Photo Delays

I´ve posted an update of the hikes I´ve been on over the last two days, but I can´t post the photos. The internet cafe I´m at is too overloaded to take on Flickr, so the photos will have to wait a bit. I´ll keep trying and let you know when I can get these photos up because you´ll want to see 'em!!! Stay tuned.

Sand Dunes, Laguna Torre and Glacier Grande (Day 22)

Note: Camp sites built on sand dunes + areas of high winds= bad. Really bad. Period.

You´d think I would have been dead to the world, but the night wasn´t so sound. The guidebook didn´t mention that this camp area is prone to sandstorms. I don´t like sand at the best of times, let alone in my teeth, in my hair, in my socks, everywhere, all over the course of a night...while in your tent! Check out the deposit in my hiking boots.


And to make matters worse, the lunatic in the tent beside me was ranting and screaming at the sand during the night. The first time it happened, I actually thought some madman had wandered into camp and was right outside my tent. Slightly unnerving, to say the least. In the morning, after de-gritting myself, I headed out to a nearby lookout to see Laguna Torre and the Glacier Grande. As soon as you popped up onto the rock bank, the view was awesome.


I took a little trail that skirted all along the lake to the near-side of the glacier. You can see the bits of ice that have broken away into mini-icebergs and the resulting exposed blue ice. Really, really cool.


One the way back, I noticed these little red flowers. The resiliency of vegetation never ceases to amaze me. These flowers are wind-blasted constantly (likely 60-80km/hr regularly) and exposed to everything from blarring sun to ridiculous snow. Yet still, at the end of summer, they have a few blooms left. That´s tough. So when someone tells you plants can´t grow on living roofs in Canada´s climate, tell them it would Club Med compared to here.


I went back and packed up and had a leisurely walk back to town. The weather had turned really clear (the clouds seem to usually blow off by 2 or 3pm) and the wind was pretty low and warm. The views on the way out gave spectacular panoramas of the area now behind me, and I couldn´t help take one more shot.

I should also mention that I´ve heard the glaciers milking a few times now. It sounds like really, really loud thunder and I can imagine it´s a little nervy to be closeby when a big chunk lets go. But, from my distance away, it´s cool to hear :)

Now I´m at a camp area in town, preparing for an overnight hike to Laguan Torro- a little more backcountry than the last 2 days. I´ve got my smelly clothes at the laundry and I should be ready to go for tomorrow. Hopefully the weather will be clear and I´ll get to see more of this gorgeous place.

Summit Series (Day 21)

My pre-dawn summit to Laguna de los Tres was a bit of a bust. I woke up just before 6am (along with everyone else thanks to a really obnoxious group who had similar plans for an early summit) and headed out. There were stars in the sky and clear enough that I was able to turn off my headlamp for most of the hike. Unfortunately, about 5min before I reached the top, the clouds and rain came in. I hung around at the top in hopes that the clouds would leave, but only really succeeded in getting cold (and a little cranky at my obnoxiously loud companions). All the same, I still had a pretty stellar view of the glacier.

After breakfast, I chatted with a group of retired ladies tented closeby, who travel and trak together, all over the world. How cool is that?! We traded some trail suggestions and I opted to try out Laguna de Sucie- an undesignated hike into the canyon of one of the three lakes at the base of a glacier. The walk in wasn´t quite as well marked as the trail the day before with cairns a little less prominent and plentiful, with a short scramble up the canyon face and I did have to navigate a slightly questionable river crossing- but I finally made it into the lake.


If the view had been better this morning, I would have been able to see Sucie from atop of the Laguna de los Tres summit, some 750m elevated from where I was sitting. I have to admit that I was disappointed I didn´t get both views of this beautiful lake and secretly considered re-summiting Los Tres. When I got back to camp, I decided to pack up and see how the weather looked. Things change really quickly around here, as you can imagine. By the time I was done and had a bite to eat, it looked like the clouds were moving out. So, at the last minute, I ran off to make another go at Los Tres. This time was all about getting to the top- no looking around, just get up there, and trying to hang on (I guesstimate the winds must have been about 70km/hr!). And I made great time and was rewarded with a much, much clearer view than earlier.


As well, I made the trek around the lake, so I could look way down at Laguna Sucie, where I had been just a few hours earlier. Pretty incredible.


On my beetle back down, I also noticed a great view of where I was headed, along three other sequential lakes- Madres, Hija and Nieta (Mother, Daughter and Baby Girl?).


By the time I got back to pick up my pack, it was just before 4pm, with a three hour hike ahead to the next camp area. I trotted off, past this really cool deadland forest (like something out of Narnia)


then past the three lakes I had seen early on my second trot down Laguna de los Tres


through more twisty forest, an open meadow and back into a forest of woodpeckers.

(Sidebar: I also wanted to mention that I have also been lucky to see guanacos- llama cousins, rhea: the ostrich-like silly birds here, and these really fun min-geckos). At this point, I started to get really, really tired. My aching back and burning feet (who had been thoroughly abused today) were snarling at me. As I walked, I figured I would probably put in close to 20km today. When I hit the last section of trail, I broke down and had a rest. It wasn´t until I pulled out my map that I realized that it was in fact just over 25km total, not including the 750m altitude gain and loss, x2. It was all I could do to drag myself into the camp area (thankfully much cleaner!). I set up camp, made supper and fell asleep before the sun. But, to do it again, Í would still have chosen the second summit- it was that worth it.

Into the Glaciers (Day 20)

Today was my first day of hiking in Patagonia and all I can say is WOW. I headed out early towards the trailhead at El Pilar hosteria about 15km away. Luckily Cecelia stopped to pick me up on her way to work and took me to the hosteria.


Right from the start, the scenery and view were incredible. I could see Fitz Roy and Torre mountains in plain view and glacier fields in the distance. It´s a clear day, with blue skies and a warm, albeit wild, wind. Just enough to keep the clouds off the tops of the peaks for fantastic viewing.

My destination for today is Camp Poincenot. The trail (well stamped out from many, many previous hikers) has a gentle, low grade incline the whole way that follows the mighty Rio Blanco alternating from right at the water´s edge to sections through these cool twisty forests.

I met up with various people who chatted with me, so I was never very far from others but happy to walk alone. There are lookouts posted on the map, (although not on the trails) but most places on the trail make for an outrageous view. Every time I pulled out my camera, I knew there would be a better view just up ahead, but I couldn´t resist.


I eventually made it to the toilet area, I mean, camp area. My guide book had warned against a mouse infestation, but said nothing of how narsty (a giant leap below nasty) people had made the area. I´ll leave it to your imagination, but it was pretty rank. Luckily, the scenery made up for it. I dropped my pack and since it was only 2pm, I headed across the river to check out a close-up the Piedras Blancas glacier that I had been seeing the whole walk in. Since it isn´t a designated trail and a big rock slide had happened last year, rock cairns lead the way along the river bed.


Eventually, it opens up into the really eerie sand bed and further in starts the carnage of humungeous boulders that have fallen down from the glacier over time.


I scrambled up the boulders until I reached this perfect flat rock. From here on in, I was completely overcome. I was sitting at the base of this gigantic field of ancient ice, watching the never-ending torrent of water rush away, with pieces of the glacier falling into the water. It was a really, really moving experience. I just sat on the rock, with the sun and spray on my face and tried to take it all in. I have never had an experience (or reaction) like that before.


By the time I made it back to camp, my knee was getting sore, so I opted for an early supper and bed to get ready for a pre-dawn summit to another glacier at Laguna de los Tres (Lake of Three). As a sidebar, I have to praise my new little Trangia alcohol stove. This little thing it awesome. I did have a slightly embarassing moment when I tried to adjust the simmer ring and managed to spill flaming alcohol, oops. Luckily it was all contained and only my pride slightly singed. (Denise or Big Mike- how to adjust the ring without it interfering with the windshield?)

Another sidebar: It´s really sad to look around this beautiful place and see how trashed people have made it. It´s really, really gross. There is a latrine (albeit, not a pleasant experience) but that seems to go unnoticed. I also see people washing dishes in the water and spitting toothpaste and God-knows whatelse wherever. The water here is crystal clean, for now, and it´s really tragic to think that it won´t be long before we´ve contaminated it for good. So sad. And unnecessary.

Lookouts, Mountains and Waterfalls in El Chalten (Day 19)

Since I arrived pretty early this morning, it gave me the whole day to do a little exploring.


After wasting some time trying to figure out my next bus when I leave, and getting some advice on the trek I want to complete here, I opted to head out on some of the little day hike trails. My hostel (Aylen-Aike) happens to be perfectly situated just off the river banks that leads to many of the nearby hikes. And the veiw from the hostel, looking out across the river to the cerro range is pretty fantastic. I´ve also got a sweet panoramic photo to come.


My first stop was the Chorillo del Salto falls. This is a pretty large glacier-fed system, only about 5km outside of "town" (El Chalten may have 1500 permanent residents). The views of the main falls were great,


and a little rock scrambling up some primitive trails higher up the falls let me have a glimpse of the higher feeding system.


The sound of the water is so loud and you´re so high up, you can see everything. I´ll have another panoramic view from up here soon.

After exploring the falls, I headed back to town, passing some of the locals hanging out on my way back.


From here, I headed out to the Mirador de los Condores (Condores Lookout). If I thought the view from the hostel was good, this view blew it out of the water!


I´m lucky to be out on a clear day, so you can see the Cerro Torres glacier (in a few clouds and blowing snow) and the sharp Cerro Fitz Roy. Apparently, the weather hasn´t been so great for all the climbers patiently camped out to make summit attempts- some have been here for weeks waiting.

I stopped in at the National Park office on my way back from the Condores Lookout and had a great chat with one of the interpreters. I started out asking questions about my hiking route for tomorrow (and the next 3 days) and we soon got chatting about other places. She gave me an inside scoop on a fantastic hike in Mendoza, close to the base of Anconcagua. I´ll have to pocket her hand-written directions for later in my trip.

So, this pretty much brings me up to date. I´m headed out to the trails around the Fitz Roy range tomorrow, for about 3 days of hiking. The interpreter at the Park Centre assures me the routes are well marked (and the little day hikes I did today are a pretty good indication). I´m out for 2 nights then back to a campsite in town, before heading out for one more night to a Cerro lookout on the other side of town. I´m really excited, I´ve got all my supplies ready and now I just hope that the weather holds out for me!

The Longest Bus to El Chalten (Day 18)

So, technically this post spans from Feb. 24th at 11:30pm to Feb. 26th at 7am. But, I want to point out some of the highlights of this crazy-long bus ride. First of all, never before have I been so happy to be small, so that I can lie down horizontally over two seats and sleep quite happily. And, as luck would have it, I had an empty seat beside me the whole ride.

After we pulled out of El Bolson, we made a stop at what I think was Esquel. Apparently, we were riding in a borrowed bus, since our proper bus has broken down the day before. In Esquel, we would switch to our proper (hopefully adequately repaired) bus. The only glitch was that our proper bus was running 2hrs late. Not so bad, since I managed to sleep the entire waiting time, only to be herded into the cold night air while we sorted our packs into the new bus. Then we were off again.

When we hit Perito Moreno about 5hrs later, the bus driver announced that we would have a 2hr layover. I guess we all assumed that the bus would stay put, so you can imagine my surpise when I came back from the bathroom to a vacant bus lot. During a moment of crisis thinking I had misunderstood and the bus has left without me, I realized that I was surrounded by my bus mates, all dumbfounded also. The bus had left, with ALL our stuff on it (including my glasses, jacket, camera and books), to make a run to Los Antiguos. The terminal staff assured us this was normal and that everything was fine. I was pretty relieved when the bus returned and everything was just as I´d left it. Wierd.

We proceeded to stop about every 3hrs, for a pee and a snack. After a while, this gets to be a little tedious and I wanted us to just keep going so we could get to El Chalten. It didn´t help that we kept stopping in the most non-descript and devoid-of-most-food places. You´d think that an enterprising owner who frequently gets business from bus travellers would fill up shop in wait for the feeding frenzy that happens when weary travellers arrive. Doesn´t quite work like that here.

Somewhere in the middle afternoon, after hours and hours of desert and flat, these really cool mounds/mountains of mineral rock deposits appeared. The bright red (ferrous oxide?) against the desert brown was pretty cool, not to mention some really cool formations.

The afternoon slipped into night and in the morning, when we finally arrived in El Chalten, I sat up and was treated to my first glimpses of the Fitz Roy range.


With the sun just coming up, the view was pretty spectacular.


From here and since we were 2hr later than the scheduled 5:30am arrival, I was able to wander over to my hostel for a hot shower (less stinky Tera to come) and breakfast. My first take on El Chalten is that it´s pretty gorgeous and I can´t wait to explore.

The Art of Mate

Since I´ve made reference to it a few times, I should explain a little about mate (mat-eh). Mate is Argentina´s national caffeine-ish pastime. It´s a blend of ever-so-slighty bitter herbs that makes a tea. The tea is sipped from a silver straw is a gourd, or varying sizes, shapes and materials (everything from metal, ceramic, actual dried gourds, to cloven hooves...).

What´s special about mate, is the ceremony behind it. Argentina has a culture of sharing and community and this is the basis for the tradition of mate. From what I´ve learned (and have fumbled badly many times and many still to come I´m sure), you fill the mate gourd about 3/4full, tapping the gourd to settle the tea. Then with the gourd tilted slightly, you slowly pour in enough hot water to soak the lower half of the tea. When this is saturated, you slide in the straw and set it dep into the gourd. The straw isn´t supposed to be moved from here on (one of my first fumbles: no stirring allowed!) From here, pour the water only into the hole around the straw, so the tea steeps and slowly absorbs the water. Then you top off the gourd with water and serve. Mate is first offered to someone else, who sips until dry and hands it back to you. You then take turns sipping from the refilled gourd, until you have your fill (at which point you say "Gracias" indicating you´re finished). Everyone shares the same straw and the same gourd. And this can go on for quite some time.

I´m not sure how caffeinated the tea is. To be honest, I didn´t realize that it is caffeinated, since I´m pretty sensitive to caffeine. But, I also think it´s a slightly different kind of caffeine, maybe not quite a strong as North American coffee. Regardless, the whole process is really interesting and super relaxing. And a great way to start of the morning, huddling a warm gourd of mate in your hand while you sit in the morning sun. Mmmmmm.

Leaving CIDEP (Day 16)

Today, I leave El Bolson to head for Parque National Los Glaciers (Glacier National Park). This also means leaving the farm. It´s been a wild, wild ride. This farmstay has turned out to be nothing like what I expected. It´s been a crazy emotional rollercoaster, full of challenges for me. After the initial day of "wow" when I arrived, I had a few days where I wondered what I had gotten myself in to. I was struggling with the language (and felt a little distanced from the pulse of the group) and with the sedate pace of the farm. It took some getting used to the openness of the people at the farm- everyone is family, hugs, kisses- which immediately became incredibly endearind and ultimately what made me stay. And I´m sooooo happy that I stayed to be a part of the natural building process, which has been a growing curiosity of mine over the last year or two. I had to learn to learn by watching, by listening. A struggle for sure, but a skill that I think I´ve improved and will hopefully continue. I learned to be extremely dirty, to sleep with dried clay between my toes, mud in my hair and dust on everything I own. And it´s wild, but I think being so dirty was actually really cleansing. It felt really good to get into something completely organic (can´t get much more organic than dirt) and to eat incredible food that will spoil the rest of Argentina, I´m sure. And to be welcomed, whole-heartedly, by a complete group of strangers. These people open their homes to people from all over the world, in return for a little help and a lot of fun. It´s been an amazing experience and I´m truly thankful for it.

So after a lazy morning and slowly packing up all my gear, we said goodbye to everyone. Since there were 5 of us making the hike up to the road, the farm owner packed us all into this station wagon (vintage about 1950-something...wicked) and hauled us up to the road to wait for the bus to town (El Bolson). We ended up getting a ride with one of the workshop participants, in her truck that needed 1L of water and a running start to get going. True story. So, we bumbled along the bumpy road in the bed of a truck. Crazy, but really fun (and will make a good story to tell years from now...right Mom?)

We arrived back in El Bolson in time for the weekly feria (fair) which is pretty spectacular for a town of maybe 5000 people. The booths stretch all around the central plaza and pond, music and buskers everywhere, and you can get every kind of jam, sweets, clothes, mate gourd, wood pieces, jewellery and food you can imagine. I wandered through the fair, making note of what I would come back for, then made quick trip to the grocery store to stock up for my next trip leg. I of course returned to the fair for some goodies and managed to break all but one of my $100 pesos, which apparently aren´t very popular in the small town I´m headed for. With about 7hrs to kill before the bus that would take me to El Chalten would arrive, I made a serious dent in my backlogged blog (which you are now partaking). Then around 10:30pm, I gathered my things, grabbed a homemade helado (icecream...yummm!) and headed for where I thought the bus would be. When I rounded the corner and saw no one else, I started to worry. So, I slightly quickly hustled over to the Tourist Info centre, only to discover that the bus to El Chalten picks up four blocks away (about 20m from the Internet cafe I had just left). So, now 10:58pm, I ran (yes ran), backpack bouncing on back and dripping icecream in hand, the four blocks. This time, as I rounded the corner, there were about 20 other backpack-toters waiting. And, as luck would have it, the bus was 35min late. So, I was in fact early. As I licked the melted chocolate and almond icecream off my hand, I laughed to myself about how ridiculous I must have looked hoofing across the park and made a note to add this saga to my ever-growing travelling tales.

The house the Earth built

This week at the farm, there was a natural construction workshop. A couple of the participants from the permaculture workshop last week have stayed over for this workshop, so there´s quite a few familiar faces. The volunteers have been working to get all the clay and other materials ready for the workshop, so I´m eager to see it all start to take shape.

The wood structure for the house was finished last week. This will form the base of the house.


We also spent a lot of time last week filling feedbags of rocks to form the foundation for the walls of the house. It took a long, long time, but it´s obviously a really important part of the process. Then we got to work, laying the tongue&groove for the roof, mixing the dry clay in mixing ponds (which are extremely cold to hop into early in the day!) and making the mezcla (mixture) of clay, straw and sand in motorized mixers (thank God).

Then, we started laying the bricks of clay on top of the bags of rocks, to form the walls.

The bricks are puttied in place with more of the clay mezcla and then a full layer of the clay is laid on top. Then more bricks and clay until the wall is done.

On the other south side of the house, the walls are built of straw bales. Since this side of the house is fairly warm and straw is considerably cheaper (yet still sound and stable), this was a good alternative. And much faster than mezcla!

Within two days, we had enough of the walls done to start on the living roof. We took sod from a nearby pond project to layer on top of the roof. Nothing goes wasted here.

While the bricks and new clay were drying, we moved into a nearby structure to work on fully constructed walls. A different variation of mezcla, mixed a flour recipe and guano (yes, chicken poo) is used to bind the clay walls and prep for the weather-proof layer.

From here, we set Bamboo frames into the wall and wove bamboo shoots in to create designs and structural details (shelves, mirror frames, wine-bottle window settings).

The bamboo is then covered with clay-soaked straw,


which is finished with clay plaster and the same weather layer.

The end result is a fully natural, weather-proof (it snows here in winter), insulated home. All built from the ground, literally. Watching this all take place and seeing the house take shape is so rewarding. We finished off the build with a candle ceremony, lighting successive candles in a spiral in the ground around the central support post of the house, to celebrate how everything in the house is connected to the Earth.

Paulina, the voluteer and workshop coordinator, said some really interesting things during the candle ceremony. She talked about how important it is to get into the dirt, get the Earth on your hands, your feet, your face, so that you can reconnect with it- and how cleansing getting dirty can be. It made me think how disconnected we are from getting dirty and that we think of dirt as a bad thing. I´ve been dirtier this week than ever in my life. My skin has taken on a dark shade with all the clay and earth that´s ground into it, regardless of the amount of scrubbing I do. But, I´ve also had a chance to see what you can create with Earth. It´s so, so incredible. It´s totally changed my perspective on natural building- thinking these buildings were only for warm climates with predictable weather- to thinking that this is something that is a possiblity. And the whole idea of making things from the rawest of materials, knowing exactly where they came from and exactly what they are made with, is fascinating to me. Don´t get me wrong- it´s a HUGE undertaking and we had the luxury of about 25 people to take this one (and the house is far from done). But, the other thing that Paulina pointed out is how this cooperative building project builds a house, as well as a community. In our case, this is defintely true. It´s pretty awesome to see a group of people come together and create something so functional and important out of clay and straw.

South by the Lunar Eclipse (Day 14)

One of my treats this week was the lunar eclipse. Seing that it doesn´t get dark here until well after 10pm and the mountains obscure the horizon (yes, poor me), the moon didn´t pop over the mountains until about 10:30pm. By that point, we had all gathered around a campfire and were front and centre to watch.


It was awesome to watch the shadow slowly pull over the moon and when the moon was finally fully eclipsed around 1:15am, one of the workers pulled out a diggeridoo (spelling?). He then proceeded to play for the ENTIRE eclipse ...as in, he didn´t stop to take a breath the entire 20min. I didn´t realize that circular breathing is a part of playing the diggeridoo, but it was pretty cool to watch. And, as the moon was shadowed out, all the stars appeared really, really bright. I got to see the Southern Cross, which of course we don´t get to see in Canada, and the Milky Way was almost spotlighted in the sky.


I remember thinking to myself that this is one of those moments that you remember- watching a lunar eclipse, by a campfire, with the mountains in your view. Pretty special.

Calon del Azul Hike (Day 10)

16Feb08

This weekend I set off for a hiking trip to the nearby Calon del Azul (Blue Canyon) in nearby Wharton. I have been told that it´s a pretty straight-forward trip and since we have the weekends off (i.e., no designated tasks), I thought I would take the plunge and head out. Not ecstatic to be going solo, but I´m too intrigued not to try.

And man, it was worth it. First of all, I walked the whole way. The hamlet of Wharton, where the trail starts, is only about 5km from the top of the farm road (albeit it´s 2km in to the farm). This walk was rewarded by incredible views of the mountains and the surrounding farms. The sun was shining and it was perfectly warm.



When I finally arrived at the trailhead (and I should mention it´s a crazy steep walk/drive into the trailhead), I had to cross the sketchiest bridges I´ve ever seen to get started. Talk about testing your courage. These foot bridges make trail bridges in any parks I´ve been to in Canada look like highway overpasses.


Once I got passed the bridges, it was a brutally steep climb and the high sun was pretty steamy. I basically walked into the canyon in Wharton and was now in the process of walking to the top via the Calon del Azul trail. But again, incredible views. The water from the surrounding glaciers has carved it´s was through the steep rock of the canyon, pooling into this incredibly turquoise blue lagoon and then channelling through into a river as it makes its way into the valley of farms.

From there on, the trail was a lot less steep (I´d made it to the top of the canyon) but a lot hairier. Like, climbing ladders and a little bit of rock scrambling. Luckily, I had picked up another solo hiker and we were able to make our way to my target refugio (cabin), Refugio Retamal. There refugios are pretty sweet- they´re set in trails all over Argentina, and they are completely full service with a cook (or you can use the kitchen), hot showers, and you can sleep in the cabin or tent nearby. The refugio keepers are pretty entertaining, and Mariano (seen here explaining a trail to other hikers) was no exception!

He makes a mean oregano pizza and has some pretty wicked homemade cerveza (beer), shared with the gang of travellers here for the night. He also sat down and mapped out a few places I should see when I´m in Cordoba, later in my trip.

I also took a little side-hike to a nearby lookoff. The name of it is something like "Valley of Wind", which is definitely was. I had to keep a firm grip on my camera (and the ground) to get a photo that would capture the panoramic delight at the end of the trail.

After a little mate with Mariano in the morning, I headed back to the farm the next day, albeit with a slight detour. I was told that there was pretty much only one trail in and out, although I managed to complete bypass three of the five refugios I passed on the way in. I got a little concerned for a bit, when I wasn´t recognizing anything, but stopped in at one of the refugios and had an escort back to the trail I knew. Good to see my sense of direction hasn´t been affected by the southern hemisphere.

Anyway, the trip was absolutely fantastic and I´m really glad I ventured out. I had a great time, met some great people, experience a refugio and some amazing scenery. A pretty great way to spend a weekend.