El Calafate and Torres Del Paine

El Calafate
Arrived in this south west Argentian town about 2 weeks ago. Nothing overly special about the town except that it acts as a base camp to Patagonian wilderness.

Spent a night in Lago Roca, walked around a huge ranch and caught the first glimpes of Patagonia mountains and vastness.


Michele and I on a day trip to Los Glaciares National Park. Beauty in a tour bus image thivery kind of way.

Torres Del Paine National Park - Chile
Crossed into Chile to visit this famous national park.

Took on the 8 day, 100+ km backpacking trek around the W trail with my 40 liter day backpack, Michele´s 65 liter "backpack" (duffel bag with shoulder straps), rented tent with broken zippers, 8 days supply of food, 1.5 liters of wine, Michele´s extra pair of shoes which I discovered later in the trek, and unpredictable weather whiping through with the constant winds, changing in a moment from sun to rain and snow at higher elevations.

Landscapes


One of the most beautiful valleys I´ve seen. Unfortunately also one of the worst places to experience food poisioning while camping at night (luckly the last night) and hiking down the next day devoid of liquids and life.

Next up crossing back to Argentia and heading a few 100 kms north to El Chalten for another multi-day backpacking trip around the Fitz Roy.

Uruguay

Tried to post sooner, but today is first time I had Internet quick enough to post multiple pictures ... likely will be a recurring theme throughout the trip.

Went to Uruguay to basically to take a vacation from the vacation after a grueling week of spanish lessons in BA and with multiday trekking trips in Patagonia looming in the almost visible horizon. An amazing, relaxing country and experience...

Colonia

Took 3 hour ferry from BA to Colonia. A picturesque cobbled street town on the water, with old buildings and open air restaurants

Manantiales





A small beach town a 15 minute bus ride north from rich and touristy Punte Del Este. Met a guy on the bus that insited on helping us find our hostel and taking us out for a coffee (Still a bit paranoid of people being overly friendly but only slightly now).






Highlight of the town were the waves, A-frame, head-high to 4 ft overhead, "one of the best days of the year." Had my leash snap for the first time about 300 yards from shore and luckly got a few offers for rides in. This is the picture from the day before of a guy surfing when the waves were smaller.





Punte Del Diablo


Planned to stay in this small sand road fishing/surfing village for 2 nights, instead stayed 5. Complete beauty. A national reserve to the north leaves endless kms of unbuilt beach.




Stayed at a hostel in an 8 bunk dorm room in a small shed behind the house where you wake up because mosquitios are biting you, however, the view from the deck (below) and 1 minute walk to the water easily makes up for the discomfort.

A steady diet of wood coal cooked seafood and meat and wine and cervezas. Pictured (from right) Michele, Two French guys we traveled with a few days, Santiago the Argentinan surf instructor and Sabena a German Woman

A beautiful town and the beautiful common bathing atire


Cabo Polinio


A small small town a bit south of Punte Del Diablo. The bus drops you at the side of the road and the only way to get to the village is a 20 minute 4-whd ride along sand roads and the beach. At the end you are dumped in the "middle" of this small hut/cabin community that is situated on a point jutting out in the atlantic.

Both places Michele and I stayed had no electricty and manual flush toliets where you fill up a bucket from a well and pour it in the toliet.

The crazy/beautiful places you stay while traveling on a budget

typical afternoon


Probably would have stayed longer but neither of the last 2 towns had an ATM so had to move on.


La Pedrera


Yet another beach town, but bigger... 2 or 3 paved roads. Felt like we were at the epicenter of commerical beach culture after the last week.

Next up


Flying down to El Calafate tomorrow

Buenos Aires

BA has treated me well... a fun, safe, beautiful big city that feels more European than South American. This is probably one of the most expensive stays of the trip and I think I still only went over the $30 daily budget one or two days... including dinning on fine steaks most nights and sampling many liter cervezas. The drivers are crazy (at least twice as crazy as the cabs in NYC) but every person I´ve come in contact with has been incredibly warm and welcoming.

Went to an Argenitian folk concert the other night which was by far one of the highlights of the time in the city. The band we saw was Onda Vaga (check out band link http://www.ondavaga.com.ar/)

The hostel I´ve been at has a roof deck, perfect for socializing and drinking beers with people from all over the world. I´ve already met/toasted with people from 14 countries and counting.

Tomorrow I am off to Uruguay which I believe is really the start of the trip. The plan is to hop from town to town (if you can call some of them towns) up the coast. There is not a plan from there except to make it down to Patagonia while it is still summer. I´ll be traveling the next leg of the journey with a Swiss woman, Michele, I met here and who will likely get many good laughs as I struggle to speak this second language for me (she speaks 5).

Street soccer court in La Boca

Common Street Market

The land of Tango... somewhat of a Tango pose with Michele at a famous restaurant/theater

To begin and explain:

Perdido = Lost
"Lost" has many degrees
I guess the objective or goal of this trip (which I have tried to avoid setting) is to get lost (ranging in the full spectrum of degrees) in another part of the world, another culture, another experience... this is likely one of the more attainable goals I´ll ever have given there are no real plans, no timelines, and no real contraints except a lack of money and limited spanish language skills, which likely will make ¨getting lost" that much easier...

"in South America" = the region to get lost in and star of this story (understanding "en sur america" would be propper espanol para no hablo español bien y escribo muy malo)

Keeping with the spirit of the trip and aforementioned goal I have no idea how often I will update, however, to track my aimless wanderings I think you can click the subscribe button and be notified when/if new entries are posted (not sure exactly how it works).

I had serious reservations about creating this world wide web peering glass into my life, but have been suprised by the positive response and interest I received regarding this trip... therefore, here it is. I´m going to try to treat this as a journal of sorts, so if you´re offended easily or are considering hiring me upon my return and swashbuckling tales of all night drinking and irresponsibility might negatively effect your decision then please don´t follow.

Also, hopefully this is the longest entry and I plan to let the pictures and capitions save me from the heavy literary lifting.

Day -1: The sack of stuff and a clean shaven version of me