El Calafate… a dusty, dumpy town near a big ass glacier

WOW. For the first time on the trip, we officially heard the record player screech to a halt. You know, like when you walk into a Mexican bar and you are the only gringo and everybody’s like, ‘what the f*ck is he doing here?’

We arrived Saturday in El Calafate, a dirty town in the middle of nowhere and a stark contrast to the green lush beauty of Bariloche. After driving down a dirty road and several trailer park style houses, we arrived at our hostel, Hostal del Glaciar Pioneros. First, they screwed up our reservation – put us in a dorm (ok, I am DEFINITELY too old for that). After I argued with them for awhile, we finally got our room. Ah, how I love the smell of mold in the summer. Blargh. And, as we tried to sleep the next morning, we heard cleaning ladies, people walking down the wooden staircase (they say location is everything?), even a few dogs that sounded like they were dying of hunger… not exactly the Ritz Carlton. There are about 4 blocks downtown that are dressed up pretty nice, but otherwise this town is a heap full of old tourists.

We decided to take a painful 4 hour bus ride to El Chalten on Sunday, an even smaller town, but with great views of two mountains, Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre. El Chalten was amazing! Lots of charm. It also is a pretty dirty town as there are no paved roads yet, but the hostel we stayed at was great, the brewery next door was amazing (food and beer) and the views on our 8 hour, 20 mile (no exaggeration!) hike on Monday were stupid. So many great trails in the area. Although we had to battle winds of 40+mph, it stayed sunny all day….and all night. We are so far south that it stays light until 11:30pm!!!! So incredible!

Today we went to the Perito Merino glacier. We got to hike on the glacier for a couple hours and the hike ended with some whiskey and alfajores on the ice! Also saw huge chunks of ice fall into the lake (this is pretty much all you do at the glacier, other than making fun of old people).

Brianna and I are so tired of eating the same 5 foods and are eager to get back to the city (BA) where we will spend 4 more days. Small change in plans after that…. we are headed to Brazil for a week! Brasil, Brasil, Brasil, Brasil. Too bad we will miss Carnivale by 3 weeks!

Sorry for the delay in posts… El Calafate did not have anything but dial up internet - Dark Ages!!!

Bariloche es muy bueno y mumblio enchiladas....

So much for the posts every couple of days - it has been a busy week! I'm going to try to be a little more diligent in the future.

Brianna and I left the sweltering heat of BA (95 degrees when we left and a heat index of like 350 degrees) and arrived in a small Swiss influenced mountain village called Bariloche. The 'get out in nature and bike/hike/kayak/river raft' portion of our trip was officially underway.

The area surrounding the town is INCREDIBLY beautiful - surrounded by lakes and totally green (pictures to be uploaded at future date - current connection horrible!).

Even though I was pretty sure that I was too old to stay in a hostel, my friend Miriam, Brianna and I decided to book a room at the luxurious MarcoPolo Inn. I haven't really talked about it too much, but everything is dirt cheap down here. It is amazing. Our hostel is not an exception. It's actually pretty nice/clean/free of rats/fun and is $15 per person per night with free breakfast AND dinner. We decided to hit up the free dinner the first night - here is a summary of the contents:
1) One scoop of gruel - I think it was a rice and potato dish? The sauce was kind of a reddish/gray color
2) White bread, one pad of butter
3) Tap water
I had better meals when I was in prison. Needless to say, we ate out most nights in Bariloche.

On Wednesday, we woke up at 7:30am (this is the time that we had been going to SLEEP the previous 7 days) and embarked on our first outdoor/get active activity. Unfortunately for us the weather was extremely sucky. Rainy, cold, it even snowed for about 30 seconds in the morning. YEAH! Totally unprepared for that, as it is SUPPOSED to be in the 70s this time of year. All that said, the hike that we did (ok, it was more of a bus tour) was amazing. We saw the Tronador glaciar (surrounded by no less than 50 waterfalls! FIFTY!) and a couple of other waterfalls up close. Truly incredible. Brianna was mistaken for a movie star for the third time on the trip - one of the Argentinian girls on the trip thought he looked like Tom Green. SWEDISH.

At dinner that evening with our friends Marcel and Lindsey, Miriam was serenaded by a cheesy Argentinian lounge singer. Think Engelbert Humperdink meets Los Lobos. This guy quickly became my hero and my second favorite lounge singer of all time (behind the venerable Michael Parrish, of course).

The next day we rented mountain bikes and rode the Circuito Chico (about 35 kms total). If you are ever in Bariloche, I would highly recommend doing this – get your bikes at Hostel Campanillo. The people are SO nice/cool and after your ride you can warm up by the fireplace, eat delicious snacks and even play the guitar/ping pong/pin the tail on the donkey. The ride had several ridiculous views of the many lakes that surround the area and the Llao Llao golf resort is also on the path. We froze our ass*s off at times, but only got rained on for about 15 minutes. Again, where is the summer weather?!?!? We also spied lots of younger children on the trip and have now determined that if you are male and want to be cool, there are some age group differences:

Ages 7-12: Must wear a beret
Ages 13-45: Must have a mullet

On Friday, we were going to either kayak or do white water rafting, but it was still too cold. Instead, we decided to hike Cerro Catedral…….which we found out is essentially a ski resort…. um, yeah…… so we pretty much walked up a black diamond trail the whole way to the top (1000 meters of climbing). Kind of a crazy (ie stupido) thing to do, but the feeling of accomplishment and the vistas at the top were ‘breathtaking’ and/or ‘much better than CATS’. Even better was the chocolate cake we had at the lodge!

That night (and the night before) we had Italian food/pizza at Ristorante Brava – yum!

Speaking of food, here are some observations on our trip thus far:

• Nearly every restaurant has the same items on their menu
• Beef
• Pasta
• Empanadas
• Ham sandwiches
• Ethnic food is relatively non-existant – although B&I did have one ‘Mexican’ meal in BA that was really delicious (Xalapa)
• Healthy eating not necessarily a concept that has made it to Argentina. Fibrous foods would be great right about…… NOW.
• American brands have weird flavors in Argentina. Examples:
• Gatorade - Green apple protein
• Lays Potato Chips – Ham flavored
• Certs Breath Mints - Chorizo flavored (ok, maybe not)
• Standout items thus far: Steak (of course), gnocchi (which Miriam consumed at nearly every meal), and dulce de leche in MANY different forms
• Quilmes beer is EVERYWHERE (think Budweiser with a different label)

Brianna and I are now sitting in the airport waiting for our flight to El Calafate where we will see huge glaciers and more natural beauty and stuff. We are sad as we just had to bid adieu to the third point of the ‘triangle’ the past few days, Miriam. We will miss her energy, humor, spirit and…………. her ability to speak Spanish! Back to being treated like gringos everywhere we go!!! Ciao for now.