Back in Boston

Well, friends and family, I am back in the lovely US of A. From Rosario, I took the bus down to Buenos Aires, where I stayed a few nights at the same hostel I had been to twice before. It was nice to know some people there, and I also quickly became friends with a few other guests who were listening to reggae music on the patio when I arrived. We made a little family for the weekend. I picked up my new, hideous passport (ugly not for the photo of me but for the horrendous background photos on all of the pages), bought a few cd's and a handful of books (a season of the cartoon Mafalda, a copy of the epic poem Martin Fierro, and stories by Horacio Quiroga), gave away my polyester sleeping bag, said goodbyes, and then left. Simple as that, I suppose. 

I flew to Miami, where I rented a car and drove across the state to visit my grandparents. After so long traveling by bike, I was amazed again by how much distance I can cover with standard transmission and internal combustion. I spent five days with my grandparents, listening to their stories and wisdom, and letting myself be entertained. And then I flew to Boston, where a new phone number was waiting for me, along with the reality that I have to get a job and that I'm going to start forgetting how to speak spanish unless I work hard at retaining it. Yes, it's something of a drag... 

But all hope is not lost, for I know I will return to the open road. This journey has struck a reverberating chord in my soul and filled me with energy and enthusiasm, and I am putting it upon myself to maintain it, as much as is possible. 

Nine Floors Up

I am nine floors above the ground in Rosario, in the apartment of a friend. I met Mariano in Puerto Pyramides a few weeks ago, and he invited me to stay with him on my way to Buenos Aires from Cordoba. I arrived last night.
I suppose, in the interests of chronology, I should recount the tales of my bike tour in the sierras of Cordoba, and of the few nights and days I spent in Rio Cuarto and the capital city of Cordoba. I will do so, but in general, in the last week, I have been feeling rather critical of my own writing, feeling that I am too easily succumbing to the temptation of producing the kind of travel writing I least admire, that of the 'I am so tough' mode. Certainly at times I have felt pretty rugged, and have tried to convey that feeling, but I need to work towards developing another mode. Maybe it's because I left the bike behind, or because I am no longer sleeping in a tent, or because I am leaving the country one week from today, but I am feeling reflective.
Before the bike tour began, I was taken to Rio Cuarto by my friend and was treated tremendously well. I spent one night at the house on his farm, where, like many campos in Argentina in this day and age, they are growing soy. Diego and I spent the night looking at each other's photos of the south, where we had met before. The next day I spent at Alejandro's house, meeting his two daughters, his son, his nephew, his sister, his brother, his brother-in-law, and his mother, who I stayed the night with. Signora de Alonso lives in Rio Cuarto in a lovely old house that serves as the base for her English language school, named for William H. Hudson, an Englishman who lived in Argentina for many years. In English and Castellano we talked about immigration, current politics, literature, history... It was fascinating, and she sent me to bed with two of Hudson's books to read. I fell asleep almost immediately. The next afternoon Alejandro and I set out for the sierras, but this experience, which I was fortunate to have again at the end of my riding, has shown me yet another lens for viewing the places I am getting to know. It really warrants more attention than I am giving it now, but I have a lot to recount.
The bike tour! I spent ten days and nights riding around the sierras, riding anywhere from 30km to 100km or more. The mountains are generally located to the west of the capital, and there are a few ranges and valleys that I was able to explore. I started out with my friend Alejandro, in a Germanic town called Villa General Belgrano, and together we went on a three day circuit into the mountains and then back into the Valle de la Ctalamuchita. We visited La Cumbrecita, Villa Yacanto, Santa Rosa de la Ctalamuchita, and some places in between. It was great to travel with a friend. I went on solo for the week, as my compañero had to go back home to tend to his campo and his family. I struggled some days and coasted on others. I experienced my first flat tire, and then experienced four more on the same inner tube. One of these occurred on an enormously long descent into a valley from a place called Observatorio, and it sent me skidding along the pavement and now I've got some minor road rash to show for it. I bathed in several small rivers, camped at the foot of the tallest mountains in the area (Los Gigantes), pedaled along the road through the Alta Cumbres, peeked into the neighboring province, and met some nice people along the way. I finished by riding back to Rio Cuarto, where I met up with Alejandro and Miguel, another friend I made in the south. After two days of staying at the house of Signora de Alonso, of having an amazing asado at the campo, of returning of the borrowed tent and sleeping bag, of storing my bike somewhere safe, I headed north on the bus towards the capital, Cordoba.
Miguel provided me with a contact in Cordoba, and I spent a few nights at the house of some more friends. A group of brothers and friends, they welcomed me very hospitably. I got to see a bit of the city, bought myself a mini soccer ball to entertain myself now that I am bike-less, and listened to them play and sing folk music. It was pretty fantastic, except for the mosquitoes. (Did you know there's a Dengue epidemic here?)
Last night I came to Rosario by bus and I am admiring my luck at being able to travel among friends. The apartment here is small, but Mariano claims that my imposition is not so significant. It is a wild experience to travel through so varied of landscapes. I am struck by the extent to which the types of houses I have stayed in and the lifestyles of the people I have met have varied. I wonder what consistency I provide, but I am not too preoccupied by it. I just have to come up with ways to repay the kindnesses that are being offered to me.

More photos!

Near the end of the Carreterra Austral, route 7 in Chile, there is this sign. I was loosely traveling with Cyprien, from Marseilles, and the Molina cousins, from Santiago, and we were all together to take this photo. This was the part of the trip where I was riding with about ten other cyclists making roughly the same journey, and feeling good because we were reaching a terminus.



A few days later, I sent my bike across the Lago del Desierto with a gentleman named James, another cyclist, who I decided to call William of Wales before I knew his name. After crossing the lake in the ferry, James of Gales locked my bike to a tree on the other side while I walked around the lake on the trail. I lost the trail twice, one time going far enough off track that I met a construction worker building a private lodge on the lakeside. Carlos showed me back to the trail, which I followed up and down the ridges in light rainstorm. I saw an eagle and a couple of red-headed woodpeckers before I reached the other end, from where I rode to El Chalten to meet up with my friends.





Also at Cabo Raso, near the sea lion colony, there is this shipwreck on the rocks. The area to the north, near Peninsula Valdes, has lots of shipwrecks in the waters. If one has the experience and money, there are scuba diving excursions to explore the naufragios. I thought this one was quite picturesque.

A few photos!

Wow! I have photos to show!

Right before we all left, I made Jesus and Nati take a photo with me. The boys are Santiago and Vicente, and they have red red hair. They were leaving this same day to go to El Calafate, because Nati was expecting a baby at the end of that week, and the facilities are better there.





At Cabo Raso, on the Atlantic coast, I went to see the sea lions in the morning.








This picture I took yesterday. I passed by the Recoleta cemetary, where there was a small parade and gathering in memory of the former president Alfonsin. It´s not a good picture, I know, but it delivers something of the vibe.



That´s a random smattering of what I´ve been able to capture with my mostly broken camera. I´ll try to present more today, before I leave the hostel this afternoon.

Alex in Buenos Aires

I came back to the big city. The biggest city. I´ve been riding my bike around the past couple of days, and I am amazed at the distance I can cover without reaching suburbs, or city limits, or anything other than the concrete constructs of the city. Kind of like parts of Argentine Patagonia, I travel for miles and miles without dramatic changes in the environment. There are certainly distinct neighborhoods in this city, but it is the scale and uniformity that I am amazed by these days.
I handled my passport business in a couple of afternoons. The embassy experience was less than thrilling, but proceeded without incident and the staff was very helpful and consoling. In ten days I will possess a new passport.
I will be leaving the city tomorrow afternoon with my friend Alejandro, who lives near Cordoba. We are planning to go for a bike ride together for a few days, and then I will continue riding on my own for a few more days before I head back towards Buenos Aires at the end of April, when I will head back to the United States of America. I am beginning to feel nostalgic for my trip, but am content with what has transpired. I have many reasons to return, and I know that I will be back.
Here in the city, in the midst of other travelers and a handful of foreigners trying their hands at living in Buenos Aires, I am being reminded of the unique and valuable experiences that I have had while traveling in Patagonia. I hope that I am not expressing an excess of pride by saying that I feel full of a certain vitality that has been growing in me through the experiences of the life I have been living. For this, I am looking forward to another bike tour, another couple of weeks spent camping and living near mountains.
I am swallowing up some of that which is offered by the city, and have missed enough spots that I will stay here a few more days at the end of the month. There is clearly a particular vitality offered by building a life here: it isn´t all bad in a place where you can buy the Iliad along with your daily newspaper.
Today is a holiday: the anniversary of the war with Britain over the Islas Malvinas. The respected former president Alfonsín passed away a few days ago, and there is a large gathering in celebration of his life. Despite the rain there is activity in the city, as always, it seems.

Puerto Pyramides

I´m going to take a note directly out of my journal, which I have been writing in almost daily. The background information is that I came to a small town called Puerto Pyramide, which is the only town on the Peninsula Valdes, a national park that juts out into the Atlantic and is shaped like a ... well, I dont know what. In september and october, there are swarms of southern right whales here, but for now it´s pretty relaxed. I´ve been enjoying myself on the beach for a few days. This is what I wrote this afternoon:

I watched orcas today. Two of them were cruising the coast at Punta Norte in what a German tourist with a two foot lens on his camera called the 'attack zone.' For a while, only the dorsal fins were visible, and these only at certain moments, and I wasn´t sure what I was looking at, and if I was looking in the right place. But, after a while, we would see one of the two orcas rise up out of the water and rush towards the beach in an effort to snatch up a baby sea lion. Sparkling black and white, the orca would practically beach itself on the shore in pursuit of it´s prey. As I was quite far away, I did not try to sack any photos. I was also not equipped with binoculars or a foot long camera lens, and so my view of the attacks was not as detailed as that of some of the other visitors. But several times I saw the orcas rush towards the coastline, showing their bellies as they pushed the water out of their path.
It was impressive to see them chase the sea lion cubs, but, for me, seeing only the sleek black dorsal fin, or their glistening back rise up out of the water was just as impressive, and maybe more menacing. The hint of the danger lurking beneath the surface put chills into me.
The two orcas exited the 'attack zone' along the peninsula to the north, on their way out to the open sea. They paralleled the coastline, passing by our viewing platforms at a distance of about 50 meters. As they casually swam northwards, they played in the water, showing their tails and rolling onto their sides, splashing water around them. I was feeling quite satisfied at the spectacle I had witnessed on my second trip to Punta Norte.
My ride, I soon learned, had left without me, and before the grand exit of the orcas. I saw it happening, but chose not to worry. The young Romanian couple that picked me up probobly went on to have a romantic journey around the peninsula. I was brought back to town by a couple who I presume to be a mother and son, traveling in a big Mercedes van. They live in Quilmes, in Buenos Aires province, and own a lubricentro.

I wrote that and more when I got back to town, where I have also been playing soccer on the beach. I made friends with a guy from Rosario, where I am still planning to go, and also found a sharks tooth on the beach after walking a long ways to sit in some caves outside of town. I have been thinking how incredible it must be to be here when the whales are present, playing and learning to swim in the protected bay that we are looking into. If it is this nice now, I can only imagine what it must be like...
I am heading soon to Buenos Aires, and am thinking of this as my last peaceful experience before I enter the mess of the big city. For this reason, I have finally been taking it easy, not pushing for more distance on the bike, or hauling any gear anywhere. It has been a great rest, and I am not eager to leave.

Trelew and Points South

I rode the bus into Trelew on Sunday afternoon. I decided that this was a good way to get an introduction to a city as a traveler, as the town was sleepy and quiet and I calmly was able to reassemble my bike in the park across the street with a couple of old men nearby hanging out, helping me at times. I headed straight for the Paleontology Museum after buying a little food, and spent a couple of hours walking around their exhibit, taking photos, generally being fascinated and stoked that I was in a dinosaur museum in Patagonia. I spent a while talking with one of the guides after walking through the exhibit and watching a short film, and then I headed out into town.
I spent maybe another hour riding around the town. I went to the tourist office for maps, and the to the small art museum next door where there was a room full of comic art, and it was good. None of it was published, and I couldn´t take pictures, but, I suppose, the memories are mine. The tourist office and the art museum are housed in an old school complex, across from the main square that the Welsh residents built in honor of the Argentine republic. It was lovely, though the town itself was nothing fantastic: flat, hot, dry, lots of auto shops and banks and chain stores.
I left Trelew for the beach. I rode 20 or so crappy kilometers through Rawson, a nice enough sister town, to Playa Union, which reminded me of Coney Island. There was a boardwalk along the beach, and lots of people hanging out drinking mate. I camped at the overpriced campsite in town, chatted a bit with the owners, and went to sleep early.
I headed out in the morning amidst a big wind storm. I bought some groceries and rode on pavement to the dirt road I would take south to where I am now, a town called Camarones. I was heading directly into the wind. Very strong wind. It felt desolate, and dry, but I am very glad that I fought through the pangs of retreat, as I had some unique experiences along the way.
I was walking my bike after only a couple of kilometers, and after not too long, a pickup truck stopped to haul me and my bike. The man driving was an energy developer, looking into obtaining properties to install windmills to generate electricity for Chubut province. Together we went ten or so kilometers to Estancia La Normita, where he inquired about property lines, and then turned back to take a closer look at a few areas. I stayed at the Estancia for a couple of hours, waiting with an older gentleman for the winds to calm. They didn´t ever calm, really, but after drinking mate, eating bread and some meat and rice he offered to me, and watching him wash the dishes and start to swat flies, I decided I needed to make some progress. I fought the winds for another hour or so, and felt okay with the progress I was making.
Another truck came along, and two men from Rawson took me another ten or fifteen kilometers to the junction with a road to Isla Escondida, where they were going fishing. My bike was resting on top of their inflatable boat, and three of us crammed into the cab of the 1954 International, rattling down the gravel road. They gave me phone numbers and addresses, and told me to call before I come back to Argentina so that I could bring back a wetsuit for Walter. They left me, and again I was alone, with twenty kilometers of wind and wheel-devouring gravel to go until I reached a short stretch of pavement.
I made it to the pavement, and then a bit further, spending the night next to an old, abandoned postal building. It was a bit creepy, but was very quiet and I slept without waking up. In the morning, I rode twenty five kilometers, mostly again on gravel, to Punta Tombo, which in the summer is an enormous penguin colony. Many penguins had already departed for Brazil, and the ones that were there were losing their feathers and getting fat. It was pretty funny, all in all. Penguins are funny creatures to watch, and I spent a good bit of time talking to the guide about why they do the things they do, like stand with their beaks pointed at the sky without moving. I filled my empty water bottles at the Guardafauna station, drank some mate with the bored gentleman there, and then asked around for a ride back to the junction that I had just rode in from.
I didn´t secure a ride, but I met a family from Connecticut, and their guide from Trelew told me about her friends who live in Cabo Raso, a small bay that I would pass through on my way to Camarones. With the help of a truck driver who took me back to the junction in his empty water toting vehicle, and who has loads of relatives living in Camarones, I managed to arrive in Cabo Raso that night. There is only one family living there, and I stayed the night in their trailer, in a fairly real bed. They had three lovely dogs, and are working to develop Cabo Raso into a tourist destination, with cabins to rent and a kiosko to buy food and water. I spent the night with them, watching the movie ´The Hurricane´ for a bit, and telling the story of how I lost all my gear and why I am riding with a backpack on.
In the morning, I left my gear in the trailer and rode ten kilometers along the coast to a small sea lion colony. It wasn´t a reserve, only a place where sea lions and seals happen to live. I was the only visitor. Also hilarious creatures to watch, they were lazily hanging out on the beach until I came along to take photos of them and rile them up. They would all as one blunder into the water, where they felt safe, leaving only a couple of extremely lazy, or fearless, ones on the beach. I think there were three different species, and they were snorting and standing up and playing in the water while I walked along the edge of the beach, where the sand meets the scrub brush. The are huge and obviously powerful creatures. I expect to see more outside of Camarones and at Peninsula Valdes.
I retrieved my gear, said goodbyes to Ilyana, Eduardo and Antonio, and headed out for Camarones. After thirty kilometers, I reached Estancia La Maciega, one of the oldet and biggest in the area. There, I happened to meet the 88 year old owner and former resident of the hundred year old estate. I also filled my water bottles there, and drank until I wasn´t thirsty anymore. I rode twenty more kilometers under a blazing sun, and stopped to eat the rest of my food: matambre, cheese, crackers, almonds, water. As I was stopped, two cars showed up, and I figured I would accept what was being offered: a ride in the back of an old truck. We loaded my bike in, and me and the dog sat in the covered bed of the pickup, as the cab was occupied by an older man, an older woman and a young guy with a boino hat (like a beret, it´s gauch gear) and a rifle, or some big gun like that. They were clearly not going to harm me, so I allowed myself to be ported the last twenty kilometers into town, and directly to the campsite. The campsite, like the one in Playa Union, seems to be better set up for RVs than campers, but it costs only 15 pesos and there´s a washing machine and showers.
All in all, a pretty awesome adventure! Unexpected, yes, and I´ve met and become indebted to another handful of people along the way. Today I am resting some in town, where there appear to be no other tourists. I will ride without gear to the Cabo Dos Bahias penguin and sea lion and seal reserve; as it is 28km away I can go and come back in one day without trouble. And tomorrow, I suppose, I will disassemble my bike for a bus ride north towards Peninsula Valdes, which will be my last stop before heading to Buenos Aires.
Sorry to be so long-winded, and to still lack photos, but for me, this is all very exciting. I am tiring of biking, especially as I am riding with a very weighty backpack tugging on my shoulders and waist. Soon enough, I feel, I will have earned the luxuries of a month in the city. I love and miss you all.

Rio Gallegos and Points North

Rio Gallegos wasn´t on my original itinerary, or on my revised itinerary, and now that I am here I understand why. It is a rather grim place, with lots of concrete, autopistas, trucks and a few slummy barrios. I am passing the day in a nice enough hostel, where there are several young Argentine men looking for and finding work. Tonight I leave on a bus for the town of Trelew.
To arrive here, I cycled 300km in two days, completing my first real American century (100 miles) from El Calafate to a wide spot in the road called La Esperanza, where I camped next to a gas station. The winds were at my back and at my right side for both days, and though it was better than encountering headwinds it was not always helpful. It was not exactly tranquilo, but I prefer to ride hard for two days and rest on the third than to ride slowly for three days. Eu sou assim, as we said in Portugal: I am like this, or I am that I am (this is the title of Peter Tosh song, so I like this translation better).
There is not much to do here in Rio Gallegos, and I am already ready to leave. I am feeling a bit nostalgic for Patagonia, as this is the southermost point I will reach on this journey. I have been lucky enough to develop bonds with people in El Chalten, and while I am reluctant to head north and away from Patagonia I am content with what I have done and what has been done for me to get here to where I am.
As far as cycling goes, I am not done, only shifting gears a bit. I will take the bus tonight to Trelew, where there is a Paleontology museum, and I hope to see the Dino exhibit tomorrow. Then I will be back on the bike riding past Rawson to the coast, where I will camp on the beach. There are two big penguin colonies to the south from here, and I am going to visit them before I ride back north to Puerto Madryn, Puerto Pyramides and Peninsula Valdes. And then, well, maybe I´ll be ready for the big city after that.

Ventisquero Perito Moreno

I visited the glacier. Sure, put a check mark next to that great destination for me. But, here´s the experience: I pedaled the eighty kilometers from El Calafate, a route that many cyclists prefer to rent a car for, or hop in a bus, because you go out and back on the same route. I, being stubborn, battled the fiercest winds I have ever encountered in order to enter the park at night, traveling in near silence under a full moon. It was spectacular. There was a trickle of rain as I entered the park, and so I wrapped my gear in the scraps of a torn poncho I got from the hostel in El Chalten. It was strangely warm, so I slept outside by one of the many streams without pitching a tent. I had to work very hard for the experience, but I arrived at the glacier near 8am, and was in the company of only a few other spectators.
The wind was really something. I never knew winds like this could ever exist, but with the adoption of a certain inward stare and indifference to the world around I managed to stay on my bicycle and keep crawling along until the road turned south. At one point, I walked. Yep, maybe the first time since Bariloche, I walked, because I could not handle the work to progress ratio, and I had come more than 100km already that day. I was beat, and so I walked.
As well as the strength of the wind, the sound is really unbearable. I say it as if I have faced it for days on end, but even for only a few hours, having to constantly hear the roar of passing wind is quite disruptive to the experience. Other than the wind, the land hardly speaks. I read it in a book somewhere, that traveling Argentine Patagonia is like chasing the horizon. It is flat and large. The horizon always seems to be uphill from where I am also. At times, people like me just have to see for ourselves, disregarding the conveyances of other people. Maybe it will be different for me, I think...
On the route back to town, where I´ve stayed two nights, I noticed that the roadway is littered with carcasses. Cows, sheep, birds, hedgehogs, maybe a guanaco, rabbits, a fox, all sorts of things. I found two more cow horns but threw them back. I have to carry everything, and they didn´t hold the same weight as the one that I, fortunately, still have with me.
Today I am heading south east, on a paved road towards Esperanza and then Rio Gallegos, a big industrial town from where I will hop on a bus and head a long way north. Change of plans, and maybe they will change again, but I am thinking I will take the bus all the way to Puerto Madryn, rather than cycle the route. I feeling a bit tired of this, wanting rather to be among friends, or making friends. And also, with the change of gear, I have to ride with a backpack on my back, and it´s not very comfortable. So, I´ll probobly get on a bus. Ciao.

Leaving El Chalten

My mom joked with me that 'Stillness' is an appropriate title for my blog, and I've probobly lost most of my audience in the last weeks of inactivity. I'm in danger of being wiped off the bookmarks page.

The truth is, I've been living quite thrifty the last three weeks, for I lost my backpack. Yep, just about all of it: tent, sleeping bag, cookpot, cherished copy of Moby Dick, moleskine journal, passport, clothes... just about everything that had enabled me to live autonomously, buying only food, cooking fuel and the occasional hour on the internet. I have had to change my pace quite a bit. Since the event, which I would rather not recount in full detail, as there is certainly a fair amount of culpability and excess of faith on my part involved, I have been working and getting to know many people in this beautiful town that sits at the base of Mount Fitz-Roy and Cerro Torre, two world-class mountaineering destinations.
I've been living in a refugio/hostel, where much of the time I have been the only guest of Jesus and Natalie, who have two sons with red red red hair, and are expecting a third maybe next week. It has been an amazing experience, listening to the music of Jesus' band Siete Venas, drinking mate, listening to them banter at the dinner table. I have had to pay for it, and for many new clothes and for my food, by working during the days. I have been employed in one fashion or another just about every day for more than two weeks: mostly I am fixing bicycles, and as there are no bicycle mechaincs here and I still have my toolkit, I fixed maybe fifteen bikes in town. I'm not making much money, but enough to pay for the hostel and my food. I was also employed for six or seven days building a wire fence, installing posts for the fence, and then painting the underside of a wooden roof to protect it from the fierce winds.
All the while, I have been waiting for a dear friend I met along the way to send me a tent and sleeping bag and some clothes from his house in Cordoba. Thank goodness for friends! Many people have really helped me during my time here, and I now have several good friends who live here. Part of the triple bottom line we talked about at the CCC, in a way.

I have all that I need to continue my journey, and though it has changed quite a bit, I am excited to continue. I cannot go to Chile and the Torres del Paine, but I can visit the Perito Moreno Glacier, for which I am setting out today. After that, I am heading east towards the coast, to try to ride to Buenos Aires. I don't know if I will make it all the way, but there are buses and it is safe to hitchhike, I am told, so I will have options. And, at least, an adventure.

For all those of you who have been worrying about me and my whereabouts, I apologize for my negligence in communication. If you have experienced the frustrations of computers in Argentina, you can understand that this has not been at the top of my concerns. Thanks to everybody who has helped me through this difficult time. Your patience and love is greatly appreciated. I'm still soaring, though I crash landed back to earth for a moment.

Bahia Exploradores!

On something of a lark, I decided to make a detour from the not so beaten track of the Carreterra Austral and head west, to a place called Bahia Exploradores. The map showed a road in construction heading towards the sea, and the Campo de Hielo Norte, and Laguna San Rafael. I decided to give it a try and see what I could see. I feel that I was rewarded mightily for my curiousity.
Along the rainy and cloudy route I was given great views of glaciers, waterfalls, and forest. For whatever reason, I was keeping my eyes out for a horn of a cow. Ever since Futaleufu, where I drank mate from a horn, I had wanted my own. My quest was answered when I spotted a carcass by the roadside. Feeling very man versus wild, I used a stick to drag the skull out of a bog. It´s brains were leaking out of it´s eye socket and it stank something fierce, but before I knew exactly what was happening, there was a horn in my hand. I washed it thoroughly in another bog across the road, wrapped it in a plastic bag and attached it to my heap of goods on top of my backpack. I had got it.
I rode on towards the west, charged by this experience. I continued to admire the glaciers and mountains, and even the rain that was beginning to fall harder. After 52km, I came across a small cabin that served as a center for glacier viewing and trekking. I asked where the road led, what I could see from the end, and where I could camp for the night. I pressed on another ten kilometers to the end of the road, and then headed back to the Sendero Interpretivo, where after drinking mate and walking up to see the glacier (this is where I dropped my camera, and could not longer see the screen. Pictures from here on are taken blind), I was invited to stay the night inside. Mauricio, Tabatha and another young guy whose name I forget served me bread; Tabatha and I walked to the river to fetch a chunk of ice that had floated from the glacier. Along with two other Chilean travelers, we drank rum with ice from the glacier and cooked dinner. It was great company.
The next day I walked on the glacier. Yep, I walked on the glacier, Ventisquero Exploradores. It was incredible. They outfitted me with crampons, gaiters and a small backpack, and a group of six of us went hiking for six hours or so. It took about an hour and a half to reach the clean, white part of the ice where the amazing blue and turquoise caverns and crevasses are. I was given great latitude to peer into these cascades of ice-water, drop rocks into deep holes in the ice, try my hand at climbing with axes. It was a great experience.
The ice in general was much dirtier than I imagined, as the rocks tend to rise to the top and the ice goes to the bottom. There were many incredible rocks, ones that seemed to be fused together out of several different ones by the immense pressures of so much ice. I felt very fortunate for this experience.
I was a bit worried about getting back to Puerto Rio Tranquilo, as I wanted badly to get back this same day. After many hours hiking I was hungry, and only had pasta for dinner. I stuck out my thumb, and after twenty minutes the first pickup truck that came by took me 52km back to Puerto Rio Tranquilo, where I camped for free by the lakeside and went to eat dinner at the nearest restaurant. Yeah! I was back.

Puerto Rio Tranquilo and the Capillas de Marmol

I left Villa Cerro Castillo with a bit of a hangover. The return to ripio (the dirt and rock road) was tough going for the first ten kilometers, and I was tempted to walk my bike up parts of the hill. But I stubbornly persisted for sixty kilometers, and by the next afternoon I was in Puerto Rio Tranquilo, a mellow town on the shore of Lago General Carrerra. This is an enormous, rich blue-green lake that extends into both Chile and Argentina, but is called by a different name in Argentina. I stayed only on the Chilean side of things, and as it was the afternoon and I met up with another cyclist in town, the two of us together paid 25,000 pesos (about 20 bucks each) to visit the Capillas de Marmol, marble rock formations I had been told in Coyhaique were spectacular. They are. For about an hour, we puttered around through tunnels, into caves and into a bay where the capillas sit. There are pictures of these wonders all over the internet, and hopefully mine will appear on flickr. It was grand, and writing about it here without having the pictures to really demonstrate the emotion generated by being in their presence is difficult. I sat contentedly in the boat gazing at these giant lumps of marble floating thirty feet from the shore. The more luxurious way to visit the Capillas is to rent a kayak and a guide, and maybe someday I will have this opportunity. On the ride back, I sat in the front of the boat, feeling the spray from the water against my face, bouncing along with the growing waves of the late afternoon.

Coyhaique to Villa Cerro Castillo

I departed Coyhaique and the awesome Kooch Hostel (Kooch is the name of the local indigenous gods) on a Saturday, and I had been given word that there was a festival in the next town, Villa Cerro Castillo. I determined to make the 100km trip in one day, and as it was entirely paved this proved to be no problem. For much of it, I was not very excited by the landscapes. That, and the long ascent up Paso Ingerio Ibanez, was making for an unexciting day. But the last twenty kilometers were astounding. Along with the two Chilean guys I caught up to, I entered this canyon that had cool rock features and colors on both sides of the road. I was beginning to be pleased.
And soon thereafter, the canyon opened up into an amazingly vast valley, and I could see Cerro Castillo and several other mountains. I was kind of blown away, because I hadn´t quite put together the ´cerro´(mountain) part of Villa Cerro Castillo, and wasn´t really expecting the rocky, glaciared brilliance that I was now so near. A long, twisting descent (Villa Cerro Castillo Bomb!) that made me long for a mini-bike, my yellow glasses and a helmet cam, brought me into the midst of the villa, where, true to the gossip, there was something of a festival going on.
In town, I bought myself a beer, watched some gambling game kind of like bocce, took some photos, and ended up making friends with some hoodlums from Coyhaique. I desregarded the ´Viva los Chargers´shirt one of them was wearing, and proceeded to drink red wine from a leather bag or bote, white wine from a melon, and visit the aunt of Robinson to drink mate in her ante-room. Eventually, I passed out in Robinson´s tent, and, as they were all ¨camping¨without any sleeping bags or other gear, Alvaro joined me after he partied for a few more hours. It was cute and awesome.

I´m in El Chalten!

It´s not a very catchy title, I know, but I´m faced with two weeks of this awesome life to recap, and I am going to have to approach it episodically. Consider this as an introduction, and something of a recap. Amidst all the great experiences I have had, the overriding feat is that I rode to the end of the Carreterra Austral! Through many beautiful sparsely populated places and small towns, crossing two lakes on ferries, smashing some singletrack touring, hiking around another lake, I have come to arrive in Argentina´s frontier town of El Chalten. Among all the Gore-Texed gringos with trekking poles and leather boots there are some serious ice-climbers here, as we are very close to Mount Fitz-Roy and Cerro Torre, two very impressive peaks. This is known as Argentina´s capital of trekking, and I just got back from a four day hike in the rain and cold at the bottom of those peaks. I could not really see the tops of these biggest mountains, but breathing the air, sleeping near glaciars, hiking through the rain while most everybody else was in town was a pleasant and rugged experience. I´m back to the free camping on the outskirts of town, spending my money instead on bife de chorizo, empanadas, cookies and ice cream. I´ve got to bulk up for the next leg of my trip to El Calafate and the Perito Moreno glaciar, which are a few days away by bike. If the weather clears, I may throw in another hike of a couple days to try to see the mountains again. This is marvelous.

Notes: I just waited about thirty minutes to load a few photos of the cloud-shrouded mountains, and me, elated, free of the bicycle on a hike around Lago del Desierto, and found no progress. So, I will count on Flickr later to push through some pictures. Also, as will be recounted in another post, I dropped my camera a couple of times, and while it still takes pictures, the screen is irreparably damaged, and I cannot see exactly what I am taking a picture of until I find a computer. So, some of these pictures may not be impressive. I will be cherry picking, to be sure. (In case there was any doubt, this is still marvelous).

Futaleufu to Coyhaique

I tell you, I was booking it. There´s nothing like near-solitude, a rough road, and determination to get me to work myself into near-exhaustion for several days. I covered more than 400 kilometers in four days, and even feel that I had time to enjoy it. At only a few points along the route was I feeling weary with the frustrations of an impolite hotel desk clerk in La Junta, the blazing hot sun that day, and the lengthy and merciless construction on the road. After riding past a very calm and amicable middle aged (American?) couple walking along the road, I resolved to have a good time at all costs. The past four days were spectacular, and after a two night stay in Coyhaique I will head out tomorrow for more of the same.

I jotted down notes after or during each day on the road. Here are some of the things I was thinking about:

• I´m in Patagonia, watching the rain spill over the sides of my tent. I will stay dry as long as the tent stakes don´t pull out of the ground. (I did stay dry, because fortunately there were very little winds. The ground was very loamy, in part because of a recent explosion of the volcano at Chaiten. I have, however, woken up with condensation on the inside of my tent, but so far it has not dripped on my sleeping bag.)



• I chatted with the old ladies by the side of the road. They were waiting for the bus in what felt like the middle of nowhere. She was fiddling with my soccer-ball bell as we were talking, which was very cute. I misused the word ´claro´ and came across as either stupid or rude, or both.



• I was protected by a carful of giggling but alarmed ladies as I was riding along. Unbeknownst to me, there was a large dragonfly resting under my right shoulder-blade, and from the tone of their voices and behavior this insect can be dangerous. They came by at just the right time, and I am grateful for it.



• I think I saw two eagles this morning, among the curves where the cows were roaming free. I am not much of a birdwatcher, but the shape of their beaks was very interesting, and they didn´t look like the other birds I have been seeing. I took it as my gift for getting an early start among the mist.



• Felice Compleaños, Mama! I am working hard to get to Coyhaique so I can call you. I am drinking the last of my hot chocolate from Christmas and thinking of you.

• Waterfalls make me sad. Not that I am not delighted to stand beside them, and bask in the freshness of their mist and air. And not that I am not thankful and dependent on their rivers and streams for drinking water, and not that I do not enjoy the many bridges over these streams which provide short bits of pavement between the rocky, bumpy stretches of road. But here, looking at the glaciars on the mountaintops, the waterfalls signal the melting of the glaciars. While the route is spectacularly dotted with views of Andean peaks and several glaciars, and I am impressed that the snow and ice stays while I am baking under the hot sun, I cannot but imagine that at one point not too many years ago, this entire land was covered year-round in ice and snow. It is a bittersweet feeling to gaze at the expanses of barren rock on the mountains, and know that along with the paving of the route will come more melting of these glaciars.



• I was standing at the confluence of two rivers, one great and mighty and a rich turquoise blue, the other much smaller and practically clear. I was washing my hands and face, and wondering at the power of these waters.



• The Patagonian must be the dumbest and least fit for life of all the world´s horseflies. If any predator chose to make it´s home out here, the tamaño would surely be eliminated. They are slow, and not built with a hard shell, and while mostly I just shun them away, at times I dispatch them.
  
• Churrascos are hot dogs, and not very good quality ones at that.

So, that´s certainly a lot of things, and I have tried to edit myself, but there´s a lot of time for ruminations and meditations while riding ten hours each day. I have been meeting other travelers along the way, and have entered at least one town with a market each day, but I am finding that I prefer to camp outside of the towns, and prefer to ride and camp alone for now. There are many more kilometers until the end of the road, and I am enjoying this lifestyle immensely. Onwards!

Bienvenidos a Chile!

I made it to Futaleufu, a small town that is best known internationally as a premier rafting location. I cycled 50km through a wind and sometimes rainstorm yesterday, crossing through the gorgeous Paso Futaleufu amidst hovering clouds and puddles on the road. I cannot reallybegin to express all that I have thought along the way for the past few days, as there has been much happening around me. I rode out of El Bolson in the morning, up the hills to where my first serious dirt road began. 30km later I was in the small village of Cholila, where I camped with the German couple Dirk and Frederika, let the local kids climb around in my tent, and ate a parilla at the Butch Cassidy Parilla. Apparantly, Butch Cassidy lived just outside of Cholila when he was on the run from the Pinkertons, and so I visited his house and went for a swim in the creek nearby. Cholila had the feel of a strategically developed colonial outpost, which I think it sort of is.

The next day I entered the Parque Nacional de los Alerces, the road through which traced the eastern edge of three impressive lakes, was dotted with hitchhiking Argentine backpackers on vacation, and was frequented by vehicles that kicked up an enormous amount of dust. It was scenic and lovely, yes, and I camped at a free campsite by Lago Futaleufquen, but I was glad to leave the park the next day, especially as the 30km road to Trevelin was paved.

Trevelin was a nice town, with a feeling that people actually lived here on their own accord. The guide book describes it as the most Welsh of the cordillera towns, but apart from the tea houses it felt rather working class Angentinian to me. I spent one night at the campsite in town, where I was befriended by a family fromTierra del Fuego, a couple from Rawson, and a man and his two sons from Buenos Aires. January is the time for everybody´s summer vacations, so all these people are on road trips through the lakes region.

And then I left Trevelin for Futaleufu, through the uneventful customs and immigration offices. The campsite here is run by a very friendly couple that is feeding me homemade bread with jam, mate with sugar, and has been entirely welcoming. There is a rodeo today, so I am staying to build up calories and enjoy the sites. This is another quite wonderful place, and I think the next stretch of riding will be tough and far between rest stops for food supplies. La Junta, two days away, and Puyuhuapi, and then Coyhaique are my next goals.

There is certainly much more to tell, but the rodeo is calling me. Hasta la proxima! Here is a short clip of me riding my bike:

See What I am Seeing at Flickr!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aspekt19

Bariloche to El Bolson

I made it to El Bolson yesterday afternoon, in the heat of one of the hottest days in a while around here. I rolled in to to center of town, ate a tub of ice cream, and then walked some ten minutes to a popular camping area just away from the center of town. While I am still camping in El Bolson, it is different from the previous two nights in that I am paying for land, electricity, and shower services, and there is a large town in which to use internet and buy beer and food.

I rode three days from Bariloche, a distance of 125km or something, in legs of 20km, 20km and 85km. I will be here in El Bolson a second night, and tomorow I will head south towards Esquel, and the Paso Futaleufu into Chile. Along the way yesterday and the day before, I met two couples, one from Germany and the other from Switzerland, who are also traveling by bicycle on much the same route as I am going to take. It was certainly nice to have the encouragement that I am not alone in wanting to do this. As Aeolius, Zephyrus and Euroclydon were all conspiring to drive at my face and chest, food, water and company all seemed to arrive just when they were needed.

There was a fair today, as there is here every other day, and on the advice of my cousin Cali I went out and took a bunch of photos. I think I got some good ones. I am setting up a flickr account, and will post here the link to that when I get it set up.

Have I Told You How Much I Love Bicycles?

So, I finally got my bike out of its damaged cardboard cage and, my goodness! I love bikes. I went about three weeks without riding and was beginning to go a bit crazy. I feel that I have made good decisions in waiting until I arrived in Bariloche to start my tour, but I feel a great freedom and relief from being on my bike after so long without it.
It´s quite beautiful here, as those of you who have been here or seen the pictures in travel brochures know, with several grand lakes filling the basins between the mountains at the eastern edge of the Andes. The scenery reminds me of what I was fortunate enough to see in the Italian Alps around Como, and the town, like others in the lakes region here, markets itself as the Switzerland of the Andes. It has a certain chocolate-making elf-village feel to it, where everything is made of designer lumber and glass panels. It is a popular tourist destination, but like most popular tourist destinations it is a lovely place.
I have been staying 18km to the west of town in a hostel called Kahuin, and am about to embark on the first leg of my bike tour to El Bolson and Esquel. There are hostels in each of these towns, which are common destinations for backpackers on their way further south, but I will camp out along the way and take my time. I am heading south before I come back through here in a couple of months.
I went yesterday for a lengthy ride, one of the highlights of which was a visit to a Geology and Paleontology Museum some 15km from the hostel. There, an often winking older gentleman with a thick, silvery moustache displayed his findings from numerous expeditions in Patagonia and elsewhere. The small building was full of impresive gemstones, stuffed birds, dinosaur bones, plant and animal fossils, enormous ammonites, charts and photographs, and other articles like small mammal craniums and sharks teeth. The display was certainly that of an eccentric collector with years of experience.
I purchased another digital camera, so the next post will have pictures, and probobly some Moby Dick references as well. Send me emails anytime! I hope you are all well.

I want to be back in Buenos Aires

I walked too far today. I knew it as I was doing it, that I should hail a taxi at any moment. Just stop. But I kept going, and I am paying for it in poor decision making and weariness.
I am in Neuquen, the capital city of a western province of the same name that is known for it`s recent dinosaur finds (evidence of which is all 80km out of the city in three different directions and I don´t know how I´m going to get there), it`s oil and electricity output, and it´s lakes along the Andes. The city I am in is not, unfortunately, in the mountains, or even very near them, and so I will be taking another bus trip before I unpack my bicycle. I am jealous of my friends with stainless steel couplers on their bikes. These devices allow one to very easily take apart and put one`s bike in a box, because it is only the extensiveness of assembling my bike that is stopping me from having it in the cities. It actually appears to be quite easy to get the bike in a box from one place to another through the bus network, as they run a parallel cargo service that is very cheap.
So, after stressing out for much of the morning and afternoon about whether I was going to ride out of Neuquen, and being annoyed at the poor quality room I have to pass the night in, I was beginning to calm down when I realized that I didn´t have my camera anymore. So I ran back across town to the internet kiosk where I am now and asked around for a little blue box, retraced my footsteps, all to no avail. I realized that I might be insured for something like this, but not before I began to wear myself out again.
The last part of this is the crappy hotel. And it was this last part that was the first part of it all. Because I was heading over to check out another hostel when I realized that I was so distracted I didn´t know where my camera was. There is a hostel in town, and it appears to be quite nice, but I am staying in a cheap hotel because I didn´t do the appropriate research before agreeing to what seemed to be my only choice. Bah.
My impressions of Neuquen? I seem to have come across an inordinate amount of pregnant ladies in the shopping area that makes up the city center. The amount of 2-star hotels gives the place an almost seedy feel to it, even if the people who emerge from the hotels and those in the streets are quite normal seeming. It has a youthful vibe as well, and everybody I have talked to, usually asking for their help in something or other, has been more patient than they have had to be with me as I learn how to not talk like a three year old. Sorry there are no pictures, but that´s just the way it is right now.

There´s no time like the present to begin. I´m a bit surprised with myself for starting this blog, but as I am on an adventure that has been and will continue to be supported by many of my friends and family, I want to return the favors and keep posted about where I am and what I am experiencing.
I am in Buenos Aires for a few days, simultaneously adjusting to living in a hostel in a giant city, being in the sweaty heat, and not speaking the language that most everyone else does. I am getting by in fine style, though, and making plans for my escape to the fresher air of Patagonia. I am staying in the city for the weekend, and then will take my bike (which is still in a box) with me on a bus to Neuquen, where I will assemble it and begin riding around the lake district. Rosario, which was on my itinerary when I left the states, is out of the mix for right now. After being held up a day in Mexico City (where I took this picture), I was rather tired when I got here, and the idea of immediately getting on a bus for five hours was rather unappealing. So, here I stay.