Another Chinatown

For Mom and Dad: Yes, there is a Chinatown in Argentina.

On almost every family vacation I can recall, the first thing my parents want to see is Chinatown. And there seems to be one in even the unexpected places across the globe. This one is just outside of Buenos Aires, right off of the Belgrano train stop.

So, Mom and Dad, this picture is for you:



It kinda looks like all the others.

Train to El Tigre

For about 80 cents (U.S.) you can catch an hour train ride from Buenos Aires to El Tigre. It's a great day trip to escape the hectic city, and service runs fairly frequently from the Retiro train station.

El Tigre is like Tom Sawyer Island. It's a city that straddles the delta on el Rio de la Plata, and the waterways are the main thoroughfare. Big boats, little boats, and barges that pick up garbage go up and down the river. You can buy fruit and vegetables from the small boats, or watertaxi your way down through town.

All of the houses have their own makeshift little docks, and there are campsites right along the river. People were fishing, swimming, playing volleyball, and doing bellyflops off the small docks. El Tigre is a fun little town to see if you have an extra day in Buenos Aires, especially on the weekends when they have there big markets.

Recoleta Cemetery

The famed Recoleta Cemetary in Buenos Aires is the burial spot for some of Argentina`s rich and famous.

I`ve always found cemeteries to be a bit creepy, but this one is actually one worth visiting. The elaborate tombs and mausoleums are really an incredible sight. There are narrow passageways that lead to even more ornate burial rooms. It's like a small city of graves, which sounds a little morbid, but it's actually more like visiting a museum with all the marble statues and Gothic-style architecture. The rich and famous went through great lengths to try and outdo each other, so you can imagine the intricacy of all the fancy tombs.



The last plots in Recoleta filled up in the 70s. In some graves, whole families are buried together. Some of the mausoleums have clear panels of glass that you can see right through to the coffin...those were a little creepy.

In Recoleta the dead are not forgotten--instead they're visited by hundreds of tourists every day.

Otto Meiling: the mountain outpost

We heard about a party up at Otto Meiling, and decided to join in on the fun. Otto Meiling is a remote mountain outpost near the tronador outside of Bariloche. The little refugio was celebrating its 35th anniversary, which meant a lot of locals and a party somewhere up in the mountains. It sounded good to us!

Katie, Andy, and I planned our meals and stocked up on food from the grocery store then went back to pack our bags. After Torres Del Paine, the weight of my pack hardly seemed like anything.  


The next morning, a two-and-a-half hour bus ride brought us to the trailhead, and we quickly set off for Otto Meiling. The switchbacks looped back and forth and there were steeper short-cuts to shave time off the main trail--we almost always chose the shortcuts.

The hike was steep, with a 1900 Km elevation gain. It was a tough trek, but we were rewarded with incredible views and perfect weather.

When we reached Otto Meiling, there was a tiny tin lodge. It looked so remote sitting on top of the mountain surrounded by nothing but snow and the open air. We were above the clouds and the treeline, so there were perfect 360 degree panoramic views of everything above and below, set against a perfect blue sky.

We laid out on the rocks watching the sun go down, and did a little reading. I don't think we could've asked for a more perfect setting.



A live band came to play for the party. They managed to haul their amps, guitars, microphones, and drums up the mountain somehow, so we were rewarded by live music on top of the mountain. The backdrop was surreal--it made it feel like we were in a ridiculous music video.



This was one of those rare moments that you just want to bottle and hold on to the memory of forever. The audience kept singing along in Spanish and English. Everyone was caught up in the moment, and nothing existed except for the lyrics and rhythmic melody. The band was very talented. Nobody could stop smiling.  In more ways than one, it felt like we were on top of the world.



Dinner for the three of us that night was prepared mostly by Andy. (It's so nice when a guy can cook.) He made chile con carne with rice, and we devoured it along with the two boxes of red wine that we packed with us up the mountain.

Later that night, we brought the leftover wine with us outside and sat atop the rocks looking up at the blanket of stars that had lit up the night sky. We talked about how special it was to be part of the entire experience, and watched as a couple of shooting stars shot overhead.  

At night the little cozy lodge was transformed into a dance floor, and we danced along to the vibrant latin music and raegaton.

So many people had turned up for the party that it made the sleeping arrangements interesting, but it only added to the experience. Up in the tiny attic was where the 70 plus people were supposed to sleep. Backpacks had to be left outside, and mattresses were laid out completely covering the floors. It was two mattresses for every three people (a good thing we had come as a threesome), but it was basically 70 strangers sleeping shoulder to shoulder in one massive slumber party. Getting up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night was tricky though...

Small Circuit Bike Ride

One of the best ways to see Bariloche and all its splendor is to rent a bike for the day. We chose to do the 40 km circuito chico, which makes a loop around the mountains and lakes area.

The bikes we rented were really well-equipped. They had excellent brakes, good tires, and the rental company even provided us with locks, helmets, and an emergency repair kit.

Katie (England), Andy (England), and I all met on the 28-hour bus ride from El Calafate and decided to do the bike ride together. I was feeling pretty good, taking in the pretty scenery and cruising right along...then came the hills...and I quickly realized 40 K was not going to be as easy as I thought. My quads were feeling it after the first killer hill.

We were so lucky to have such good weather, and the viewpoints were amazing! The best part was flying down the hills, feeling the wind in our faces, and the surge of adrenaline as we kept picking up speed on the endless downhills. It made the struggle of going up the massive hills worthwhile. It was also a good thing our bikes had such responsive brakes.



There are all sorts of different little trails for day hiking and camping, and our bikes gave us the freedom to see what we wanted. We biked to different lake areas, and hiked to some spectacular miradors. We even made our way to the famous Llao Llao hotel, an exclusive place at the top of the hill given the prestigious title of "hotel of the world."



We also biked through Colonia Suiza (the Swiss town). The wooden handcrafted buildings were so quaint, and we had the best ice cream.

Bariloche, Argentina

Bariloche is a small Northern Patagonian town set in the mountains over a sparkling lake. In the winter time it transforms into a bustling ski village. In the summer, there's an array of outdoor excursions to choose from.


The town has a heavy Swiss influence that is noted in the architecture and the delicious chocolate. The streets are lined with choclaterias and ice cream shops. I met up with a bunch of other travelers from the hostel and we did a midnight chocolate run. There are so many things to love about this place.  

28 hours of contemplation

It's 28 hours from El Calafate to Bariloche--my first marathon bus ride. Thank goodness the buses in Argentina are so luxurious and comfortable. Even in the semi-cama class, the seats recline way back. It's more comfortable than flying.

What do you do on a bus for 28 hours? Sleep. Talk. Contemplate. Eat. Listen to iPod. Watch pirated movies that they show on the bus. Then contemplate some more...

My roommate, Andy (England), from the hostel in El Calafate happened to have the seat next to me--a nice coincidence. We got to know each other better on the bus, which made the 28 hours more bearable. We talked, shared food, played rummy, and I taught him how to play Big 2.

Occasionally the bus stops in random towns to refuel and everyone gets a 10-minute break to stretch or go buy food. We made one weird stop in this tiny town with nothing but dirt roads and dust. It was our longest stop (30 minutes). I think our bus driver wanted pizza from the one restaurant in town. The rest of us stood around snacking, and waiting for the tumbleweed to go by.

Perito Moreno Glacier

Okay, so I lied about there being nothing to do in El Calafate. There is one thing to do here. You can go see the Perito Moreno Glacier, which is the only game in town. But even if you skip the pricey tour and take the public bus, it´s still kind of expensive.

The Perito Moreno Glacier is quite a spectacular sight though. I didn´t think I would be too impressed since I already saw Glacier Grey in Torres Del Paine, but the massiveness of Perito Moreno is mind blowing. You can hear and watch big chunks of ice falling from the glacier. It sounds like loud claps of thunder.

The glacier seems to stretch infinitely. All I could see for miles were dramatic landscapes of ice, and where the sun hits, it turns a beautiful hue of blue.

El Calafate, Argentina

Yay, I'm in Argentina! After a 5-hour bus ride and several passport inspections, I have finally made it over the border. It's weird calculating things in another currency. I was just getting used to $600 Chilean pesos to $1 U.S. dollar, now it's 3:1 with the Argentine peso.

So while it's exciting being in another country, I can't say that I'm thrilled with El Calafate. There are tourists towns, and then there are tourist traps...I should have listened to the Australian girl when she said to try to avoid El Calafate (even though from Puerto Natales it's kind of unavoidable). Everything in El Calafate is outrageously overpriced, and there is really nothing to do. After a half day of bumming around I was ready to leave so I went back to the bus station to buy my ticket to the next place. Unfortunately, the next bus bound for Bariloche didn't leave for another three days. Ouch!

BANFF Mountain Film Festival

It rained in Puerto Natales again, but I'm getting used to the strange weather patterns here. Four days of good weather followed by four days of bad--this is the bad run apparently.

After our return from Torres Del Paine, we needed a couple of lazy days. Ben was headed to Ushuaia and I was on my way to El Calafate, but we spent two rest days in Puerto Natales doing nothing in particular. We hung out with the Aussie couple and Martin (from Switzerland). Mostly we got together to eat because we were hungry all the time after nothing but camping food in the mountains for five days.

The second night it stormed violently. It was a perfect night to head to the film festival. Most of the town showed up and filled the small auditorium.

The BANFF Mountain Film festival is on their world tour. They do a series of different adventure films from around the world. The films are very well-done, even Martin was impressed (and I get the feeling he is difficult to impress). The whole audience was engaged.

The first film was about white-water kayaking, the second film was about base-jumping, the third about rock climbing, the fourth about free-climbing, and the last was about mountain biking. I think the film festival would even be appealing to people who didn´t have interests in those activities.

The best film of the night (it won an award) was the German made film that followed the life a Sweedish female base-jumper. It did a really good job in capturing the emotional side of the sport (within six years of beginning base-jumping most people will die or quit). The film also gave good insight into what made her tick and why she couldn´t walk away from the lifestyle. The ending took everyone by surprise, and the audience sat in an awed silence.  It made me rethink the lengths we go through in the name of adventure, and to reconsider the costs of such pursuits.  Highly recommended.

Chile happened to be part of the BANFF Mountain film festival´s world tour, but it is also playing on various upcoming dates in the California area. See the link above for locations and dates.

Trekking in Torres Del Paine

They say that there are seven different micro climates in Torres Del Paine, and that on any given day it can snow...

I think we experienced all seven micro climates, and it did snow on our last day.

The weather in Patagonia is so unpredictable. We noticed that at the ranger's station, instead of having a weather forecast, they had a weather history. The only thing you can really count on are the Patagonian winds. They are so strong that they can knock you off your feet.

That being said, Torres Del Paine is probably the most diversified national park I have ever been too. The scenery that you see on different parts of the trek, does not seem like it belongs in the same park. The different viewpoints are distinctively stunning.

The water in Torres Del Paine is so fresh that you can drink it straight from the rivers and streams--no need to pack gallons of water or deal with the purification tablets.
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DAY 1: We take the Catamaran over to Refugio Pehoe--our starting point for the ¨W.¨ It's rainy and cold, and our packs are packed full. The rain starts to lift and is replaced by high winds, then sunshine. We hike for 4.5 hours to Glacier Grey, and setup camp at Refugio Grey. Then we hike for a couple hours with our day packs to get a better look at the glacier.

It's the first time I've ever seen a glacier. I didn't know that a block of ice could look so amazing.

Dinner that night is a simple spaghetti bolognese and a mug of coffee. It tastes like the best spaghetti I've ever eatten--camping food always tastes good no matter what it is.

Sleep comes easily that night.
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DAY 2: We hike for 6.5 hours to camp Italiano. The weather is not too bad today either. Our pack weight is still heavy, and my feet are feeling it. We're both so exhausted from the uphill hike that we decide to postpone the late-afternoon hike to Valle de Frances until morning.

Later we meet a French guy who describes the Valle de Frances as "the most beautiful thing he's ever seen in his whole life." We're excited and a bit skeptical.

We have just enough energy to make our mushroom rice for dinner. It also tastes good, lucky for us because we have a lot of rice.

We meet a group of Israelis in the cooking shelter who ask to borrow cooking gas. We end up sharing whiskey, learning some choice words in Hebrew, and smoking hookah. I can't believe they brought hookah all the way up the mountain!

The weather starts to change once night falls. The winds pick up and so does the rain. It feels nice in my warm sleeping bag and our cozy tent.

I hear a squeaking noise in the middle of the night and scampering right above our heads where all our smelly shoes are. I shudder and try not to think about the rat that is likely sharing our tent.
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DAY 3: Ben's alarm goes off early so we can squeeze in the Valle de Frances hike. It's cold and rainy outside our tent. I don't want to get out of my sleeping bag and into my dirty clothes again, especially my less than fresh socks.

We get up anyway. The hike is beautiful, but we're freezing. The fierce winds and rain don't really help. We hike for two hours, but the rain created a roll of fog around everything. We couldn't see the Valle de Frances, but at least we got to see the most perfect rainbow.



It's back to camp where we make a soup for breakfast and have some hot coffee. Our hands finally start to defrost. We pack up camp and keep trekking to Los Cuernos Refugio. The first two hours of the hike are the worst. My feet are screaming from the weight of the pack, and the weather is relentless. The freezing cold rain coupled with the biting winds make the drops of rain feel like little needles hitting our faces. Ben and I are usually chatty on our hikes, but for that stretch we probably said only a couple words to each other. It doesn't matter that we have our Gore-tex rain jackets on. We're wet, cold, fatigued, and feeling beaten down by mother nature. Nature is humbling that way...

We reach Los Cuernos in 2.5 hours, our stopping point for the day according to the Erratic Rock plan, but Ben and I decide to push it to the next camp so that we can have an easy day four. Six more hours later we're exhausted, but we see the sign for Hosteria Torres and practically crawl into camp. I've never been so happy to see a sign!

We sleep really well that night.
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DAY 4: After day three's 10 hours of continuous hiking, we feel like rock stars. My feet no longer feel sore, but the uphills for this day are a killer.



Still, we roll into campamento Torres super early and have our pick of campsites. It's so early that we don't know what to do with ourselves. We start to get really cold from sitting around and snacking, so we decide to have a peak at the Torres. It's a one-hour scramble over a ton of boulders--not easy--but at least we're no longer cold.

We get to the end of the trail, but can't actually see the Torres because of the thick fog, and it starts to snow.

We head back down, do an early dinner, and try to go to sleep early so that we can try to see the Torres at sunrise like Rustyn suggested. Neither of us can fall asleep so early so we end up talking about random things until eventually one of us nods off.
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DAY 5: My alarm sounds at 4 AM and again at 4:15. Neither of us wants to get up in the cold darkness. Ben finally makes the first move and starts to get up while I cocoon myself deeper into my sleeping bag.

We take our headlamps, sleeping bags, stove, snacks, and soup packets, and do the same mountain scramble only in the darkness and with bigger packs. We have our headlamps, and the moonlight illuminating the sky, but it's still hard to see.

It´s freezing and light bits of frosted snow are falling making our climb more slippery. We don´t see any headlights around us and wonder if we were the only crazy ones who decided to try to catch the sunrise. A few minutes later we are joined by two Israelis stumbling behind us in the darkness.

Ben and I found a little cave the afternoon before when we were scouting the Torres, and that´s exactly where we decided to make ourselves comfortable while we waited for the sunrise. One of the Israelis decided to join us in our hovel. We started making our soup and I got comfortable in my sleeping bag. The cave shielded us from the gusty winds. For a fifteen minute window the skies cleared and we were able to catch a glimpse of the Torres. We were happy we actually got to see them this time.



We packed up camp and hiked back to Hosteria Torres in record time, and shared our pictures and stories with the Australian couple, Dave and Erin, who we kept running into on the trail.

The bus ride back to Puerto Natales was full of smelly backpackers since most had gone without showers for five-plus days, and we were in the same grungy, muddy, and sweat-stained clothing. All we could think about was a nice hot shower and some dinner with a lot of meat.

Puerto Natales: Preparing for the trek

Puerto Natales, a small town five hours north of Punta Arenas, is known as the gateway to the famous Torres Del Paine National Park. National Geographic has made it out to be legendary, so I was more than a little curious...

I had one thing on my mind when I got to Puerto Natales: to find a trekking partner to do the Torres Del Paine circuit with. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I ran into Ben at the Erratic Rock talk, and we decided we would team up to do the "W"--a five-day trekking circuit.

Erratic Rock is a hostel that hosts free Torres Del Paine trekking lectures every day at 3 PM, whether you stay at their hostel or not. I heard about the famous talk through the traveling grapevine from as far north as Santiago.

The talks are given by Rustyn (originally from Oregon) who is part owner of Erratic Rock and editor for the English Patagonian publication, Black Sheep. Not only is the lecture wildly entertaining, it's packed with good information for the seasoned backpacker/camper and beginners alike.

Patagonia's unique weather pattern and special conditions mean that it's different from your typical backcountry camping. Rustyn was more than happy to pass down his experience. Rather than answer the same questions all day, he decided to do one comprehensive talk that addressed everything and opened his doors to everyone.

There were about 40 of us who had turned up for the Erratic Rock talk. That's how I met my trekking partner, Ben (England).



It might seem strange to go off and do a five-day camping trip with someone you barely know, but traveling has a way of accelerating friendships, and you kind of start to develop an instinct for who you can trust. Actually, Ben and I had met before in a hostel in Santiago, and again at a hostel in Valparaiso where we were roommates. So when we met again at the lecture, it was a natural decision for us to team up.

After the talk, Ben and I finalized our plans over pizza and beer.

Puerto Natales is perfectly set-up for backpackers and trekkers, so we were able to rent everything we needed. We rented sleeping bags and mess kits from Erratic Rock. The mess kits came with a small mountaineering stove, small cooking pot, 2 plastic bowls, 2 mugs, and 2 utility spork/knives. Then we headed over to Victor's to rent our tent. It was a tiny 2-person tent but we were happy because it was light-weight.

Once the big stuff was out of the way, we went around town looking to buy cooking gas, matches for the stove, ziploc bags, and other supplies. Then we raided the grocery store. I could tell that Ben and I were going to get along great once we started doing the supermarket shopping.

We picked up some packets of soup for our breakfasts, cookies and granolas for the grab and go lunches, pasta and bolognese packets for dinners. We also brought little juice packets and a couple extra treats. The dried fruit market was where we did the most damage. I think we spent the majority of our food budget on dried fruit--almost $20 U.S.

We took everything the erratic rock guy said seriously. He suggested we bring a set of wet clothes and dry clothes--one set to wear during the day to get rained on, sweated in, and another set to be comfortable in around camp.

Rustyn's other big piece of advice was on how to waterproof your stuff. Raincovers don't work in Patagonia. His solution was to plastic bag everything--garbage bag for the sleeping bag, tent, food, clothes, and ziplocs for all of the food.

We were able to find garbage bags at the grocery store, but apparently all the gringos (according to the store clerk) cleaned out the entire stock of ziploc bags earlier that day. We were too late. Ben and I spent the remainder of our time trying to steal plastic bags from the fruit section of the grocery store. Then we found one small supermarket that was still open that late at night, and they actually had ziploc bags!

Later that night, Ben met me at my hostel so we could plastic bag all of our stuff and divide the load. A bus would pick us up at our hostels at 7:15 the next morning, and if we weren't on the same bus, we'd meet up at the park entrance.