El Chalten

We headed up to El Chalten a couple of days ago. We should have realised on the bus there that it was going to be a hole. Most of the 4 hour ride was on dirt roads. When we finally got there, it was pitch black, so finding our hostel was a bit of a pain. El Chalten is a village whose population is pretty much solely made up of tourists going on treks in the mountains. Most of the few buildings there are either hostels, restaurants, or shops selling over priced crap with "El Chalten" written on it.

On the first day there, we went on a trek to the laguna de tores. We were told that it was flat, so we decided that it was a good idea to start with it and warm up for the bigger ones. It was really windy, which means it was annoying as we were sweating a lot from the walking. We were hot from the exercise, but the wind made us cold again. When we finally got to the laguna de tores, it was really cloudy, which means that we missed out on the nice view of the mountain range. The whole thing took us about 5 hours.

The second day, we went to laguna de los tres. This is a lake which is very high up in the mountains, and is frozen even at this time of year. You can pay a guide to take you across the lake, but it was really expensive for what is only a little more than what we did for free. This trek was quite difficult. It was pretty much 4 hours of up hill walking, the last hour of which is extremely steep. The pay off was really worth it, though. The clouds had cleared up by the time we got to the top, so we had a perfect view of mount Fitz Roy. Although, for some reason, my ankle started hurting at the top of the mountain. I´ve been limping ever since, much to the dismay of Sagy, who always wants me to go faster.

Yesterday we took the bus back from El Chalten to El Calafate, because we want to go to Torres del Paine in Chile and this is the only possible route. The bus ride back should have been quite painless, leaving at 1pm and arriving at about 5 or 6 in the evening leaving us plenty of time to buy necessary equipment for our trekking adventures in Chile. Our best laid plans were foiled by the bus breaking down in the middle of the desert. It took a mechanic a couple hours to get out there, and when he eventually told us that the bus could not be fixed, we all crammed in to the back of his van so he could take us to El Calafate. We met a Swiss couple with whom we played cards to pass the time. In the end, it was actually quite pleasant.

Today we´re moving again. We have to go to Puerto Natales in Chile, as it is the closest city to the Torres del Paine national park. We hope to do several days of trekking in the park, and camping along the way. This might be a problem with my bad ankle, but we´ll see about that if it still hurts tomorrow.

Perito Moreno and Upsala Glaciers

Once we'd arrived in El Calafate, we spent a day looking around to find the best deal on an excursion to the glaciers. They all seemed pretty much the same, so we went for the cheapest one. Frankly, there is not much to tell. We just looked at a massive block of ice for a few days. The Perito Moreno glacier was quite cool, though. It moves about 2 metres per day, which means you can see entire chunks of it fall off quite regularly. Quite frankly though, there´s only so much time you can spend looking at a glacier before it becomes really boring.

To see the Upsala glacier, we took a boat out on to Lago Argentina (the largest lake in Argentina) and spent the entire day on the boat looking at glaciers. This would have been painfully boring had we not met a couple girls who were willing to play cards with us. I think they were the only people on the boat that were about our age. Everyone here in El Calafate is at least old enough to be out parents. It doesn´t seem to be much of an attraction for younger people like us.

The night life here leaves a lot to be desired as well. We went out last night to the only bar in the village. To be honest, it was quite nice. The only problem is that it was really expensive. El Calafate is mostly made up of tourists, and the prices reflect that very much. Someone told us that it is the most expensive town in all of Argentina, and although I don´t know if it is true, I definitely believe it.

This morning we went horse riding up to Lago Argentina. I think I uploaded a picture of it. The colour of the water is a beautiful turquoise because of the minerals in the glaciers. We had some awesome views of the lake from the horses. They took us up on a hill over looking it, and then through a field at the bottom on the way back. It was my first time on a horse, so it was a bit daunting, but once I realised that this was these were the tamest horses in the world, I loosened up, and really got into it. I was adventurous enough to try a gallop for a bit. Overall, it was a fantastic couple of hours. We then went back to the tour operator´s building and had mate. I´m becoming a bit of a mate fan...

Today we're setting off for El Chalten, which is an even smaller village overrun by even more tourists than El Calafate. Apparently there are some really nice treks to do there. Hopefully that's true. It´s part of the same national park, but it´s in the mountains. We met a woman last night who said she´d just come from there, and spent the last couple of days in the rain. We can only hope that this won´t happen to us.

Whales and Penguins

It took us 18 hours by bus to get to Puerto Madrin. We arrived at about 6am, and had to find a hostel. Surprisingly, they were almost all fully booked, except for one. Of course, this was the worst hostel on the planet. It costs as much as the one in Buenos Aires, but has only one bathroom/toilet, there are no locks in the rooms, and no lockers anywhere. Also, at breakfast there is no milk, which is a total pain. I suppose it´s better than sleeping on the street, though.

We hadn´t realised how little there was to do here, if you don´t go on the guided tour of the peninsula. Basically, yesterday we just went to THE museum, which was really expensive, and beyond shit. There was absolutely nothing of interest there. In the evening we went to a bar which was recommended to us by one of the workers at the hostel in Buenos Aires. He used to work there, and told us that if we mentioned his name, and pretended like we were best friends they might give us some free drinks. Sadly it did not work.

Today, we went on the guided tour, which was really nice. It´s an entire day, and we went around the coast of the peninsula. There is some really interesting, and beautiful wildlife. The main attraction was a boat ride to go whale watching. We saw many whales, and some of them were only metres away from the boat. It was an amazing experience. I also really enjoyed the penguins. There isn´t really much to say about them, I just like penguins.

Tomorrow, we move on to somewhere better. We´re going to El Calafate, but to get there, we have to make a stop in Rio Gallegos. In total it will probably be over 20 hours on a bus. The buses here are alright, though. It´s pretty much like going business class on a plane. The seats stretch back so that you´re almost lying down. I really had no problem sleaping last time.

El Calafate is where we can see the exploding glaciers. Again, I haven´t asked many questions, but find the name very intriguing. I´m sure it´ll be something I will never forget.

Puerto Madrin

After having spent the last week in Buenos Aires, we've decided that there's very little left for us to do, so we bought ourselves some bus tickets to Puerto Madrin. It's a bit further south, but still on the east coast of Argentina. It'll take us 18 hours to get there, but everyone says it's something quite remarkable. There are penguins and whales there, which you can get quite close to, apparently. Frankly I know very little about it, but it has been so highly recommended by everyone that I feel I must go. We leave tomorrow at 12:30, and arrive at 6:30 am the next day. The bus apparently has beds, so with any luck it'll be more comfortable than the place.

San Telmo Market and Boca Jr football match

Everything is closed on Sundays in Buenos Aires, so I was scared there would be little to do, but I could not have been more wrong.

San Telmo (one of the districts) is completely closed to cars, and they have a massive market. It was no other market I had ever been to. Of course, there were many stalls selling old junk such as obsolete mobile telephones, type writers, and black and white TV sets; and there was a busker on just about every corner playing all types of different music, but what really made it stand out from all the other markets in the world was the number of people who had themed stalls. For example, there was a man dressed as Neptune and surrounded by women dressed as mermaids. There was a family dressed as Eskimos sitting around an igloo. We also saw Peter Pan, and Captain Hook, amongst others. And the most bizarre part about it was that they were not selling anything. I suppose they were there purely for atmosphere.

After the market, we were bussed over to Boca (one of the poorest districts) to watch the local football team in action. It was a very agitated atmosphere. The local fans were taunting the away team constantly, which helped me learn a few rude words in Spanish. The only part about it which I really could have done without was how the away fans were retaliating. Because of the way the stadium was set up, the away fans were directly above us, so they would spit (or at least I hope that's what it was) and drop things on us. In the end, Boca won 3-1, securing their place at the top of the league.

For dinner, we finally found a place that sold really nice Argentinian meat. I had the biggest steak I've ever had in my life, and we shared a bottle of wine, but that still only cost me 7 pounds!

Buenos Aires Zoo

This morning, we woke up early, thinking that we had to vacate the room, and move to another hostel. We had gone looking last night for other hostels, but it was quite late (2am) and no one wanted to give us a reservation. I suppose it worked out quite well, though, because it turns out that we didn't have to change hostels. We now have a reservation for another three days here.

Once that was all sorted out, we went to the zoo. People had told us about how nice it was, so we decided to try it. Overall, I'd say it was ok. Nothing special, but a nice relaxing day. There were all the standard animals, such as lions, tigers, elephants, etc. but when you come in, there are otters, and wild birds roaming the area. It's quite nice to see that not all of the animals are being kept in captivity. For lunch, we bought something called a super pancho, which we thought was going to be an Argentinian dish. It turns out that it's nothing more than a hot dog.

Then we went to a mate bar to try our first mate (pronounced MAT eh). This is a traditional Argentinian drink, which is much like tea. It's quite nice... we both liked it, and will probably have more some other time.

The hostel has organised a BBQ for tonight, so we'll go to that, and maybe a club after. Tomorrow we'll probably start giving some thought to going to another city.

Pictures

After uploading the picture of Eva Perron's mausaleum to the blog, I realised how much of a pain it was, so I'll just put all the pictures I take on this website:

http://s120.photobucket.com/albums/o188/anytimesoon1/

Feel free to go on there and check out all the pictures I take.

Buenos Aires

It's really nice here. The city reminds me very much of Nice. The weather is really nice, and the people are friendly. The hostel where I'm currently staying is clean and modern looking, although quite expensive at 26 pesos per night (about 5 pounds). We're getting kicked out tomorrow because other people have bookings, so we'll have to find somewhere else to stay. This really isn't a problem because there are many other hostels in area.

We might stay here another few days and then move on to the next city. We still don't know where that will be, but we will start talking to other travellers and see what they recommend.

We found out that Creamfields is on saturday, so if we can get a ticket tomorrow we'll go there. Apparently there are many of these events in South America, so if we miss this one, there will be more.

Day 2

WOW! This has been such a productive day. When I woke up, I still didn't know where Sagy was. Luckily, I had sent him an email telling thim the name of the hostel I was staying at, and the number of the room. This hostel (Portal del Sur) had a "city tour" which started at 11.00 am. We met at this hostel at 10.30, and chatted until the beginning of the tour. I found the name of this tour quite misleading, as we only visited the cemetary, and not the whole city. I took many pictures of this cemetary. The picture is of Eva Peron's Mausaleum

After that, we went to a modern art museum (which was shit), then to a japanese garden (which was about as japanese as I am), then to a planetarium (which was closed), and then enjoyed the sunshine late into the day.

Later in the evening, we went to dinner in a nice restaurant that served us a really nice steak. Followed by a nice bar hopping session.

Finally here!!!!

Alright! So I left the house on Monday morning. It's now 1.30 am on wednesday, and I have finally arrived. The reason it's taken so long? Iberia is the worst airline in the world.

We were delayed at Heathrow for an hour and a half. This is annoying, but really it has to be expected. The problem was that when we got to Madrid, they would not let us on the connecting flight, because transferring our luggage would have taken too long (or something). Frankly I don't know why we weren't allowed on the flight. And that's where the problem lies. Once we had been told that we were staying in Madrid, Iberia kept sending us from one end of the airport to the other telling us that we would get a hotel room for the night, and be put on the next flight out. The only problem with that is that no one seemed to have the authority to give us the room. Iberia totally failed to let us know what was going on, where we had to go, what we had to do. Basically, we got fed up at about 2 am and made a fuss until we got a bus taking us to a hotel.

Now let me explain, when I say "we", I do not mean Sagy and me. There was a group of seven of us going from Heathrow to Buenos Aires, and we all got to know eachother, brought together with our hatred for Iberia.

So I'm now finally in Buenos Aires, and I have no idea where Sagy is. He was supposed to text me the address of the hostel he's staying at, but I somehow lost my phone in the whole Iberia fiasco which means that contact with anyone is not impossible. D'OH!

Right, so tomorrow I'll try and find some sandals, and meet up with Sagy, and then maybe the whole adventure can finally get started.

Leaving Tomorrow

Alright... I leave for South America tomorrow. First stop: Buenos Aires, Argentina. It will be the beginning of a half year long voyage into the unknown.

So I depart from Heathrow at 18:50 GMT, and make my first stop in Madrid. Hopefully, this is where I'll meet Sagy, my travelling companion. We'll then take off from Madrid at 00:05 local time, and land in Buenos Aires at 08:20 local time. We're hoping that landing early in the morning will work in our favour, as we have nowhere to stay once we arrive, so this way we'll have plenty of time until night falls.

I still haven't learned a word of Spanish yet, so that might be a slight niggle. Sagy says he has a phrase book, and between us we speak four different languages, so it should be alright...

I was just finishing off packing my bag, but that was boring, so I decided to start this blog. I'll try and update as often as possible, but I'm not sure how much access to computers (and the internet) I'll have over the next 6 months, so keep checking in every once in a while.