Christmas Eve in Buenos Aires
Shaun arrived in Buenos Aires, capitol of Argentina, on Christmas
Eve to meet Kaitlin, who had already been in the city a week, working.
We got to work being on vacation right away, going on a free
walking tour of El Centro, the city’s historic and political core.
After many hours of walking in the sauna of the city of good
air, we took a breather in an air conditioned café in the San Telmo neighborhood.
The café was called Hierba Buena and served natural food and fresh juices which
brought our blood back down to pre-boiling temperature.
We took a sticky siesta in our air condition-less room in
San Telmo, woke up and had Christmas Eve dinner Argentine style. With its
rolling plains lands (pampas) and wine country (Mendoza), Argentina is of
course known for its steak and vino tinto; so that night, we sampled both
beneath the ombu trees at an outdoor parilla (steakhouse) down the street. The fame is well deserved!
There were no Christmas cookies or eggnog in sight, but the searing Argentine folk music with classic Spanish guitar and flamenco dancers were festive enough.
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| Yeah, we know. It takes two to tango. |
Christmas Day in El Calafate
We said goodbye to the heat Christmas Day, traveling to the region
of Patagonia, far to the south of the country (and the world). We landed in El
Calafate, a small town named after a hardy, spiked shrub—one of the few things
growing on the barren prairie on the shores of the glacial blue Lake Argentina.
After checking in to our cozy Hosteria Shilling (complete with
gregarious English speaking host), we had Christmas dinner at another parilla.
We ordered “the grill for two” and they literally brought out a small grill and
set it on our table. The metal box was fired by live coals and boasted a stack
of meat that would have intimidated King Henry VIII: shanks of lamb, sirloin,
and chorizo—the warmth of which we would need to fortify us for our glacier
trekking the next day.
On Perito Moreno
Getting up early we rode a tour bus deeper into the hills,
outside the rain shadow and into a nothofagus forest home to the Perito Moreno
glacier. The glacier’s rug of ice is one of the only glacier’s in the world
that is advancing rather than retreating. It 60 meter tall walls blocks one bay
of Lake Argentina from another and stretches southward into a seeming infinity
of hazy white abyss.
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| Perito Moreno: bigger than Buenos Aires |
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| It's summer |
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| K by some Andean Firebrush |
Standing on an overlook above it, we could hear thunderous crashes
concussing as skyscraper sized pieces of the glacier fell into the lake in a
quiet natural process called calving (sorry global warming theorists). The view
called to mind Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer above the Sea, but of course
we weren’t alone.
We were soaked in minutes, however. For while chunks were
falling off the glacier, the sky was covering it with a healthy new dose of
freezing rain.
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| "bridge" created by the "warm" summer waters of Largo Argentina melting the glacier |
A boat ride and a soggy hike later, our guides bound our
feet in crampons. They felt oddly like bear traps clattering on our feet as we
clambered around an hour tour of one of glacier’s shoulders.
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| a sun break |
Upon returning to our hostel, our host prepared us some mate—a
strong tea served out of a gourd (calabasa)—the perfect post-trekking soother.
The Three Towers
The next day we crossed the border into Chile and into
Torres Del Paine—Yellow Stone of the south and Disneyland for backpackers from
all over the world.
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| Guanacos on the way to Torres |
After two hours of driving through prairie, jagged granite
peaks emerged seemingly out of nowhere. Herds of guanacos grazing on coiron
along the grasslands of the foothills provided delightful impediments. We took
scads of pictures like idiots while our driver drank some mate at the dashboard
and the harsh wind herded the clouds away from the bigger attraction. Along the
roadside of a pristine lake, we caught our first glimpse of the three
monolithic towers that give the park its name.
Arriving at Hotel Las Torres (a four star resort nestled in
the green hills at the base of the mountains), we took a break from steak,
slurped down some tomato bisque and hit the trail
hard.
It was 10 kilometers to the towers through a wind-lashed valley,
gushing rivers (sometimes crossable via bridges, other times not), lenga forests
and, finally, a heart breaking ascent up a rock slide.
We were outrunning
fatigue, hunger and a setting sun—and all on tomato bisque—but we made it,
arriving in time to see the granite peaks standing above the concave of a
moraine. Similes abounded, but memorably, Kaitlin compared them to pipe organs
in a cathedral.
We snapped that iconic shot, read a Psalm and raced down the
slope to return to the hotel in time to catch dinner.
As we descended back into the Andean steppe, Patagonian-Sierra
finches serenaded us with congratulations.
A "Big Week"
Though packing 20 kilometers in to a five and a half hour
late afternoon hike seems insane, we were glad we did it. It was our nicest day
in Patagonia.
The next day we gave our feet and thighs and ankles a rest
and took a tour bus around the park’s lakes, waterfall and glacier.
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| Glacier Grey |
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| Floating ice on Largo Grey |
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| Lupine growing wild |
We saw more birds in a day than
we would have in a year. Black faced ibises, southern lapwings, upland geese, crested
caracaras, brown hooded gulls and oven birds were as common as crows. Others of
note were Austral Negritos and a rufous tailed plant cutter. Kaitlin saw a
meadow lark that resembled a beating red heart in the reeds of the marsh we
were walking through. And of course, there was the ubiquitous Andean Condor
wheeling in great gyres overhead.
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| Southern Lapwing |
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| Northern Flapped Duckling |
We took a break from the four star resort life (the braised
lamb, the wine, the glacier tap water, blah, blah, blah) and took a day in the
Andean fishing village of Puerto Natales.
You know that old painting in your grandpa’s house of busted
boats, belly up? Well it must have been painted here. The town is mainly a stopover for
backpackers and yanqui adventurers off into the deeper crevasses of Patagonia.
For us, we just wanted something to eat, which on a Sunday evening proved difficult.
We did find our way into a one room café where our waiter was also the owner
and the chef. We ate fresh salmon with dark, Chilean beer as we smelled the
lupine, the brine and the hint of snow carried by the wind.
Back in Torres Del Paine, another amazing hike along a group
of peaks called The Cuernos (horns).
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| Shuttling supplies between refufios via caballos |
"Poor Niagara"
It's what Eleanor Roosevelt said when she saw Iguazu Falls. And though Shaun had never seen Niagara, he shared her sentiment.
After a quiet New Years Eve in an old family restaurant in
Buenos Aires where the wine flowed like soda, we were jungle bound.
The flight northward to Iguazu falls concludes with this
exclamation point: a telltale plume of mist rising from the thick green.
We entered the park and rode a sleepy tram deeper into the
forest. The red earth turned pools of rain water the same orange as sweet Thai
tea. A rain shower alleviated us from the air’s humid breath.
We took a river boat ride up the rapids and to the base of
the outcroppings of the falls where the daredevil driver whipped us into some
of the smaller curtains of water—still enough soak our ponchos through. A kind
of New Year’s baptism. It was also on this ride that we got the best sense of
the falls. Because of the sheer volume of water, there’s so much mist it’s
difficult to see it all in person, let alone capture in a picture. Needless to
say, we did our best.
Back in BA
Back in Buenos Aires, we visited a few Notables—cafes that
once were frequented by the literary and artistic elite (poets like Jorge Luis
Borges, Tango composers like Carlos Gardel)—but now are filled with tourists
and curt but efficient waiters serving up shots of espresso (café) and honeyed
croissants (media de lunas).
We walked to Puerto Madero and saw the famous Puente de La Mujer
(woman’s bridge), its arch set at the exact slant of a female tango dancer
being dipped. The bridge let us eventually to an ecological reserve where we
saw cardinals, parrots and wood pecks, along with glimpses of the muddy brown
bosom of Rio de La Plata. It’s the widest river in the world and, perhaps, the
slowest.
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| Palacio Barolo |
At night we took a tour of Palacio Barolo. There we found
out what happens when you give a cotton baron a limitless supply of cash and an
epic poem. The eccentric office building corresponds loosely with Dante’s
Divine Comedy (100 meters for 100 divine cantos, nine pillars for the nine circles
of hell, nine central tower balconies for the nine planets of heaven, etc…).
But the panoramic view of Buenos Aires was far more impressive than the architectural
whimsy.
Update: Read the article that Kaitlin got published about the tour of Palacio Barolo.
We braved another day of porteno swelter to see La Boca (a
colorful barrio near the port) and the San Telmo flea market which had to be a
solid mile of vendors.
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| La Boca |
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| Mate for everyone |
We were outrunning
fatigue, hunger and a setting sun—and all on tomato bisque—but we made it,
arriving in time to see the granite peaks standing above the concave of a
moraine. Similes abounded, but memorably, Kaitlin compared them to pipe organs
in a cathedral.
You know that old painting in your grandpa’s house of busted
boats, belly up? Well it must have been painted here. The town is mainly a stopover for
backpackers and yanqui adventurers off into the deeper crevasses of Patagonia.
For us, we just wanted something to eat, which on a Sunday evening proved difficult.
We did find our way into a one room café where our waiter was also the owner
and the chef. We ate fresh salmon with dark, Chilean beer as we smelled the
lupine, the brine and the hint of snow carried by the wind.
We found ourselves on a slippery metal boardwalk built over
a slow river about the color of chicken noodle soup. Then we saw the flat
surface fall away into what’s called the Devil’s Throat, a canyon of ever-gnashing
waters. A third taller than Niagara falls, Iguazu is really a layered network
of hundreds of falls. As we walked around the park it seemed that water was
exploding from the earth, forming a wedding cake of cascading water. Cliff side
palms clung for dear life.
