Fin del Mundo

I'm here. This is it, the big Kahuna. Buy the ticket take the ride...all that jazz. Well, I bought the ticket, taken part of the ride and the rollercoaster has spat me out in Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world.

But I've been spat out tired and beat-up...like butter spread over too much toast. I've spent the past two weeks jumping on buses, crossing borders, seeing the sights, and trecking in the mountians. In fact, I've done two treks, one around Mt. Fitzroy and the second in Torres Del Paine National Park. Both were amazing, but Torres del Paine is something above special...its got everything; glaciers, hanging glaciers, glacial lakes, glacial lakes with big icebergs floating around, mountians (obviously), rivers, breath-taking views, and, of course, the iconic granite, glacial sculpted cuernos del paine. I spent Christmas on the trail, and had a delicious (note sarcasm here) pasta and tomato sauce dinner. But I met some great people on the trail to spend Christmas with and we managed to celebrate late into the night....i think til about 9:30pm before we collapsed into a fatigued slumber. I also got up at 3:30 am on my last day to see dawn on the Torres, but mother nature thought better and covered me in a few inches of snow as I sat on a rock, camera poised and coffee in hand. Still, it was a stunning sunrise, even if the towers were shrouded in snow clouds.

So, now, I'm back in Argentina recuperating my sore legs and tired cranium at the last stop before Antartica. But...i'm planning my escape already. There are just too many tourists in Patagonia at this time of year, it's too expensive and, gosh dangit, i'm cold...i'm gonna head somewhere where summer actually means sun and sweat and not more than one layer of clothing. So...hopefully in one week i'll be on a ferry heading north through the fjords of Chile.

Happy Holidays to all.

is that, is that a, uh, glacier?

Words just aren't ample.....

The Essentials

A word of advice – if you are going to take a long bus ride down ruta 40, a gravel highway that runs down through Argentine Patagonia, take extra food and water with you. Ruta 40 is a primitive road flanking the eastern side of the Andes and runs predominately through arid steppe land and is only dotted every few hundred kilometers by villages and towns. Why, you may ask, if I only have a 13 hour bus ride, would I want to take kilos of food and liters of water? A good question…

Let us look at a hypothetical situation: A young traveler departs from a town in Patagonia for another, more southerly Patagonian town on a thirteen hour bus ride with a reputable bus company. While he is on the bus he opens his bag, takes out some food and is swollen with pride (and a bit conceited, maybe) for thinking ahead and boiling potatoes and eggs for dinner on the bus. What a grand fellow he is. After dark, with a full belly, our vagabond traveler falls asleep content. Dreams of great adventures follow. Around 2am he notices the bus has stopped and people are outside talking, taking not much notice he falls back asleep. By three the bus is still not moving, a realization dawns that something more serious than a flat tire has occurred. The bus driver confronts the passengers, ‘uh, the, uh bus is broken. We can’t fix it. We’ll have to wait until the morning when, hopefully, the bus company will send another bus to get us. It should be here by 8 am’. Ok, our traveler is annoyed, but whatever, a few hours more of sleep and then we’ll be back on our way.

Yes! a car stops. They have a satellite phone! Bus driver calls his boss…but, something is wrong. Oh, he doesn’t have the right number. Car, with the phone speeds off into the night.

By 11 o’clock he realized that the bus driver had no clue when, or if another bus would come. The sun was hot, penetratingly hot. And dry. Even drier because our conceited traveler who had a three course meal last night only brought half a liter of water and gluttonously ate all the food last night. How the high and mighty fall. Damn the sun is hot; there is not even a tree in sight. If it wasn’t for the hills one might think they were in the middle of Australia.

Consultation with the bus driver produces the knowledge that hope is centered on vague hypothetical possibilities. Hopefully the bus company at our destination will realize, when we didn’t show up at 5 am like planned, that something had happened. By 7 they might get worried, but by 8 they will have sent a rescue bus. Maybe. But there is no real procedure for this. We can only hope.

A semi stops. The driver looks at the engine, no hope for him to fix it, but he thinks he might be able to tow the bus. Fix the chains and away they go, with the passengers walking along beside the bus. They make it one-hundred meters and stop. Seems that the truck driver underestimated the weight of the bus, he says sorry and drives off. Tough luck.

Our traveler really regrets not buying that extremely expensive bottle of water at their last stop. He showed that shop owner who has the consumer power.

3pm. Finally, salvation…a rescue bus shows up. Gear and personnel are transferred…but…what’s the hold-up? One of the baggage compartments doesn’t open…another thirty minute wait. Finally on the road again…our traveler only has to wait another three hours until the destination before he can have a drink and a bite to eat.

Now let us assume that the previous story wasn’t hypothetical. In fact, if you haven’t already guessed, it happened to me. But, after the fact, it was worthwhile because now I am in El Chalten, a small village at the base of the amazingly spectacular Mt. Fitz Roy. In fact, I just returned from a four day trek through the mountains and around the glaciers, drinking their tears as they cry about global warming. Coffee never tasted better than when cooked from a glacial stream.

Tomorrow should see me hitchhiking to El Calafete…so if you happen to be on the road, give a poor vagabond a lift because this one is sick of busses!

On the road again, just can't wait to get on the road again

It’s been a while, and for that I apologize to all those who were hanging onto the edges of the their seats waiting for the conclusion to the ‘pick your own adventure book’ (its still not done).

I’ve left my little wwoofing ‘farm’ because I ran out of things to do and the guy who lived there got weirder and weirder as the days went on. Actually ‘weird’ isn’t even the correct word…its more like eccentric lunacy. Also, the farm had earned the nickname among us wwoofers as ‘the container’ because ideas, events and happenings in the outside world seemed to be unable to penetrate into the inner world of ‘the farm’. Even thoughts lacked the normal free reign and scope. So, an escape was needed from the container…and an escape was realized.

I left the farm with two other wwoofers and headed down to Trevellin to help renovate a hostel in exchange for room and board. Unlike the ‘farm’, there was plenty of work to do here…carpentry, construction, gardening and such. In sort, the kinda work that leaves one satisfied and hungry at days end. The hostel was run by an Isreali with anther Isreali volunteering with us (three Yankee blokes)…all very nice people. But, alas, we only lasted two days. Not because of the work or the people, but because we wanted to be in a place that forces, or at least gives us the opportunity, to speak Spanish. In short, to get something more outta the work than just room and board.

So now, Proc, my traveling companion from NY, and I are in a tiny town on the Chilean border in Santa Cruz province situated on the second largest lake in South America…Los Antiguos. This is the cherry capital of Argentina and we are somewhat hopeful of finding some sort of work, but if not, it’s at least a good place to chill out for a while and for Proc to nurse his finger that he brutalized with a jig-saw in Trevellin. We are camping in a municipal campground and found out last night that when Argentines camp on a Friday night they don’t plan to sleep much…and they like loud music booming from car speakers…and they love Asados.

If nothing works out here workwise I guess the next stop is El Chalten for a nice long, refreshing five day hike.

The little farm that could, continued...

I'v almost been in El Bolson for two weeks now. I've settled into my wwoofing lifestyle. The first few days were hard, especially because we were stuck inside a tiny house by the cold rain. But the weather improved, actually, the weather became amazing and an outside lifestyle was realized.

There is no set work schedule at my farm. Because nothing is produced for commercial value we (the wwoofers) are able to pick our own projects, in fact we must use our creativity to create our own work. I'm in the midst of creating a vegetable garden, adding to a stawberry garden, creating a fountain, carving a bowl from a knot of wood I found in the mountains and trying to germinate some seeds. Also, we have daily Spanish sessions...today was on pronuciation (reading from a book called 'Conversations with God'...I have no clue what the author was saying).

I have also started on a new endeavour...reading a book in Spanish. It's a 'pick your own adventure book'. So far I've found out I'm a thirteen year old adventurer who was asked by a famous scientist to accompany her on an expedition to find the sole surviving dinosaur living in the depths of some obscure ocean. It's very exciting.

Other than what's related above, my life consists of walking in the absolutely stunning snow-capped mountians and (attempting to) playing guitar as an accompianament to another, very talented, wwoofers mandolin. We try to make beautiful music, sometimes it works and sometimes it doens't.

The little farm that could...

I have arrived in El Bolson to experience the world of wwoofing (google it if unsure of meaning). El Bolson is named after a geological term/phenomenon that occurs when a glacier carves out a valley to an exaggerated extent. Thus, El Bolson is situated deep in the Patagonian Andes but is only 300 meters above the Pacific Ocean making it ideal for growing fruits and vegies. It also is a community started by hippies and retains a bohemian feel to it. The ´farm´ I am wwoofing on is more of a hobby farm. Roberto (the owner) owns 1/4 hectare and grows fruit...actually, there are some fruit trees hapazardly scattered around the property and that`s about it. Some previous wwoofers have started small veggie gardens, but not much is actually grown. The `house´is made from recycled cedar planks put together in a house-like structure with lots of gaps. It`s kinda like the tree house you always wanted to build but never got around to it...oh ya, and it´s not in a tree. Given that it is raining and about 3 degrees today it doesn´t seem like the most efficient design. But the floor is very practical...loose river stones - never needs to be cleaned. Also on the farm is a pregnant sheep (Matilda) that just stares into the window, a golden retriever (Toby) who likes to drink milk, a cat (yet to be named) that was here for three minutes before it ran away and another wwoofer from Denmark (Anders).

In the Misty Moutains...

I escaped the sprawl of the city and took a charming (read: grueling) 25 hour bus ride to the edge of the Andes...to Bariloche. I have substituted a city with a seemingly southern European feel for a smaller city with a noticibly Swiss feel to it. Bariloche, located in the lake district of Argentina, hugs the coast of a massive turquoise alpine lake with back drops of snow-capped peaks. Its quite a terrible place, all there is to do is ski, hike, mountian bike, fish and suffer through a beer with some of the cheapest steak in the world. But, fear not, I did manage to escape the meloncholy of this place and rent a car with some other travellers to see the famous 'black glacier'. After an hour and a half of driving through pothole filled and flooded over dirt roads at the hands of a phsycotic Isreali who thought it was fun to drive through water at dangerous speeds on a curvy mountain road we made it to Mt. Trondodor (mount thunder)...so named because the mountian 'thunders' every so often as massive pieces of snow and ice come tumbling down the peak. That, combined with the black glacier at its base, makes for quite a nice and scenic Andean peak. Tomorrow I'm off to El Bolson to meet the 'farmer' I will be hopefully working for/with for the next month.

Tango for Idiots

Well, here I am...arrived in Buenos Aires with nothing more than a swelling of the cerebral cortex from jet lag and a sever lack of sleep. I thought flying half-way around the world would feel a bit more foreign than it has so far...maybe that has to do with the very European feel to BA. If one didn´t know better one may think this was Milan or Barcelona. But, none of those places eat as much meat or can boast as universal an institution as BA can boast of its Tango. And an institution it is here...it´s everywhere and they are proud of it. Rightly so, I might add. Its exotic and sensual and absolutely tantalizing to watch...it takes restraint to resist the urge to push the guy aside, take his lovely partner in your arms and dance her to the end of love, but then you remember that you were born with two left feel and an absolute ignorance of the style and subtle elegance that this duet requires. Oh well...maybe if I try hard enough at the Tango lesson I am about to emabrark upon some of those divine traits will rub off on me. Hey, a guy has to have hope....

Pre-flight Curiosities

Well, here we are - one day till I jump the puddle. I think I'm set. Lets see...I've sold everything I own (aside from what i'm bringing with me), if I haven't sold it I've given it away (the opp shops in Ballarat have hit a gold mine in me). I've made the most minimal plans possible...a plane ticket and a hostel for the first night, and some loose plans to wwoof at a farm in November. Aside from that, its really a 'fly by the seat of your pants' kind of endeavour....but that's really the only way to do it. To keep me company on the flight I've got Anna Karenin which I've been meaning to read for years and now will finally be forced to in a sadistic sixteen hour stint of sitting in a claustrophobic cylinder filled with 250 stinking people at 35000 feet. I've got my 'Learn Spanish in...' book me which I was supposed to have been consulting for the past months....whups. At least I will provide some humor (hopefully not insults) to some Argentines when I completely mix up the word order, collocations and context and try to say that 'I am a little bit warm at the moment' and instead notify them that 'I am a little bit horny at the moment'! Who knows....maybe that will be the proper thing to say to that specific person at that specific time...or maybe I'll just get slapped in the face.

Ian's Overland Adventure

Hello and welcome to the blog that will surely not change your life, but is pretty damn interesting to me, if no-one else. Herein lies the deeds and accounts of a utterly normal person who banked his life savings and flew to South America with plans, grandiose plans. Actually, the plans are a bit on the skimpy side...in fact, there is really only one. Make it from Tierra Del Fuego to the US without stepping on a plane, aka, overland...and to arrive (hopefully) alive and with no money left to speak of but plenty of stories for the grandkids (no i don't have any and won't for a very long time). These stories will be made up from the many things I do on this journey, things of which I have no clue of at the present moment...so you will have to stay tuned to this blog to seek the answers you so desire.

Vamos al fin de mundo!