Fan or Drunken Aggie Fan, is not someone to be taken lightly. At a moment's notice, I could have been strung up outside the restaurant like Danny Glover in The Unforgiven. Or worse, tossed in some Puerto Madryn jail for the next 50 years. The last thing I needed was to try to explain to some Argentinian federal policeman that I, an American, was just minding my own business when this guy just totally unprovoked started the fight. I just didn’t see that developing into a great story. Red wine and ice. Figures. That was a real sign it was time to go home.

I’d planned to end the vacation blog series here, but the next day and the trip back home deserve some thoughts. In the past, I’ve made sure to spend my last night in the town from which I’ll be going back home. Most of the return flights have been at night, so by staying in the town the night before, I can have a relaxing day leading up to the night-time flight. This time, however, I had to beat it back to Trelew for a 12:11 p.m. flight back to Buenos Aires, catch a shuttle from the domestic airport to the international airport on the other side of town, then check in and catch a 10 hour flight leaving at 8:30 that night. That required me to get up around 7 on Monday morning and keep traveling until around 1 on Tuesday afternoon. I drove to Trelew (behind trucks and among pass-happy drivers), flew to Buenos Aires, got my bags, caught a shuttle bus to the international airport, had to wait til they started checking in passengers, then caught an 8:30 flight to Atlanta, had a four hour layover, then took a two hour flight to Austin (then a taxi back home). That was a really exhausting trip. At one point it seemed like I was going to have to take a burro or a yak or something to get home. Lesson learned, be in the city you're going to fly out of the night before you fly.

I sat next to a really cute little girl of about 7 or 8 and her dad on the flight from Trelew. She was paying close attention to me, but more to my ipod, and asking me about myself in broken English. I caught something of a break in Buenos Aires, as Delta had secured use of the American Express lounge next to my gate for business class passengers, which my wait a little easier. Then, a good news/bad news situation on the flight to Atlanta. Good news-a young flight attendant hit on me, asking me all about myself, complimenting me on my jacket, and saying I was too attractive to be a lawyer. (That constitutes hitting on someone, right?) Bad news-it was a guy. Just like Dr. John said, I was in the right place, but it must have been the wrong time. Eight year old girls and gays...something tells me I may need to adjust my attraction action. The flight attendant told the pilot I was from Austin, so the pilot came over and visited with me about Austin. He just moved there, and is running a real estate business on the side because Delta just screwed everyone out of their retirement. Whatever dude, you should see what they're charging for tickets-its not like you're the only one taking some.

Well I guess that's about it. I rank this trip ahead of my Canada trips, behind London and New Zealand. Buenos Aires is pretty dirty and disgusting, although it has some incredible architecture. The countryside is much more attractive, although its a little difficult and very expensive to get around. Not sure I would go back unless I was with someone who speaks good spanish.

Oh, and its still a little weird talking to people and everyone speaking english.

Day Sixteen: Can We Just Make All the Dirty, Smelly Euro Punk Kids Stay in their Hostels Until they Go Home?

Today I was introduced to the “youth hostel” concept, and what can I say except, it must be great if you like community showers, the smell of feet, and sleeping six to a room. In other words, if you like living in a dorm. At school, I lived with this guy in the dorm one year who would never leave the room. Ever. I’m not even sure he went to class. That made it difficult to…entertain. He also loved opera and would just loudly break out in song with no warning. Think of that, but instead of relatively intelligent kids going to school and trying to make something of themselves, replace them with (mostly) dirty, disgusting, unshaven punks with ratty hair, piercings, living out of a backpack and talking bad about the United States, and you’ve got yourself the beginnings of a great youth hostel my friend. Notice how there’s no such thing as a “non-youth hostel”? That’s because at a certain point, things like hygene start to matter.

How did I become such an expert on youth hostels? Because the bus company that makes the run to El Chaltén also owns the main youth hostel in town (yes, there is more than one in El Chaltén). So the drop off/pickup point is at the youth hostel, which means I got to spend a little up close and personal time with youth hostel resident. Holy Schnikees!

El Chaltén is the gravel road community that serves as the launching point for most of the northern portion of Los Glaciares National Park’s hiking trails. Primarily, these trails wind their way near and to two significant mountains: Cerro Torre and Cerro Fitz Roy. Both are massive bare granite spires dominating the surrounding mountains, looking as if though they were arrows fired from below ground, thrust into the sky. Each is surrounded by ice pack and other mountains. Like Perito Moreno Glacier, both are national symbols. They present a very difficult climbing challenge, and have attracted the most accomplished mountain climbers in the world to take a run at their summits. The town itself is basically nothing. Just a place to stay while you’re hiking in the park or for your “base camp,” or for those working in related hiking and mountaineering businesses. The town’s main occupation, however, seems to be “out of business.” The town has no bank or ATM, and the only halfway modern looking building was the police station. Most of the time I was there I could hear roosters crowing. It looks kind of like those towns Clint Eastwood would ride into in the Sergio Leone westerns, although you can at least drink the water and there are even a few cars.

The bus ride took about four hours, not the 2 ½ they advertised. It was largely full, mostly with the aforementioned kids. This included a more reputable-looking group of about six young Irish women. They were cutting up and having fun much the same as the Irish guys from yesterday’s glacier trip. I’d always heard the Irish weren’t so friendly, but maybe these folks seemed different because they were young and haven’t lived through any potato famines (an unfair jab, but Ireland’s economy has picked up considerably in the last decade or so, so I’m guessing the new generation hasn’t lived with or been worn down by the hardships previous generations suffered). Old coots generally aren’t that gregarious. The bus stops first at the park visitor center where an employee explains the park layout, trail conditions, and some of what you’ll see on each of the trails. He said about half the trails were either closed due to ice or they strongly recommended not taking them. Naturally, the main one I wanted to take fell into this category. He recommended an alternative of taking (actually finding and then taking) a taxi along a gravel road to a point north of town to a trailhead that would ultimately give a good view of Fitz Roy. That seemed like a waste, spending $50 on taxis just for a hike, so I decided that because the weather didn’t seem particularly cold I’d take my chances on the trail now that I’m a big snow hiking expert. After all, if he’s so damn smart, why’s he stuck in El Chaltén with a government job?

By the way, hey Argentina, enough with the gravel roads. There’s this new thing, called “concrete.” You should look into it. Tony Soprano can get some for you cheap. New Zealand is a really poor country, and I drove all over the most remote places, which means some of the most remote places anywhere, and didn’t see a single gravel road. At least join the 20th Century Argentina, particularly now that it’s the 21st.

The bus then proceeded to the lovely, mustard yellow colored youth hostel, which dropped everyone off at noon and from which we would leave at six. The Fitz Roy trail I selected led to Lake Capri, near the base of the mountain. It had some initial elevation which required me to hike uphill for a ways, but then leveled out. Midway through the hike it offered a great prospect, a more northern portion of the river running through town, as it flowed through a valley outside town. A couple of large rocky outcroppings and scrub and bush dominated the first part of the trail. The second area closer to the mountains became more wooded and snow covered. It had minimal ice until near the Fitz Roy “mirador” to which I was headed, and even then was easy to negotiate although it did cover the trail. The snow at Bariloche I described earlier was far more difficult to hike through. The mirador has Fitz Roy perfectly framed behind a tree clearing, and was a really peaceful spot-no trains, cars, planes, kids or skate punks whizzing by, or people talking (except for the voices in my head, which in addition to the usual ones urging me to kill, kill, also and oddly berate me for poor personal habits and a lack of punctuality). All I could hear were birds chirping and the breeze blowing. As I was eating some snacks I packed in, another hiker came along and tried to speak with me in Spanish. She knew absolutely no English, although we established she came from Spain and was headed for the lake further down the trail. Of course, she broke out her mate rig. I think I’ve written about this. What can I say except it looks like drinking ditch water?

After coming down the mountain, which today was not nearly so difficult, I walked back through the “town” to the park visitor’s center to hike the Los Condores trail in the remaining 2 ½ hours until the bus leaves. This is a shorter hike through a canyon, with some moderate inclines that initially give great views of both Cerro Torre and Fitz Roy, and at the end, a really impressive panoramic view of the other direction, including the valley below and mountains on three sides. Spanish signs along the trail (and the trail name itself) suggests that this is condor habitat, but unfortunately, I didn’t see any. On the way back, I saw a creek at which some horses were watering, that looked like a cross between a stock tank and a pond (“we’ve got a pool and a pond; a pond would be good for you.”).

The ride back was uneventful. My hoped for good sunset didn’t happen. We stopped at a place in the absolute middle of nowhere called La Leona, a road hotel, for the bus driver to take a break and the passengers to get coffee, use the restrooms, etc. We had made this stop on the way to El Chaltén as well. Its pretty much non-descript, except it claims that its been in business for more than 100 years, functioning originally as a place for sheep farmers to stay while making the lengthy river crossing with their herds. The only reason I even mention it is that the information said that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and the Kid’s wife Etta, stayed there for about a month once while on the run after a bank robbery. Apparently Butch had bought a ranch in western Argentina and lived there for a long time, before moving on to Bolivia. The movie skipped that part altogether.

We didn’t arrive back in town until close to 10. I stashed my backpack back at the hotel (two blocks off the main drag), got changed, and went looking for somewhere to eat dinner. As I returned to the main drag, I noticed most of the cars were honking—incessantly. No obvious reason suggested itself, until I realized it was Saturday night and maybe this was young people cruising. I haven’t seen cruising main street since I lived in Alexandria, Louisiana in 1991. In other words, since the last time I lived somewhere that had absolutely nothing to do at night. Obviously, its time to leave this place and go to my final stop on my Argentina 2008 Tour-Puerto Madryn.

Tomorrow-Going to Trelew and Puerto Madryn

Day Fifteen-Scotch on the Glacier Rocks

This will be quite long, but this was one of the most incredible days I’ve ever had so there’s a lot to describe. No I didn’t meet Justin Timberlake. Today I went on an organized tour of the Perito Moreno Glacier in Los Glaciares National Park, where we walked on the glacier itself for about an hour and a half. The photos on flickr turned out really well, but even they don’t do justice to the glacier’s incredible and powerful beauty. To avoid the longest post ever I’ll skip the usual clever life observations. Like, every hotel room in Argentina has a bidet. Really. What do they know that we don’t, or, are they put together differently from us?

Ok, moving on as promised.

The Perito Moreno Glacier is located near the southern end of the Patagonian Ice Field (third largest permanent ice pack in the world), which is located in the Andes on the Chile-Argentina border. The Field has numerous glaciers, many of which are much larger than Perito Moreno, but Perito Moreno is the most accessible and therefore the one most commonly visited. It’s an Argentina national symbol in the way the Yellowstone, or Graceland, symbolize the US. (I would urge anyone who disagrees on Graceland to please stop reading my blog and never return again).

There’s one and only one company that takes you out on the glacier itself, Hielo y Adventura. They apparently won the government concession some years ago and have held it since, and have developed the tour into a pretty efficient, informative, and fun experience. They offer two packages (three actually, but the third involves just a boat ride to the glacier’s edge). The first, which I took, involves a bus ride to the glacier from El Calafate (about an hour or so), an hour and a half at the park visitor center and viewing platforms (giving time for lunch), then a short bus ride to their boat landing where the boat takes you across the lake bordering the glacier (Lake Argentina, the largest lake in Argentina) very close to the glacier’s edge for better observation and photos. The boat lands at their “base camp,” where after a bit of down time you take a short hike to the glacier, then move on to the glacier itself after putting on “crampons” (metal spikes tied onto the soles of your boots) for about 90 minutes walking on the ice. Several guides lead the hiking and ice walking part, explaining the various formations you’re seeing, and helping you not to fall and die. After the hike, we returned to the camp, then back on the boat, and back home. The other package involves all of the above, but lasts about four hours on the ice and goes to more spots on the glacier, and thereby involves a more strenuous hiking experience. I was going to do that one, but it wasn’t being offered when I was going to be there, so I took the 90 minute version.

Once again, my Aussie stalkers follow me. We finally introduce ourselves; they’re Ian and Julia, who used to live in San Diego for about 15 years but recently moved back home. They opted for the trekking instead of the boat excursion. Erica is also there, as previously advertised. The “coach” style bus is quite full, and it seems I’m the most bundled person aboard. I’ve decided that the last thing I’m going to do is go to Argentina and get frostbite or worse on a glacier, so I’ve rented some long hiking pants and some very warm gloves to go with my Walter Sobchek vest, air force jacket, cargo shorts and layered short and long sleeve t-shirts. Ultimately, that level of bundling proved unnecessary as it was surprisingly not that cold on the glacier. But better not frostbitten than sorry, right? The bus trip goes through the “badlands” I described in the last post, and as it’s a somewhat cloudy day, that adds even more gloom to the barren landscape. As we approach the glacier itself, the land starts to transform into a thickening forest of relatively dead looking trees with a very light green circular bloom (check these on flickr). Its beginning to look like the Land of the Lost.

When the glacier first came into the bus’ view, I heard other people’s gasps (I don’t gasp. I just jump like a little girl when my poncho grazes my leg). I generally try to avoid using the word “amazing,” because there’s too many people who use that word too loosely, like parents who describe their three year olds as “amazing,” generally when they’re screaming in front of you smashing something while snot runs out their nose (that’s not amazing, that’s just a migraine headache). But I have to say, the glacier up close is truly one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. As we neared the glacier, a rainbow appeared running over its entire width. Unfortunately I never could get a decent picture as the bus was driving on a winding road and therefore moving from side to side (the rainbow was moving window to window). The glacier is much bigger than others I saw in New Zealand several years ago. It just obliterates a great deal of an entire lake, and later I’ll give some stats, but its at least 12 stories high. It gives off an unusual blue light, and the surrounding lake is that Miami Dolphins green I mentioned in my last post, only a bit milkier. Ice chunks that have fallen off the glacier are floating in the lake. Later I joke on the boat that we’re on the Titanic. No one laughs. Must have been a language translation thing. The side of the glacier that those on the viewing platforms see appears greatly striated and fractured. It would appear the same way on the back side while on the boat to the hiking camp. On top, the glacier looks peaked and crevised, resembling meringue, although it has a bluish tint. Every minute or so, it makes a loud creak like a rifle report, or a large branch breaking off a tree. Every couple of minutes or so, some of the ice breaks off into the lake, creating a much louder boom. Maybe every 10 minutes a relatively large section would crack off, creating a tremendously loud noise and a big wave as the ice plunges into the lake. I captured the tail end of a couple of these on some video I uploaded to flickr. The glacier also seemed to have a lot of dirt on top, which seemed odd, but the guides explained that the region has great winds (on the Chilean side of the mountains), which blow dirt onto the glacier.

By the way, at the viewing platforms, I ran into Yankee Fan. Some obnoxious looking guy with a Yankees knit cap. You know, is there anywhere in the world I can go to get away from these people? I’m already damn near in Antarctica, I mean, what’s next, space? As Khan said about Captain Kirk in Star Trek II, “he tasks me…he tasks me.” Yankee Fan rivals Raiders Fan and Cowboys Fan for the title of most insufferable fan. Complaining after the first game of the season that the Devil Rays are ahead of them in the standings. Furious that some high priced free agent or another went to a different team. Saying the announcement of Roger Clemens’ mid-season signing last year was the greatest event in Yankee Stadium history. Thinking every year they should win the championship just because they have the most money, which they only have because major league’s moronic revenue strategy lets local teams keep their broadcast revenues. Are they playing themselves every night? No, they’re playing another team, so all the teams should share the broadcast revenues, just like the NFL. Yankee Fan and Yankee Owner are so deluded and myopic as to think the league should let them win the championship every year just because they’re the Yankees. When Hank Steinbrenner complains that the Devil Rays and Red Sox are stealing their championship, he’s not kidding. He and his idiotic fans think that because they’re the Yankees and generate the most money, they should be allowed to win the championship every year, by default if needed. A sports league isn’t like a car dealership though Hank. Its not like whoever has the most sales gets the highest bonus. Whining, crying Yankees Fan. You’re going home in October, and Boston and Tampa Bay (at about a tenth of your payroll) aren’t. How does that taste? Now, I’m wearing my Texas Football hat, but that’s totally different. I know our Athletic Director once said, “we don’t keep up with the Joneses. We are the Joneses.” You might think that’s a bit much for a program that’s won only four national championship in 50 years, and has developed a recent reputation as Kings of the Holiday Bowl (or to be more accurate, Oklahoma’s Bitch). But we’ve got nothing on Yankee Fan. Hell, Texas Tech Fan, tearing down goal posts every weekend and running trash talk their defense and special teams can’t possibly back up can be much more obnoxious than Texas Fan.

Let me get back on track here.

I wound up taking dozens of pictures, but as I said it was simply such an incredible sight I wanted to capture as many angles and sights as I could. There was a slight drizzle so I was also worried about a rainout. As our time at the park facility wound down, I noticed tons of people pouring in on tour bus after tour bus. The national parks here discriminate; can’t remember if I’ve written about that. Locals get a discount, nationals get a slight discount, and foreigners pay the full fare. I’m sure that’s a sweetener to get the voting public to accept spending money on tourist attractions like this, and if you think about it, a lot of cities do something like that to finance stadiums and convention centers (putting taxes on hotels, taxis, and other tourist activities designed to shift most of the costs onto people who don’t live in that city). But at what amounts to $13 in US currency, with a discount if you come back the next day, its still a bargain. Oh, and they stole our dollar sign ($) to use with their peso. Randy Newman said, “South America stole our name.” Now they’ve stolen our dollar sign. Maybe they could steal Wandy Rodriguez and J.R. Towles and do us some real good.

Now here’s some fast facts I tried to jot down as the guide was quickly going through them. Probably not totally accurate, but not too far off. The glacier is basically snow compacted over the years into ice, which has to go somewhere when new snow occurs, so it gets pushed down the mountain (or gravity pulls it down, like my face) into the valley below. The glacier actually is in contact with the lake bottom, and in Perito Moreno’s case is advancing (most glaciers are receding), helped along by “glacier milk,” a mixture of sediment, ice and water that enables the glacier to slide along the lake bottom. The glacier expands and contracts, based on ice melt rate and additional snow levels replacing the ice that has melted. The guides said it snows 300 days out of the year on the other side of the Andes with the ice pack that creates the glacier (although it seldom snows in the actual national park), so that contributes to Perito Moreno’s expansion. Part of the glacier, the “ablation zone” closer to the sides, will melt a little faster based on being closer to the surrounding mountains and in more direct sunlight (and being not as thick and dense). Perito Moreno is actually arrowhead shaped, with the middle being a further distance into the lake than the sides. Now this is kind of cool-the glacier is always close to a point near the lakeshore where when it expands it actually cuts the lake in two, creating a glacier dam. Water pressure on either side of the glacier dam, however, eventually creates a crevice, then a crack, then holes in the dam, and eventually blows the thing wide open. That’s what happened in June, and what Ian and Julia were saying made the news. The guides said this happened in 1988, then not again til 2004, then repeated in 2006, and now in summer (their winter) 2008. Although the glacier itself is over 1,000 years old, the ice in the glacier now is about 300-400 years old. It advances 1-3 meters per day, and is one of the few glaciers “in balance,” meaning it adds as much new ice as melts away from it. Its 40-60 meters high, or 12-14 stories, and 120 meters deep (meaning its much deeper below the lake level than above it).

Once the Bill Nye Science Guy lecture concluded, we set out for the glacier, stopping first to put on the unfortunately worded “crampons.” I noticed this group of about four young Irish guys cutting up, who were pretty funny. They were with a pretty girl who appeared to be their age, but who interestingly seemed to function as the mom (hectoring them into following the guides’ instructions, to move along, to quiet down, etc.). We had people from Russia, Mexico, the US, Argentina, Italy, Germany, England…this really illustrates that this is a world destination.

The surface was about the consistency of ice chips, but when you step on it, its more solid than this would suggest. Some parts have standing water and look like there’s a lot of water underneath, and you think you’re going to break through but you don’t (although the guides explained that sink holes do occur in the ablation zone). The guides showed us a sink hole, as well as numerous crevices, caves, lagoons, and other features and formations. I photographed everything they pointed out. At certain points they had to cut steps into the glacier for us to ascend/descend an incline. The scene is really difficult to describe; you have to see the pictures. Other than being able to see the mountains on either side and the lake below, you’d think you were on the moon. The mountains, by the way, formed a canyon around the lake with one impressive waterfall and a number of really large condors flying around the glacier. Even though it wasn’t particularly a sunny day, the glare almost blew my eyes out when I momentarily took off my sunglasses. Visibility would have been really poor, and painful, without sunglasses. The blue ice I mentioned earlier, along with the incredible deep blue color of the water in the collected lagoons, arises from the ice’s density and the water’s purity. Ice generally is white because it is not in its densest form, therefore it reflects all colors of light. In the extremely dense and pure glacier state, however, it reflects only the blue light, thereby giving the glacier its blue tint. The water’s brilliant blue color owes to the water purity and the color of the underlying ice.

Along the surrounding canyon walls, you can see where the glacier had previously ground into the lake shore. The west canyon wall had a pretty sizable waterfall, and the lake and glacier are home to a number of condors, which were flying around during our visit (no doubt expecting my death by glacier).

At the end of our time on the glacier, the guides took us to tables set up, on the glacier, with glasses and bottles of scotch (cheap scotch, with something like “grouse” in the name, but hey, would you expect some 30-year-old single malt?). They chipped some ice off the glacier walls and filled the glasses with glacier ice and scotch, and handed out scotches and a chocolate/dulce de leche candy to everyone. Normally of course I would have declined, but when will I ever get a chance to have a scotch, on a glacier, with ice from said glacier? So joined in. Lawyer Chris wondered about the insurance and liability implications of getting your customers loaded while out on a glacier. That’s a clear safety hazard.

Coming home from the glacier, Erica told me an absolutely unbelievable story that I’ll close with. She and her sister were not only in Manhattan on September 11, 2001, they were scheduled to tour two different attractions that morning. The first was the Statue of Liberty, the other was the World Trade Center. They had the choice of which to do first, and chose to start with the Statue of Liberty. They were in the subway near the 14th Street station when the subways stopped running. They had to walk a short distance along the track to reach the platform, having no idea what was going on or what they’d find when they walked outside. Had they decided to see the WTC first that day, they might have been inside when the attacks happened, or at least in the vicinity. I told her God was watching over her and her sister that day. She related how her mother was frantic because she didn’t know whether her daughters were safe (phone connections with Manhattan were kind of sketchy most of that day, as I recall), and hadn’t wanted them to go on that trip in the first place. They were stranded in Manhattan for about a week while flights were grounded, before they could fly back to Mexico City. They tried to go to Canada to get a flight, but the borders were closed (I didn’t remember about that part).

Tomorrow-on to El Chatén for hiking near Cerro Torre and Mount Fitz Roy, and hostels that smell like feet (that’s kind of a redundancy)

Day Fourteen-To the Ends of the Earth

Today is mostly a travel day, going from Bariloche to El Calafate, in the Andes near the southern border with Chile. El Calafate is getting close to Tierra Del Fuego, the Cape Horn, and Antarctica, so I’m pretty petrified of possible cold weather.

Final report on the mysterious American couple. I made it to breakfast a little late because I was finishing my packing, but saw the woman walking down the hall from the rooms with the man immediately behind her. They therefore are at least sharing a room. She was wearing an “LAN” ID badge. LAN is the other big airline that flies South American routes, so she’s probably based somewhere in South America or is a flight attendant or crew (although as I will explain in an upcoming post, the sad fact is she’s probably not hot enough to be a flight attendant down here). So, my refined guess is the guy is an American businessman of some sort, and she’s the little chippie on the side that he’s had down here for many years. Business probably takes him down here every so often, so when it does he just calls up his LAN woman and arranges another of their little get togethers. Neither the poor wife back home nor her four unimaginative punk kids have any clue that their otherwise anesthetizingly bland dad has himself a hot tamale south of Rio. Poor ignorant bastards.

Today’s yet another beautiful day in ski country, clear and cool. I spent most of the morning before my flight running tedious errands, like cashing traveler’s checks and looking for some sunglasses that won’t cost an entire day’s travel budget but also won’t fall apart the day I buy them. I found something that fit the bill, although they have the extremely unfortunate quality of making me look like Euro trash. Give me a scarf and a cigarette, like the Argentina national soccer team coach I saw on TV the other night, and I could be Rodolfo Laspieri just in from Palermo. They’ve played two consecutive 1-1 ties this last week, in what I finally determined were World Cup qualifying matches. Nothing like 90 minutes of gripping 1-1 tied soccer action. Knowing Soccer Fan, this guy’s going to have more to worry about than someone putting “for sale” signs in his yard like SEC Fan puts in his team’s coach’s yard when his team loses two games. This guy might get lynched. Oh, and nice outfit. Nothing like the coach of your national team looking like a Milan taxi driver. I can’t remember ever seeing Tom Landry or Don Shula rocking the scarf look on the sidelines. Nice going, rioters and injury fakers. One more way that passion for soccer shows that they have the inferior civilization.

At the Bariloche airport I see a woman who appears to be in her late 30s sitting on a bench near the departures gate that has her ankle in a cast and is wearing crutches. See, this is why I refuse to go skiing. I can’t even walk outside my back door anymore without spraining my ankle (as occurred about a month ago). If I go skiing I’m liable to have some sort of Daunta Robinson blown-out ACL/shear the hamstring tendon off the bone type injury. Seems like every time I turn around, I hear about someone coming back skiing with some gruesome sort of injury. The other thing is, if you blow out a knee or shoulder or something along those lines, its not like Dr. James Andrews is there to do the surgery. You can have breaks or tears bad enough to prevent you from traveling; or if your ticket doesn’t have you going back for awhile in the future, you could either get stuck with some huge change fee to go back earlier, or not be able to catch an earlier flight at all while your ankle or knee is set wrong by some Bariloche medic who’s last gig was at the Castle Anthrax. (Well, that might not be so bad).

The flight down to El Calafate had some spectacular scenery. I took a few photos while on the plane. We flew over something called the Patagonian Ice Field. This basically is an expanse of glacier and permanent ice that covers large portions of the southern Andes. The Perito Moreno glacier that I’ll see tomorrow is part of this Ice Field. I’ll also see parts of it on my trip up to El Chatén two days from now.

In the shuttle van leaving the El Calafate airport, I met a woman from Mexico City named Erica, who spoke English and who had done some research about tours that take you onto the Perito Moreno glacier itself. Without tour guides you’re limited to just going to the viewing areas near the glacier’s edge. These outings still provide beautiful scenery, but being on top of a glacier is completely different as I would find (see post for the next day). I also met an Australian couple in the van; we both noticed that we had seen each other and stayed in the same hotels in both Iguazú and in Bariloche. We visited about our respective travels so far. They had been in Brazil for about a week before arriving in Argentina, then came across the border at Iguazú, then went to Bariloche and now were headed to El Calafate and later Trelew/Peninsula Valdez just like me, and taking the same flights (going at the same times). I warned them to stop stalking me, but would see them again (and Erica) when I booked the glacier tour that night, and on the glacier trip the next day. They said they saw in the news in Australia that a big chunk of the glacier had just fallen off. I hadn’t seen anything like that in the US news, but then again, what with my busy schedule of putting together Continental Club outings and hiding from neighbors and unjustly angry ex-girlfriends, there’s a lot that I don’t hear about.

Interestingly, the Aussies told me that a friend of theirs had been in Iguazú the day before I/we had arrived. The friend said it was 100 degrees that day. They also said the day we went to the falls it was 5 celcius, which is about 41 degrees Fahrenheit. That means in three days time it went from burning hot to miserable cold. Sounds just like Houston.

With the possible exception of the main street, El Calafate is, shall we say, the road from Wichita Falls to Fort Worth without the charm. All around the outskirts of El Calafate are houses and hotels on dirt roads out in the scrub. Your used plastic grocery bags apparently go here to die, like old elephants. The brush is covered with them and other trash. There’s no “yards” to speak of, only dirt with scattered brush and trash. This place makes Baytown look like the Emerald City. The inner city, also known as the main drag, is possibly a little different. Its paved and has several different stores.

In addition to booking the glacier tour, I also rounded up some groceries (the store doesn’t give you a sack of any kind for your groceries, just a box, so I guess they’re not responsible for the conditions in the outback) and booked a bus up to El Chaltén, reputedly 2 ½ hours north of El Calafate and close to the famous Mount Fitz Roy and Mount Torre. El Chaltén is supposed to have some of the world’s best hiking trails, running through the northern part of the Los Glaciares national park.

Thought in closing I’d recap the scene of where I’m finishing my notes for this post. I’m in a small Italian restaurant on the main street of a town on the Chilean border closer to Antarctica than Buenos Aires, eating a surprisingly good shellfish stew (along with some savory mystery mollusk), as their music system plays reggae versions of classic rock hits like Stairway to Heaven and Sympathy for the Devil. You can’t get much farther out than this (except to Tierra del Fuego, which I have decided to bypass in the interest of not freezing to death). At least for two or three weeks a year, I can lead an interesting life. The rest of the time…pretty much not that interesting. I would use other adjectives.

Tomorrow-Perito Moreno Glacier

Day Thirteen-On the Road Again

One of the great pre-$4.00 gas pleasures in life was getting out on the open road, especially in a convertible. America is such a big country, and the automobile has so transformed our lifestyles, that the two were made for one another. Your car is more than just a way to get from point A to B, in many cases it defines your personality for others. How many songs and stories have mythologized getting out on the open road? This is one of the last true freedoms we have.

Or, I had nothing better to do today so I thought I´d drive.

So I spent the day driving up to San Martin de los Andes, a smaller ski town north of Barioche, purportedly much nicer than Bariloche.

The morning was all about fits and starts. The hotel internet wouldn´t work so I couldn´t check e-mail, I forgot my camera, forgot my map, blah, blah, blah. So I didn´t actually get out of town until around 11:30, far too late to make it both to San Martin, and to Villa La Angostura as I originally planned.

Breakfast mystery couple update: he asked her if she wanted to meet him in Costa Rica because its so very beautiful there, and she unflinchingly said yes, as casually as if she were saying yes she does want cream with her coffee. (I´m sure that last phrase is part of a dirty joke, and if not, it should be). Costa Rica, I think, is a big honeymoon destination. Of course, my buddy Scott from law school went there on his honeymoon and they were divorced within five years. I´m just sayin´. Anyway, I figure all the non-chalance is for my benefit. These two look really sophisticated, so they probably want to keep up the act, even in as remote a place as Bariloche. Asking her to go to Costa Rica in front of me probably was a slip; she recovered nicely with such a calm answer, as if though they might just be ¨friends¨ after all. I think not. You people aren´t fooling anyone except yourselves.

OK, as previously mentioned I hit the road around 11:30, and its a great day to drive. In fact, its just a little bit chilly, probably around 60-64 degrees, without many clouds. You first have to go east around Lake Nahuel Huapi, then turn north, and I had planned to head directly northwest at Confluencia directly to San Martin, then south to Angostura before heading east again to Confluencia and home. Unfortunately, the roads after Confluencia were gravel roads, with lots of ruddy pits, making travel above 30 mph very difficult. I quickly saw that this was going to get me there sometime late next week, so I instead took the ¨long way,¨which is a lot further north on the paved road, then a direct turn west into the small town of Junin de los Andes, then turning south to San Martin.

Stupidly, I left town with only about 5/8 ths tank of gas. After I realized how long the trip would be I began to become absolutely paranoid about running out of gas. This wasn´t IH-35 with a gas station every two miles. There wasn´t a single building, much less gas station, for incredible distances on this two-lane highway. On the other hand, there wasn´t a single billboard. The VW hatchback I rented is much more miserly with gas than the M3 back home, so it turned out I used only 1/3 tank to get there, and still had plenty of gas when I made it to Junin de los Andes. The problems were that I thought the gravel road would be more passable, and that the distance wasn´t as long as it turned out to be. It must have taken about 3 1/2 hours to get to San Martin, even at open highway speeds. I did slow down or stop to take lots of photos, but the problem primarily was the distance. Now, it was through incredible scenery. The route takes you past the Miami Dolphins-color aqua blue Rio Limay, out of the snow covered mountains and into high "estancia¨ brush covered hill country, and finally back into snowy, forested mountains.

Among the highlights you can see in the photos is a natural "amphitheatre" at an extreme river bend, a short way into the drive. This created a sort of canyon, resembling a natural amphitheatre. Other highlights included the incredible blue water of Rio Limay, some of the great scenes along the river near sunset, and the town of San Martin.

Junin de los Andes is a fairly non-descript town that looks like a bunch of Pasadena welders spent their life savings to build their dream town. Its the kind of place that if they had more money, they´d have more appliances to put in their front yards and Trans-Ams to put up on blocks (´cause its gonna be worth a lot some day). Hell, there´s not even a Dairy Queen (thereby ruling out the town´s Pasadena ancestry). Interestingly, there´s an army base just on the outskirts of town. Those guys must love that post, probably as much as the guys stationed in Iguazu. What are they protecting against, hordes of Bolivians swarming across the boarder disguised as Alabama fly fishermen looking to bring down the big trout? Its truly scandalous that the IMF and World Bank ever made such huge loans to third world countries with big standing armies whose economic growth suffers for such misplaced central government budgetary priorities without getting strict commitments to rein in military spending.

Nearby San Martin, however, is a real jewel. It reflects a noticeable German and Swiss architectural style. Buildings are made of stone or maple-colored wood. Very little masonry. Some look like they could be gingerbread houses. Its as though the St. Pauli Beer girl and Eva Braun should be greeting me with flowers, beer, and fruit while Der Valkyrie plays in the backgroud. I read that the town has enacted strict Nantucket-like ordinances regulating building appearances and locations, and has thereby managed to avoid the overgrowth and crowding prevalent in Bariloche. Where Bariloche is frantic and congested, San Martin is quiet and sedate. The place isn´t overrun with obnoxious eurotrash types or kids. "Crowds" are slim, although there´s plenty of people on the streets given that I arrived at 2:30 during the siesta. Have I explained that outside Buenos Aires, the shops almost all observe the 2-5 siesta. They typically reopen until around 9, then obviously have their late dinner. Personally, I´d rather work through the day and have my night free, but I gather the siesta originated as a response to high afternoon heat in Spanish lands where it originated. So perhaps San Martin seemed slow due to the siesta, but I doubt it.

Despite the incredible number of lakes, and their tremendous size, I thought it was odd that I haven´t seen one sailboat since arriving here. Where´s the Flying WASP on such a beautiful afternoon?

A few observations about highway driving here. Signs and laws are obviously optional. "No passing zone"? No problem! They´ll pass you anyway. Also, that includes speed limits. The fact that so much space exists between towns on the highways contributes to there being few "highway patrol," and therefore little incentive to drive posted speeds (other than safety, although driving the posted speed limit can actually be hazardous with so many cars, buses, and trucks trying to pass you on narrow two-lane roads. I felt very reluctant to drive over the speed limit. As many of you know, I seldom drive too much faster than the limit anyway, but I figured if I get pulled over, its the leg irons and cattle prod for me because there´s no way I´m going to be able to explain what I was doing or, more importantly, that I´m really not a big "bandido Yanqui" drug dealer. I also noticed that before and leaving every town, there´s a police checkpoint. They don´t routinely stop people, but the cop does take a good look at every driver, and in what surely infuriates "probable cause" groupies everywhere, I´m sure they pull over people that don´t look right and give them a good rodgering before deciding what to do with them. Finally, you know those little shrines that people put on the side of the road that normally show where a loved one died (in a car crash)? They´ve got those here, in much greater numbers than in the States, and they´re also much more elaborate. Not necessarily nicer, just more elaborate. Note to my future executor-if I die in a car crash, please do not build a shrine at said site. Please focus energies instead on putting a huge picture of me on the Humble, Texas water tower. That´ll show ´em who´s the man.

That night, walking back from Bariloche and dinner, I saw a little stationery store with a handmade sign in the front window with hand-drawn flowers on it, that said "11 de Septiembre. Feliz dia seña." I´m not sure of the translation, but I´m pretty sure of the feelings behind it. I reflected that not everyone in the world hates the United States, as the sign lifted my spirits just a little bit in this strange land.

Tomorrow-on to El Calafate (with clean underwear)

Day Twelve-Coming Down the Mountain Is the Problem

Now back to the usual fun and games.

I'm suffering through an appalling torture as I finish this post. Something that I think the Geneva Convention has long banned. I'm in a cafe that insists on playing the new Rod Stewart standards album...the entire album. You know, the one where he sings all the old standards. I shudder even to describe it. This guy is the John Daly of rock and roll. He has one of the greatest voices of all time, but has pissed it away on every passing trend just to push more product. Does he actually have a personal style, or does he just call his agent whenever its time to make the next record and ask for the latest new hit? This scarf-wearing, soccer team owning, blonde model chasing, skank daughter having little sprite (coming in at like 5' 3", this guy could play Sneezy at Euro-Disney if times got really rough) needs to hang 'em up and spend the rest of his life apologizing to Jeff Beck and Ronnie Lane (well, and us too) for squandering such an incredibly gifted voice. Do Ya Think I'm Sexy? Uh...next! Oh, and they just turned the TVs to that menace to society-a soccer game. Time to go.

Now back to our story. This day is about hiking in the Nahuel Huapi National Park. This is near the Bariloche ski area. I made it to a trail near Cerro Cathedral, and then out to the Llao Llao peninsula before calling it a day.

It started out as another day, another Argentinian morning carbo loading session. Triple the intake and this is what it must be like to eat like Michael Phelps. Its starts out raining this morning, but the clouds begin to break around 9 or so, and since the forecast is for rain tomorrow I decide today should be my hiking day.

At breakfast I met a mysterious American couple in their mid-50s, all suited up for skiing. The woman obviously was familiar with Argentina and spoke fluent Spanish. The man, who was partially visually impaired, didn’t speak a word of Spanish. The woman was helping him navigate around the breakfast table and explaining what surrounded him. They never exchanged any affections, but appeared to be close. They explained that she was from Hawaii, while he was from Denver. They met up here by previous arrangement, i.e. they don’t live in the same town. We engage in some chit chat over our respective plans, what we’ve seen in Argentina so far, etc. What is their story? I got the distinct impression that they have traveled together before. Didn’t see any wedding rings. I fixate on this for a couple of hours after breakfast, but of course its far better and more interesting to decide for myself what their deal is than to actually ask them. Mainly because the real story is probably incredibly pedestrian. I decide that they are both married, but not to each other, and they go to far-flung places like Bariloche, Argentina to carry on their affair, thereby reducing the risk of discovery. Each probably gives their respective spouse some business related reason why they have to travel. They can’t possibly be just friends. Maybe in retrospect I should have tried to see if they were in separate rooms. You see, the gift I have that most people don't is I understand you have to focus on important things, like making up lurid stories about complete strangers, rather than the mundane things, like what you have to do today.

After wasting time looking for bottled water and energy bars (which I have yet to find anywhere in Argentina; another sign of American world cultural dominance, plus, we don't like soccer), I head west in my rented car to the longer of the two trails the Park staffer recommended yesterday. This trail runs to the Frey shelter (this park has numerous "shelters" along various trails, offering food and water and a bunk for multi-day hikers), going between Cerro Cathedral and Lake Gutierrez. The park service map I’m using shows only one turnoff from the main road; naturally it fails to show several more, each of which looks like it might be "the turn." I impress myself byonly making one wrong turn, which I correct rather quickly. The road eventually becomes pitted gravel, running past a number of expensive looking homes with snow still covering their yards and houses. Not a good sign, although the roads are at least clear. The “guardparque” was at the road's end, and the trailhead just across the way.

The Park assistant billed the trail as a four hour roundtrip hike, which was basically how long it took . It runs between two lines of mountains, and is in the middle of a valley with several creeks running through the bottomland. Very shortly in, snow covers the trail, which means for the first time in my life, I’ll be largely trudging through snow…both ways…up to my knees in some places…getting into my boots and creating sloshing water as it melts. Very nice. Well, I guess if I'm going to be known for having cold feet, it might as well be true. As it turned out, the snow was relatively packed down over the first part of the trail, so it didn't affect hiking too much. Later on, it was still powder, which resulted in lots of snow up to the knees events.

Shortly after entering the trail proper I detoured to the “mirador,” which I correctly guess means a scenic viewpoint. The short hike to the mirador nonetheless covered the most pronounced inclined part of the hike. It wasn’t terribly difficult trudging up that mountain, although the snow was slippery in many places. The view at the mirador was really great, giving mountaintop panoramic views on three sides. As previously billed, however, the trick was coming back down the mountain. It was very difficult keeping my footing while going down such a steep incline on snow. I took at least four spills, and grabbed for tree branches to prevent several other falls. Happily, I don’t think I injured anything, just had a few scrapes on the back of my calves, for some odd reason.

After leaving the mirador area, I resumed the hike proper (“we’re just about to begin the robbery proper”). It wasn’t too terribly steep, so there weren’t tons of difficult grades (no switchbacks, thankfully), but there was snow covering the trail. The snow became deeper, and less packed, as the hike wore on. Adding to the difficulty is that the trail had begun to become a very muddy creek with snow runoff. So I had to choose trudging through the snow or the mud. The terrain probably would have been difficult without the snow. The trail appeared to run through a great deal of bushes, and probably was not that well marked given the number of snow covered bushes I seemed to step on. Yet, the trail offered incredibly close views of several peaks on either side. Check out the photos, which don’t do it justice. The good thing about the snow is that it allowed me to see footprints of previous hikers, thereby providing a better marker than the park likely provided. Also, I tried to walk in the footprints because it gave better footing.

Did I mention that three dogs followed me the whole way? An “autocamping” spot is located next to the guardparque, and these dogs were running around the autocamp when I got out of my car and started the hike. I think were two german shepherds and a mutt, and they ran out of the autocamp and started following me. Actually most of the time they were out in front of me, as if though they were Lassie trying to show Timmy the way back to safety after he got lost in the woods. So, the dogs were leading the way most of the time, as if they were guide dogs. A couple of times when I took a wrong turn, they didn’t go with me, thereby alerting me that I was headed the wrong way. It was kind of annoying at first having them along, but after awhile I realized that they would bark if they saw anything unusual, so that was a good thing. For example, they started barking pretty viciously at some wild horses that were watering at a creek about 30 yards off the main trail, which I would never have seen if not for the barking. I slowly walked off the trail through knee-deep fresh snow, and got fairly close to the horses. The photos weren’t that good because bushes obscured my view.

After that hike, I got back in my car and continued driving west to the Llao Peninsula. This is some land that juts out into Lake Nahuel Huapi, containing outstanding views and incredibly expensive real estate. The area contains the Llao Llao resort, the kind of place where Brangelina or Bill Gates might stay if they came to the area. In other words, away from the riff-raff, which explains why I didn’t get to take many photos of it. Just one really long-range shot, like a stalker might take. You have to go through a guard house to gain entrance; not the most welcoming place, I’d say. The Park staffer also recommended what he called a two hour hike, starting at the tram site just before the turn to Llao Llao, and winding in a loop on and along the entire peninsula. Unfortunately, it was on the main road in the area, which meant there were a lot of cars and buses going by. Also, it took two hours just to make it to the first “mirador”; the entire hike would easily have been closer to four or five hours. True, the mirador did offer an incredible view of the resort and peninsula, and the scenery, especially where the road crossed the river leading into the lake, but the whole point of a hike is to get away from the noise, exhaust, and traffic, not to get into it in person.

Driving around the countryside today, I saw more hitchhikers, mainly looking like they were trying to get out to the lifts. I guess no one’s seen There’s Something About Mary.

I came home just as darkness was falling (around 6:45). After peeling off my wet clothes and arranging with the hosteria to have all my dirty clothes washed before leaving for El Calafate, I headed to Juaja “parilla” at the desk clerk’s recommendation. A “parilla” is sort of like a steakhouse, only they cook their meats over an open pit, as previously discussed. I had “bife de chorizo,” or sirloin steak, and grilled vegetables. By the way, it’s a real challenge to find a place that even serves vegetables. Usually you get your main course, along with potatoes that could be served in any variety of ways, a big bread basket, and mineral water (or wine). Not big on produce here. And, one of the vegetables in the ¨grilled vegetables¨serving was a potato. Also, they included pumpkin. I’ve learned that the Argentinans eat a good bit of pumpkin, which tasted sort of bland. Turns out it’s a little different when its not in a pie at Thanksgiving with whipped cream on top of it. The steak was pretty good-kind of so-so actually. I’ve had better steaks I bought from Central Market and grilled myself. Too much fat in this one, I’d say, although I’ve been told that’s how Argentinians (or is it Argentines?) eat their beef.

Tomorrow-driving to San Martin de los Andes

Hurricane Ike

I wanted to interrupt the travel blogging to let friends and family in Houston and Galveston know that I´m following the storm as best I can, and will be there with you in thoughts and prayers later tonight when I understand Ike is supposed to make landfall. Lets all pray that it makes a last minute detour like Gustav did for New Orleans.

My Dad has volunteered to go with Dr. Dearing Garner´s group, CERI, to assist with South Texas storm refugees. At least that´s what the e'mail he sent us said. I assume he made it. So he´ll be out of harm´s way.

Not sure but I imagine Steve is staying in town to assist with phone recovery efforts. Please remember him and his family too.

Back to the travel blog soon.

Day Eleven-Headed to German Ski Country

How popular is smoking here? At the Salta airport, I saw a woman sitting right under a “no fumando” sign smoking. And there was an ashtray under the sign as well. Everywhere around, people ignore rules and signs, like “go” and “stop” or “no smoking” or “no passing.” After awhile, you start to miss people following rules, like the five times I've almost been run over since I've been here. This is definitely the opposite of England in that respect.

This was mostly a travel day, so there’s not much here other than my introduction to Bariloche.

Leaving Salta was a bit difficult, as flights were again delayed all over the country, this time due to Buenos Aires air traffic control. But my flight to Bariloche wasn’t terribly delayed in the end. Its another crystal clear day, and a bit cooler than in Salta. Snow is ominously piled up at the airport near the gate and edges of the runways.

Bariloche is basically a ski resort in Argentina’s “Lake District,” an area in the middle of the western border, close to the Andes and surrounded by seven mountain lakes. Bariloche is located on the south shore of Lake Naheul Huapi. Surrounding it for a huge expanse is Nahuel Huapi National Park, the first national park in Argentina, and other ski communities such as San Martin de los Andes and Villa La Angustura. Its only about 100 years old, relatively new for Argentina, and also noticeably larger than other ski towns I’ve visited. It was settled originally by Germans and other central Europeans. Although it hasn’t exactly succumbed to outright tourist trap-ism, its choked with traffic and people, and has a sort of “nothing special” feel to it. There’s not much in the way of interesting architecture, and the main streets are filled with relatively downscale (for a ski resort) shops and restaurants. It does have a slight European feel to it. The views of the lake and mountains to the north are compelling, however, and the air has that clean, crisp mountain feel. A welcome change from the still-resonating Buenos Aires air.

The town seems to be filled with kids, teenagers and early to mid-20 year olds, staying in hostels and rolling around in packs of 5-10 at a time. They appear to spend all day skiing, and all night out. I was behind three girls in the supermarket check out line, obviously only a few days older than the legal drinking age of 18, stocking up on their week’s worth of booze (or night’s worth). No, I did not introduce myself or follow them, thank you. Give me credit for some class.

The other thing filling the town is chocolate. I’ve never seen so many chocolate stores in one place in my life. There’s even a Museo de Chocolate on the north side of town, which actually makes chocolate. Nearly all these chocolate stores have been filled every time I’ve been walking around the town. And they stay filled until late in the night, as many have small attached cafés.

I’m staying at a small family-owned “hosteria,” which is like a glorified motel. Its perfect, with a cheap rate, nice room, in-room internet access, etc. Walking around that evening, I stop in the local “cathedral,” which is on the lake shore. Its also new by Argentina standards, but has elements of Catholic church architecture from other parts of the country, including the Renaissance style domed interior ceiling. Also stopped in the National Park headquarters to get hiking information from the allergy-riddled, non-english speaking desk attendant. That was fun. I had dinner in a small but excellent restaurant, Santos, located in an old house. The owner kept visiting with everyone in the place, including me, particularly when there was a brief power outage and he was lighting candles everywhere. I had an outstanding meal of trout almandine (which rivaled even Galatoire’s) and potatoes with spinach. I’ve noticed in staying here that potatoes are a very big menu item, which must come from the town’s German origins. At the table next to me was a couple from Colorado. The guy is working in town for six months, and unfortunately sounded exactly like Michael Murphy from the Woody Allen movie Manhattan.

Neither the restaurant nor my hotel take credit cards. I've begun to notice that lots of merchants don't either, and those that do often have a "minimum charge" that the credit card companies officially prohibit but in practice do nothing to enforce. Not exactly sure why there's such widespread non-acceptance of credit cards. I'm sympathetic though-the credit card companies make money hand over fist. They charge the merchant a fee for every transaction, and make tons of money off the users in late fees and interest. So I'm all for sticking it to them, but it makes it incredibly inconvenient to have to carry cash, particularly in a foreign country. I think the real reason is that merchants don't want a paper trail documenting their revenue. You may be shocked to learn that some bar and restaurant owners don't exactly scrupulously report every cent they earn to the taxing authorities. See what failing to enforce little laws leads to? Coca leaves and tax fraud.

Tomorrow-hiking in Nahuel Huapi National Park and Llao Llao Peninsula

Day Ten-El Tren a las Nubes

All of today was spent on a train headed into the mountains northwest of Salta. We left at 7 a.m., and returned after midnight. In between was some of the greatest desert/mountain scenery imaginable.

I woke up after three hours’ sleep, turning on TV to create enough noise to keep me awake. Unfortunately, Field of Dreams is on and its near the end. This really gets to me, as I start thinking about Mom, just as Kevin Costner gets to see his long-deceased dad. Not off to the best start.

As I walk the 11 blocks to the station at 6 a.m., I see dozens of people walking the other way, leaving the bars and clubs. Once again I’m possessed with smug self-satisfaction, tempered by the fact that I would certainly have been in bed another four hours if I had my way. Oddly, the city’s train station is next to the area with all the bars. The station waiting area is already full of people appearing to have a great deal more energy than me. Outside near the doors, a small army of various candy, sausage, and crafts vendors try to sell to the waiting passengers, and beggars just ask for money. The requisite group of Japanese tourists (or as Bill Parcells would put it, “Jap tourists...no disrespect”) and their three tour guides are busy snapping photos of themselves and the station. I’m absolutely dying to drop a “Hey, Wang, it’s a parking lot!” on them, but sadly, no one would get the joke. I had trouble actually getting on the train. Everyone else had a ticket they purchased from a vendor, but I guess I was the only one who bought it over the Internet. So I wasn’t on all their lists. I also didn’t print my receipt because I’ve been on the road and haven’t had access to a printer. And, despite being a pure tourist trap, only one or two people connected to the train actually speak English, so that made it fairly difficult the whole day. So while there was a running commentary on the ride outward, I didn’t understand a word. A lady staffer would come to me every now and then and explain in broken English some highlight we were observing.

The train operation itself seemed fairly efficient for this sort of thing. The train appears to be a 1940s or 1950s vintage passenger train, with four passenger cars, a dining car, and an engine. You’re assigned to a particular seat (in my case an aisle seat so I was looking out over someone’s head the entire time). They serve a pretty horrible breakfast and lunch as part of the very steep ticket price (US$140), but charge for other things like water and cokes, as well as for dinner. There’s a lot of staff, including two people assigned to each car explaining the sights passing by, various other attendants, security (of course) and management types. When the train left and entered the station (and for about an hour on each side), they required us to shut the blinds on the windows for security reasons. Later its explained to me that people near the outskirts of town have been known to throw rocks and worse at passenger trains and buses. Two pick up trucks with security followed the train most of the way on roads running alongside the rails, stopping traffic at each crossing so we wouldn’t have to stop. I was seated next to a woman from New Zealand named Ally, who was living in Cordoba for two years to help her son take care of his two small children. She was taking a car trip with two friends, sort of a retiree Thelma and Louise (Grandma style) adventure. One of her friends is a former judge, whom I wound up sitting next to for about 2/3 of the trip. We visited for awhile about New Zealand, then about her experiences living in Argentina. She confirmed a lot of the things I’ve related previously, adding mainly that the Argentines are very welcoming, emotional, and passionate people. Things may not run on time, but they have a really great appreciation for life.

The photos I took best show the terrain and views on the trip. Among the highlights were the desert colors near sunset, various wild llama herds, a salt flats, a cemetery where some of the original workers are buried, and the Viaducto La Polverillo at 4,200 meters elevation (where we got out for a bit). Another highlight was the little village of San Antonio de los Cobras where the train stopped for about 30 minutes. We were greeted by a crowd of Indians selling crafts, baked goods, and other small items. The scenery is mostly high desert, although in the area near Salta there’s more trees than in later stages, where seguro cactus essentially gives way to scrub. The train ascends to over 4,000 meters, which is about 2 ½ miles above sea level, or about 3,000 feet higher than Santa Fe. The line apparently is unique in not using “rack and pinion” devices, so at two points, the train has to make “switchbacks” to make it up (or down) an elevation. The day was spectacular—clear blue sky the whole day. They advertise this as the highest train in the world, although apparently the Chinese have installed one at 6,000 meters. Leave it to the Chinese-outdoing everyone with their vast slave labor and copyright pirating lifestyles. At around the 3,000 meter level, I started getting really sleepy, which it dawned on me was the altitude effect (or having had about six hours sleep during the last 48, not sure which). Right around that time, everyone broke out the coca leaves. That’s right, coca leaves, as in what cocaine is made from. Maria Angelica, the retired judge, explained that in this raw form, they help with altitude sickness. What’s next, crack for stomach aches? Heroin for allergies? But when in Rome…I tried the leaves but to no apparent effect (other than the joy of having leaves in my mouth for a couple of hours, like a beaver building a dam).

As I said, we got in after midnight, and I had to leave the hotel at 7:30 to catch my flight, but still had to pack when I returned to the room. Not much sleep again tonight.

All in all it was a great day for a train ride. An overpriced, touristy train ride in Spanish where they barely let you on the train and try to dope you up with Bolivian Marching Powder.

Next-traveling to San Carlos de Bariloche

Day Nine-Cold is Sweeping the Country

With today's apologies going to Ira Gershwin, cold, not love, is sweeping the country. Its cold everywhere, even here, in the jungle amidst the snakes and cholera. One of the TV news channels reports its near or actually freezing over the lower 2/3 of the country. In Salta, where I’m headed, its 8 degrees celcius, or 46 fahrenheit. I didn’t sign up for this—I just wanted something that wasn’t 97 in the shade. On top of the cold, its continued to drizzle. So bad weather appears to have set in for the next few days. Oh, and one last shot at Iguazu, when I go to a jungle, I want a jungle. Where were the vicious snakes and dengue fever? Guns and Roses promised that if I went to the jungle, there’d be fun and games. Freezing in the rain hardly qualifies. The taxi driver was, mercifully, silent for our ride, and instead listened to a tango music station on the radio, thereby adding an additional local touch.

Oh, I also noticed this morning before leaving that the region near Cordoba has basically been on fire the last few days. And now its snowing in addition to burning. What, no locusts or rivers running with blood?. I was going to go to Cordoba, but decided it didn’t offer anything special, and would detract from the time I could spend in Los Glaciares. So I axed it from my plans. Good thing. Also, the New Zealand lady I met on the Tren a las Nubes, who lives in Cordoba (see next day’s post), said the town is interesting and it would be good to visit, but described it as somewhat “shabby” and not worth missing other sights for. So there’s something that worked out well.

Going to Salta wound up being a relative challenge. It was raining not only in Puerto Iguazu but also Buenos Aires, so flights were delayed all over the country (just about all domestic flights route through Buenos Aires). The third day of gray weather was pretty depressing.

Then, shortly before we landed in Salta, the clouds broke and it was crystal blue sky. Salta is a somewhat large size town (maybe the size of a Lubbock or Midland), close to the northern Andean Mountains near the Bolivian and Chilean borders. Surrounding Salta are flat growing lands, but on two sides, mountains. Its about 65, breezy and blue skies on the ride in. In short, its glorious. After going through some non-remarkable outskirts, we arrive in the Salta town centre, at my hotel, the Alejandro Primero. This is a really good hotel, particularly compared to the heaps I’ve been in the last few days. Yet, it costs about the same as those. The staff was friendly and, for once, fluent in English and helpful. And wearing faux gaucho outfits replete with baggy pants tucked into long socks, waist sash, and bolero jacket. Pablo the bell hop quickly ushered me to my room, pointed out all the sites, recommended places to go and to eat, and put my luggage away. Definitely a vast improvement.

I arrived around 3:30, later than I’d planned, so decided to spend the day walking the town. Its architecture is very much in the Spanish vein, rather than the French Baroque style that dominates Buenos Aires. The town centre has an old San Antonio feel to it. Likewise, the people look a little different here than in Buenos Aires. Whereas there, it’s a lot of pale people with dark hair and eyes, here it’s a more intermixed look, somewhat resembling south Texas. I began by walking around the magnificent Plaza, dominated by the pink Catedral Basilica. If you look at no other photos on my flickr site, check out the photos of this church and the stunning, terra cotta Iglesia San Francisco church three blocks away. They are outstanding. The Plaza is jumping, with Saturday evening services in full swing, and locals and tourists crowding the Plaza. Immediately across the paseo from the church, I notice several orange trees with oranges ripening on the branch. A number of mestizos are in the square, offering to shine shoes, while others are making candied popcorn and fruits for sale. In the less impressive but larger Plaza Belgrano in front of my hotel, teenage kids have rented various booths to sell cakes and other baked goods, and various other home-made foods. I head for the two “peotonals” and check out the people checking out the shops on a late Saturday afternoon. This resembles its cousin in Buenos Aires, only its less busy, and the shops are more downscale. I return to the main Plaza, and observe its transition from Saturday afternoon milling about to Saturday evening café style. Lots of stores were observing the 2 – 5 siesta, so around 5 things started really jumping again. The Church was having a special novena for its patron saint, the Virgen del Milagro. The church was absolutely packed, and had set up a special viewing screen outside the front entrance so that people that were not able to enter the church could observe and hear the mass. Nearing darkness, I headed for the Parque San Martin, a large and otherwise non-descript park, hoping to make the tram up the mountain before it closes. I get there just as it closes, but enjoy walking through the rather large flea market set up in the park. Among its highlights, hundreds of obviously pirated DVDs and CDs. Copyright infringement. Shocking what people will do to avoid eating from the garbage piles around here.

The town continued buzzing even at night. It was very well lit, and as the mass wound down people began to fill the cafés, bars and restaurants. The Plaza and surrounding buildings were lit very brightly. While walking at night I noticed two separate guys wearing Kansas City Chiefs gear. That’s too weird to be a coincidence. I bet you wouldn’t find two guys wearing Chiefs gear at the same time anywhere outside 50 miles of Kansas City.

I scouted restaurants in a certain area that Pedro the bellhop said had the town’s best. This was around 8:30, and there weren’t any customers in any of the places. I returned to the hotel, and put on a suit and shirt, after first having a nap. Actually it was me trying to watch Spiderman II, but turning into a nap instead. When I returned at 10 to the place Pablo suggested, I was hoping they’d put me at the bar or some out of the way table. No such luck. I was on the front row, in a room filled with mall haircuts, sansabelt slacks, Mary Kay makeup and Old Navy sweaters. And to make matters worse (or better, possibly), there was a floor show of “authentic” northern Argentine dance and music. Think guys in hats stomping the ground, while señoritas danced in billowing skirts incorporated into their movements. Other less sophisticated people not suited up like me are taking pictures, which I regard as vulgar. I may be obnoxious, but I’m not an obnoxious tourist. That explains why there’s no photos of inside either church-I didn’t want to photograph during religious services. I tried as much as possible to evoke James Bond. The original Ian Fleming novels explained that because he was alone so much on missions he would make an elaborate ritual of dinner, choosing the best restaurants and ordering the finest food and drink. Unfortunately, I didn’t have it in me. Instead I came off as the white guy that lived next to the Jeffersons, who everyone in Red, White and Blaine mistook for Guffman in Waiting for Guffman. Definitely an instance where the ego didn’t match the reality.

Salta is a surprisingly charming and impressive small town, with pleasant people and beautiful architecture. Or maybe it just seemed that way after spending the last couple of days in Brown Water Heights.

Tomorrow-El Tren a las Nubes

Day Eight—As Falls Iguazu, so Falls Iguazu Falls

My apologies to Jazz God Pat Metheny for that title. Obviously I’m running short on ideas.

Unlike yesterday’s “Houston in May” weather, today begins as, and largely remains, a “Houston in January” day. That is, after it rained pretty heavily all through the night, its now cool and cloudy. Not exactly jungle weather. I had in mind something more Bridge On the River Kwai than this. People are wearing sweaters all around, not furs. I wore some cargo shorts, and, as a nod to the cooler weather, a long sleeve t-shirt (as you will see later, my Big Lebowski vest would have come in very handy). As I wait for the eight peso round trip bus to (and from) the Falls, I notice a fairly large squad of military types in the bus station waiting area. These guys were definitely more professional than the locals, and in keeping with the ongoing Romancing the Stone theme, I wonder if they’re General Zolo’s special police force. Turns out they are “gendarmes,” a quasi-military security force with jurisdiction throughout the country. Why they’re traveling on commercial buses instead of their own equipment is beyond me. A naval base is located in Puerto Iguazu proper (as opposed to the Puerto Iguazu metropolitan area). I saw some guys playing, what else, soccer in front of it yesterday.

I arrived at the falls after a 30 minute bus ride at the crack of 10:15, later than I wanted but earlier than I was getting to places in Buenos Aires. The bus made several stops to pick up native workers who sell crafts at spots in the visitors’ center. On the bus, I discovered a heretofore unknown (to me) type: Traveler Guy. And Traveler Guy’s Chick. To be fair, there are Traveler Girls (mainly, haven’t seen many women that appear to be in excess of 35 that fit this description), but its mainly guys. I’m referring to people whose “profession,” as it were, is traveling. They don’t seem to have a lot of money of their own, and stay in hostels or camp in places (or even stay on the streets in some cases), working odd jobs to pay for their expenses. They find the dirt cheapest way to get to the next town, the next site, and the next adventure. They have schedules but not goals; they just keep on going down the road. I ran across Traveler Guy in fairly large numbers in Puerto Iguazu, but didn’t really get to see him up close and in action til the bus ride to the Falls. I stood near where a Ben Kingsley-ish looking Australian guy was seated next to his age-inappropriate girlfriend, as they swapped travel war stories with a 20-ish looking Japanese woman travel writer. Places with no water, going for weeks without baths, missed busses, sleeping on the ground, working very odd odd jobs to earn money. Traveler Guy has seen it all, and is living his mid-life crisis (or avoiding taking a real job) all over the world. Traveler Girl seems to be a bit different. Traveler Girl seems to be about the outdoor experience. Traveler Guy is about going to the next place, while Traveler Girl seems to be about the activity at the next place. I saw a few groups or couples of Traveler Girl in the town and at the park, all geared up, all ready to take on the Falls and the jungle adventures that lay beyond. Me? I need a shower and a mattress. The product of a decadent Western lifestyle, perhaps, but at least I’m not still trying to get even with Daddy by renouncing clean water and toilet paper. Signed the Peace Corps. Living your life like a Lynyrd Skynyrd song doesn’t make you a hero, just a douche.

Where was I?

The bus let us off at the visitor’s center, where I paid the 40 peso (roughly $13) admission fee. That’s pretty good compared to US national parks. The visitor’s center was pretty lame. Not much help at all. It was really just a collection of souvenir and craft shops, sandwich and food stands, and stands for private vendors to sell their “jungle adventure” trips, such as chartering a boat to get close to the Falls. Nor were there many park employees about to answer questions. Iguazu Falls is on the Brazil/Argentina border. It’s a collection of several different falls as the river first takes a sharp turn south and then bends back to the north. Argentina and Brazil each have their own national parks on their respective sides of the Falls. According to the guidebooks and the people with whom I spoke, the Argentine side has a more accessible trail network allowing you to see a greater amount, while the Brazilian park has better views but lacks much of a trail network. I didn’t get a visa to visit Brazil so I’m sticking to the Argentina side, which is just as well because with the gray weather, the views from the Brazil side probably aren’t what they are normally. The Argentina park has four main trail systems—an upper circuit (which takes you to the top of many of the falls), a lower circuit (which goes closer to the lower falls), the “Garganta del Diablo” trail (this is a bit further down river, where there’s one incredibly large falls site, and the more isolated Mascuco Trail, leading to the Sendero Falls. An “eco train,” powered interestingly enough by natural gas, runs between three small stations connecting the trailheads for the upper and lower circuit, the Garganta del Diablo, and the main visitors’ center.

I started out hiking to the upper circuit, and was joined by a young park employee on his way to his information post. He was fairly fluent in English, and related some of the more interesting sites in the park. He was interested in where I was from in the US. He also said he’d never left Puerto Iguazu his whole life, but wanted to go somewhere else like Patagonia or Salta for something new in life. After he made it to his post, I hit the upper circuit trail. Turns out this wasn’t really “hiking” per se; these are mostly easy, level walks on a metal catwalk with hand rails on either side. Although the metal was wet from the misting rain that was starting, they were hardly difficult to navigate. My preparations for a jungle hike obviously were totally unnecessary. The upper circuit actually runs over the Iguazu River for about a third of a mile perhaps, with viewing points at each individual section of the falls. The layout isn’t like Niagara—Iguazu is a collection of numerous individual falls. You’ll walk for a bit and then be at the top of the next falls, then walk some more through some forest, then be back over water til you get to the next viewing point. The catwalk doesn’t extend the entire way over the falls, obviously, but it goes out a fair ways. Lots of people seem to be out today, despite the weather. Throughout my stay there I saw lots of informal and formal groups from all over. That makes some sense; virtually all of the few Argentinians with whom I’ve spoken about my trip have said Iguazu is a real highlight and a prized place.

Then I walked back to the trailhead to go to the lower circuit. This takes you closer to where the falls hit the river section below. On a pretty day I imagine you can see a number of rainbows, but not today. In fact, as I approach the lower portion of the Dos Hermanos falls, it starts to rain in earnest. Luckily, some of my “jungle hike” preparations involved buying the six peso yellow rain pancho at the local bus station (thus allowing me to look like a transparent banana). Its actually quite effective for the money, so I soldier on, continuing to take dozens of photos.

Both circuits took about an hour and a half. So I headed to the train station to get out to the Garganta del Diablo. Normally I would have walked it, as it runs past some nice scenery next to the water, but the trail map said it would take about an hour and a half, and the cold and rain were starting to become difficult. With the rain picking up, it seemed to be getting colder as well. I’ll do cold, and I’ll do rain, but ordinarily I won’t do cold and rain. Having paid the small fortune I did to get to that point, I wasn’t willing to just pack it in, so I took the train and decided to see as much as I could before I gave out.

The trail to the Garganta del Diablo was much more interesting. It crossed much more open river space, as well as some really interesting forest stretches that had lots of birds. I couldn’t see most of them because they were hidden in the high tree canopy, but I did get a couple of good photos. You can tell that in more normal weather, this must be a very mosquitoey place. One funny little thing, there were several signs throughout the park warning about snakes. At one spot on the Garganta trail, I was looking at just such a sign and thinking very carefully about that and actually looking on the ground for snakes (stupid, since it must have been about 46 or 47 degrees out). At that moment, the bottom part of my poncho just grazed one of my calves. I jumped like I was having a seizure (or a kid who’s just lost his toy). How James Bond of me.

The viewing point gives a very close and intense view of these rushing falls. The backspray was everywhere. To add emphasis, they preserved an old section of the previous catwalk that had been washed out by a 1992 flood (according to the sign placed on it). Huge chunks of concrete were lying about. Incredible to think a flood could do that, but ask what little is left of Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi about that.

Because I started shivering, I decided to blow off the Mascuco Trail and instead decided to head back to town. Turned out to be a good choice. On the train I couldn’t stay awake. Waiting for the bus, I had an outstanding “Havanna” hot chocolate, the previously mentioned local chocolate brand. It helped a bit, but I instead took a bath when I returned to the hotel. I noticed that the water in the bathtub was…brown. Uh, that can’t be good for you, right? Must be from the pipes, right? Right? Figuring that I’d been showering in it anyway, I decided to get in. But it was still kind of unsettling, even though it helped with the cold.

The rain continued to pick up after I returned to the hotel, vindicating my choice to blow off the final trail. Unfortunately, that night I picked up another bad habit. I sampled the “dulce de leche” at the hotel’s dinner buffet, and was immediately hooked like Paris Hilton on her herself. For anyone who hasn’t had it, its sort of a cake frosting consistency, and it takes like pralines without the pecans. The Argentines put it on everything; I’ve seen it at every food establishment, and its offered like butter or jam. The New Zealand woman I visited (see two entries from now) agreed with me and said she has to eat it at every meal, and puts it on toast. I think I can avoid that, but boy is that some good eatin’!

Tomorrow-on to Salta.