Last stop, Giant Head Statue Land!

Easter Island. Or, more accurately, Rapa Nui, in the language of the indigenous Rapanui. As one book I read put it, you go there for the statues, but you leave enchanted by the rest of the island. This is the best way I can think of putting it. The island is stunningly beautiful, with an addictively leisurely pace, and plenty of charm. All the advice I read said you could do the island in two or three days, but this approach imparts a sense of urgency to what should really be a very relaxed, almost organic process of discovery. I was there four full days and could easily have used five more, having left without seeing nearly half the island's sights.

I should be clear: as the very last stop on my trip (barring two days of lounging around Santiago waiting for my flight home), I wanted to take it very easy. My goal was to see what I could see without exerting myself beyond the kind of ambling pace that Jimmy Buffett would appreciate. I resigned myself to the possibility of missing a few highlights even before I arrived. I knew of at least one palm-lined, emerald-watered, white sand beach, and intended to take as much time there as I could. And so when I disembarked from my plane and was greeted by a representative from my hostel (Camping Mihinoa) with a garland of fragrant flowers, the four hours' delay in my flight simply melted away. I was smiling helplessly all the while we waited for our full complement of guests, and all through waiting for our van to arrive, and on the very short ride to our accommodation (turns out you could walk between the two in about twenty minutes). And when I arrived at the campsite, well, damn. It was just amazing.

Camping Mihinoa.

I had a dorm in a room at the back of the property. From the porch of that building the camping area stretched towards the fence, and beyond the fence, the shore: a red dirt road tracing the contours of a short cliff of angular black volcanic rock. The base of the cliff tumbled further out here and there in chaotic sharp piles, against which the surf exploded every five seconds; the white spray contrasted spectacularly against the ruddy black of the rock. And beyond all this, the ocean, and nothing for three thousand miles except the sunset every night. Needless to say, it was tempting not to leave the hostel at all; I could have sat contentedly on the edge of the cliff, watching the surf all day for five days straight.

My favourite spot on the island.

But, of course, I did leave. A brief overview, with photos to follow in subsequent posts:

Day one, I simply walked on my own to Hanga Roa, the island's only town. I poked around the little marina there and looking into scuba diving, which in the end I didn't do because I'm not certified and didn't feel like learning in Spanish, plus to get my Open Water would have been two full days and I didn't have them to spare. I then walked on past town a bit and had my first encounter with the moai ("MO-eye"; the statues). They were cool, what can I say. Obviousness abounds. Big, and silent, and awesome. On my way back I ran into an Aussie dude who had arrived at the camping that morning, and we and a French girl he was walking with whom he'd met at the tourist information shop repaired to an oceanside patio for a drink and dinner. We all got along very well and decided to see a few sites together in the days that followed. 

Day two, I woke up at 5:15 to get a ride out to a site called Tongariki, where I watched the sun rise behind a line of 15 moai, the longest set on the island. Needless to say, this was spectacular. The giant statues emerging from the darkness gave the same impression of being entities, rather than merely objects, as the Perito Moreno glacier had. Returning to the camping I met up with the others, who had elected not to see the sunrise that morning, and we set off on foot to see the nearby (extinct) volcano of Ranu Kau and the ruins of Orongo, a ceremonial village on its rim. I'll spare you the history lesson and just mention that this place took my by complete surprise. It too was spectacular, and fascinating, and absolutely gorgeous, and it had nothing to do with giant statues. Who knew?

Day three, the three of us took a full-day tour to see the north and east coasts of the island. The first site was the aforementioned beach, Anakena, which had, in addition to the sand and the palms and the water, an impressive platform of moai, that made the place just that much more unbelievable. Thence to some petroglyphs (carvings), and Tongariki (this time with full daylight and explanations). After that was the real highlight: the quarry at Rano Raraku. This place was just unbelievable. Finished and half-finished and just-started moai littered the site, some still half-submerged in the cliff out of which they were carved, many others buried up to their shoulders in sediment that had slid down from the side of the volcano. Think of a children's playground filled with toys, abandoned abruptly, so that everything is there except the people, and everything is perfectly still. (Ignore the images you may be conjuring from Terminator 2 -- nobody here is shattering into flaming bits and pieces in a nuclear holocaust.) This place had a similar feel: unnaturally empty. The statues seemed to have given up waiting for their owners to return. It was a fascinating and somewhat haunting open-air museum, testament to a vanished and now unknowable culture.

Day four I wasn't feeling so good -- I think the cold I thought I'd conquered in Mendoza was mounting a new attack. In keeping with my stated philosophy of sacrificing sights for pace, I gave up thoughts of seeing a few caves and just slept through most of the day. But at 4pm I reckoned lying on a beach wouldn't be too much of a stretch, so I cabbed it to Anakena and spent a few enjoyable hours amid the busy Sunday crowd, soaking in the sea and soaking up the sun behind the backs of that row of five-hundred-year-old stone enigmas. At last, saying goodbye to the beach for good, I had no trouble hitching a ride back to town, and watched the scenery roll by in reverse from the bed of a pickup truck as it drove down the spine of the tiny island back to Hanga Roa.

And with that my time there effectively came to an end. My flight the next day was at noon, leaving me too little time for any adventures in the morning. Instead I sat on the porch, read some, wrote some, took a quick walk to town, and then it was time to go. Having checked in and handed over my baggage, I spent my last minutes on the island sitting on a chair in a little grassy area in the waiting area, enjoying one last time the warmth of the Pacific sun on my toes, watching the loading, cleaning and refueling of the only plane on the only runway. Our plane. From this point on, every mile I traveled would take me closer to home. Holding onto this thought, I left the island as happily as I arrived there.

Beyond the walls

Needless to say, Valparaiso was more than just a collection of decorated walls, and it would be a disservice to the city not to provide a bit more info on my time there.

Saturday: I arrive at the hostel completely exhausted from three straight late nights in Santiago, and though it is four in the afternoon I crawl into bed with the intention of staying there until the next morning. My nap is derailed, however, by the arrival/return of two Brits who were traveling separately and had never met but are from the same small town, and one of whose brothers was good friends with the sister of the other. The coincidences are compounded by the arrival of three more English folks, whose last night in England had been spent at the first kid's local in London. Amazing! Such a small world leads inevitably to instant bonding, and much animated conversation, and after the talk of who knows whom and who supports what side run dry the conversation expands to include me and a very nice Australian couple. We all have dinner in the hostel, a tasty ceviche and pisco sour deal that our amazingly enthusiastic host prepares for us himself, and despite my intention to call it a night after dinner I find myself a few minutes later at a table in a lively bar with live music in the back, with orders put in for terremotos all around, except just a beer for me please on account of I don't see the need to go down that road again after La Piojera in Santiago. This place, it turns out, serves terremotos in jug form, a la sangria, and so rather than manageable glasses the table is soon crowded with too many heavy glass jugs of the stuff. Eventually of course, the jugs are drained, and as the rest of the crowd is  headed for the clubs, I call it a night and make it to bed at last, at a respectable 2am.

Sunday: The Aussies and one British couple leave us. I spend the morning wandering on my own, marveling at the profusion of murals. I'm nervous at first on account of the stories of danger I've heard but the neighbourhoods I venture into are actually quite safe and soon I'm much more confident about taking my camera out. In the afternoon those of us who are left head to the beach at Vina del Mar. More or less your typical resort, with a beach and highrise hotels, but the water is too cold for anyone except ecstatic kids, a few reluctant parents, and small knots of invincible teenagers trying to impress each other. For dinner we go to this tiny hole in the wall way down an alley, that specializes in chorillana, a kind of Chilean poutine equivalent: a mountain of fries, plus hard-boiled egg, sauteed onions and meat. The only question you get when you sit down is how big a plate you wanted; we take two two-person plates for the four of us and are very satisfied by the end. If they added gravy the thing might well take the crown of greatest fries concoction in the world, but while it was delicious it lacked a little lubrication. Thereafter we buy a couple of bottles of cheap wine and repair to the hostel for a quiet and mercifully early nightcap.

Monday: My plan to visit Neruda's house at San Sebastiana hits a fatal snag when I'm reminded that it's closed on account of it's Monday. I spend the morning wandering again through marginally less safe-feeling hoods without incident, plus I find an excellent streets-are-for-people-type intervention at the main square. After a yummy seafood lunch, a funicular ride to a lookout, and then a brief, moderately interesting boat tour, I bus it back to Santiago to prepare for the final leg of my journey: Easter Island.

Typical scene, from atop one hill, across a canyon
to the next.

This may, perhaps, be the reason some people
describe the city as filthy.

Typical street. Steeper than it looks.

One of countless stairway/alleys.
This looks about as steep as it is, i.e. very.

The Pasaje (Galvez) where my hostel was.
Hostal Casa Valparaiso, btw, highly recommended.
Muy buena onda, plus twin-sized mattresses on the bunks!

Colourful + dilapidated = super-typical scene.

The Chorillana restaurant, J. Cruz.

There were a few brushfires just over the ridge while we were
there. Relatively normal occurrence in summer, we heard.

See? It's a big place! View from the lookout at the top of one of the
few operational funiculars, no doubt open because it's a popular one
with tourists.

One of the (non-operational) funiculars.

I think they use "bohemian" to mean "covered in graffiti"

Valparaiso. Nobody I talked to in all my travels adequately prepared me for the city. It was cool, they said, or it was dirty; it was gross, it was fun, it was hilly, it had lots of funiculars, it was dangerous, it was charming, it was run-down, it was "bohemian". What nobody told me, though, is that every inch of it is covered in street art. Most of it crazy good, and as with rising tides and boats the sheer volume of pieces made even the mediocre look pretty sweet in the middle of it all. I could have spent weeks -- months! -- there photographing every piece without getting bored. It was awesome.

Also, it's huge! I expected a town, sprawling up a couple of hillsides, navigable on foot in a day or two, which is the most anybody recommended staying there. Instead I was surprised to find myself in a pretty sizeable city that spilled up and over every hill in sight, a jumble of brightly coloured buildings piled one on top of another, jauntily scaffolding the cliffs and steep hillsides around the port and its bay. And it was dirty, and it was filled with garbage, and all sorts of structures were in an atrocious state of repair, and most of the funiculars were on strike; but I absolutely loved the place. And I never even got to La Sebastiana, one of Pablo Neruda's houses and apparently a very cool place indeed, because I forgot to account for the Universal Museum Closing Day rule (i.e., Mondays=bad) in my planning.

I mean, just look at this stuff!

The more I know, the less I understand

So, my initial impression on returning to Santiago was that it was a lot easier to understand what other people were saying, after nine weeks of practice with my Spanish. And indeed, it is easier to understand what people are saying; but only when they're saying those things to me. Or, to any other gringo, I suppose. Chileans talking amongst themselves, however, are a whole other story. Before, I assumed they were speaking Spanish quickly, and that I just couldn't penetrate the flurry, especially given the national quirks of pronunciation like, oh, dropping most d's and s's and conjugating in the form of "como estai" instead of "como estas". Now that I'm better attuned to those quirks and have improved my vocab and comprehension skills, I can sometimes pick out a word here and there. Unfortunately, my increased ability to parse the flood has had the unfortunate effect of making it abundantly clear that there is another, much more difficult problem. Specifically, even with complete command of your standard Spanish dictionary I'd never be able to understand what they're saying, because in Chile there is a whole other dictionary's worth of slang, and it is employed constantly and by pretty much everyone. It takes more time than I've got even to decipher the words comprising this slang; in the meantime, it's just "[??????] spanish spanish [????] spanish spanish spanish, [?????]!"

Not that I'm complaining -- in fact the sophistication of the language around here is pretty awesome. Anyway I consider it progress that I can now isolate the [????] maybe 20% of the time. Coupled with the 50% of the time I can actually parse the isolated Spanish bits, and the 30% of those instances where I can actually understand what I've managed to parse, I'm proud to say my eavesdropping skill has progressed by some kind of decent percentage, which I'd calculate more accurately if my motivation to do math right now was anywhere over its current, easy-to-quantify rate of exactly 0%.

Terremoto... tasty!

A long-forgotten quiet bubble of solitude enveloped me as I checked out of the Mendoza hotel on my own. I was alone again: my LTC (lovely and talented companion) had at last run out of stalling tactics and was at that moment taking off on the first leg of her journey back to Canada. It was a different solitude now than at the start of my trip, and I was not as comfortable with it now. Before, it was characterized by self-sufficiency and expectation; now it was characterized by absence. In this quiet mood, I headed to the terminal to catch my bus over the Andes to Santiago. I was going there to meet up with a friend from home who had extended a business trip to Santiago in order to see a bit of Chile, who was going to be back in Santiago for a few days prior to returning home. This was just the thing to cure my blues. We met up for lunch on the first day I was there, after which we hung out with some contacts he had made at his conference. They, and eventually various additional friends of theirs, did an excellent job giving us a tour of Santiago's nightlife over the next three nights, taking us to an expat pub in Providencia, a tiny hole in the wall in Lastarria that was right up my alley, an excellent dance bar in Bellavista, and (inadvertently) a gay night at another Bellavista bar, the last of which naturally had the best dance mix of the lot. More importantly, however, they introduced me to an amazing Chilean cocktail: the Terremoto.

Here's how it works: you take a huge slosh of disgusting cheap white wine, preferably from a five-litre jug; one generous unmeasured pour of Fernet, that horrific bitter spirit so popular in Argentina it's something like the national drink; and one giant scoop of pineapple-flavoured ice cream. Insert straw, and serve. This results in a dangerously delicious concoction which gets its name, which means earthquake, from the fact that when you stand up after finishing one, the ground tends to seem a little unsteady. The most pernicious aspect of the drink, though, as far as I'm concerned, is that if you _don't_ happen to stand up after finishing your first one it seems like the best idea of all time to order a second.

Our initiation to this drink was in a tavern located in an alley behind Santiago's Mercado Central known as La Piajera Piojera, which translates to something like "the lice-ery". It's the dodgiest dive I've been to in a long while, with sawdust on the floor, scribbles on every wall, a drain at the bottom of a tiled wall for a urinal, a closing time at 11 to allow patrons to make their way out of the neighbourhood while the chances of being mugged are still this side of 50%, and a terrifying if always second-hand reputation for fights and flying chairs. We were advised to leave everything of value at home. And so, with nothing on us of value except our lives and enough cash for the evening, we headed there for an after-work cocktail with our hosts and some of their colleagues and friends; stepping past the marginaly raffish crowd at the entrance we found a table, and I was astonished to find the place absolutely packed -- with students. Boisterous but seemingly innocuous packs of twentysomethings crowded virtually every table; there was even the odd hipster. Where were the brawlers? The pickpockets? The toothless old wasters? Nowhere to be found, as far as I could see. We sat down, and were introduced to the others, and followed their lead in stirring our drinks vigorously and continuously, and then we sipped. It was odd, but tasty. Sipped again. It was less odd, more tasty. By the fifth sip it was just plain delicious. A third of the way through our cups our cheeks were flushed. By the bottom of the cup I was quite happy, though by no means unsteady; still, a chorus of strong cautions from the veterans convinced me not to get a refill. Instead I contented myself with sharing in the pitcher of chicha (apparently some kind of boozy concoction made from the grape stems, seeds and skins removed during the wine-making process) that one of our hosts had settled for instead of the pitcher of beer she'd actually ordered (I should mention, our hosts were Americans, not Chileans). Shortly after, before it was all the way dark outside, we left half the group behind and went our to find a taxi to Bellavista and dinner. We found a cab without a problem, and sped away to the other side of town without having been witness to (or victim of) any of the advertised dangers, which, as far as I was concerned, was a-okay.

Mendoza, city of tribulation

After Bariloche, Mendoza. For some reason this city seemed determined to stick it to us, and only with the utmost perseverance did we maintain a positive impression of what is, after all, a pretty nice city with quite a bit to offer.

It all started with our lodging, a hostel picked out of the Lonely Planet for its description as being charming and low-key but friendly. We arrived to find an empty, echoey front hall manned by an indifferent fortysomething guy who looked a bit like Maury Chaykin during the less salubrious moments of Whale Music, who led us to our room. This was painted an extremely depressing shade of old-bachelor yellowing-white, with paint peeling from the ceiling and a window out into a dire little courtyard/airshaft with not much more than a work table and some bits of wood. The bathroom, down the hall, had an uncooperative lock on the door and was one of those where the bathroom _is_ the shower stall, which would have been fine except that the placement of the shower head required you to straddle a bidet to get under it. Needless to say, we didn't want to spend our last days traveling together in this kind of soul-destroying dump; so we immediately returned the key and went in search of other lodgings. This we found in the form of one of the many co-owned HI-affiliated hostels in the town (Hostel Mendoza Internacional), which had the mandatory big board of activities for the week, super-friendly young staff, and all sorts of inviting common space. Had we been less blinded by the bleakness of our first pick, we might have noticed the frequency with which "party" formed part of said big board of activities: a pizza party Wednesday, an asado party Friday, and a pool party every second Sunday or something like that. But we shrugged it off, reckoning that we'd be out on the town until the last unlimited tequila shot had been dispensed and the partiers were bused out to the clubs. And this would, no doubt, have been the case, if I hadn't come down with a terrible cold almost from the moment we unpacked.

As it was, I spent the better part of two days in bed, baking in our un-air-conditioned double room, with a window that looked out over the patio of the hostel's very own bar, which proximity gave rise to the equally unsatisfactory options of closing the window to minimize the omnipresent noise but shut out any breeze, or opening the window, allowing some air to circulate but eliminating any sort of sound barrier. The low point came Wednesday night, our second there, when I had the first real fever of my adult life, and spent the evening with chills, sweats, and a head full of distressing imaginings. Thank God providing needy boyfriends with abundant aid, comfort and reassurance is among my lovely companion's many talents; that night was unpleasant enough but it would have been a real ordeal on my own.

Nor was having a head full of boogers an ideal state to be in when you're in the country's premier wine-producing region. This family-owned bodega's 2005 Malbec? Tastes like Halls. Oh, and what a fine, boogery finish on that award-winning 2004 Merlot! I was worried I wouldn't recover my senses in time, but when Friday morning came I was energetic enough, and clear enough of nostril, that we made the snap decision to head to Maipu, a suburb full of bodegas easily navigated by bike. And so we did, and though it was damn hot on the unshaded portions of the roads -- Mendoza being situated in the middle of the desert, it gets really, really hot in the summer, and all green things in the whole region can only grow thanks to extensive irrigation channels, which include little aqueducts running beside every single meter of sidewalk, whether paved or dirt, in the entire city, to provide water for the many, many shade-providing trees, and to cool the air; but these channels did not quite extend to the roads we had to bike -- we made it to our chosen wineries and had a lovely time waiting out the worst of the day's heat on the blindingly white-decorated rooftop terrace of the very modern bodega Tempus Alba, where the alarmingly gregarious owner, clad in white linen to match the decor, invited us with one hand enthusiastically gripping my shoulder to make ourselves at home on the couches. We did, of course, and the generous glasses of rosado we ordered (review: underwhelming) were enough, after two equally generous flights at our previous stops, to put us quite over the edge. Thus it was that we spent a couple of hilarious hours hanging out in the shade on white couches on a white roof looking out over a sea of electric green vines stretching into the distance under a flawless blue sky.

Back in the city after such a full day, and still not at 100% health-wise, it was beyond our powers to stay out late on Friday night. This, we knew, was our hostel's night to host the party for all its affiliates, whose patrons were bused over for an all-you-can eat asado, followed by unlimited tequila shots, general mayhem, etc. etc. It was a loud one, even after the buses departed around 2, since some folks opted to stay and hang out there a while longer. That was the last straw for us; the next morning we searched out and found new accommodations for our final three nights, the charming, real-hotel (vs hostel) Hotel San Martin, right on the main square, with air conditioning, a closet, fresh linen, and even a pool! (Our lodging difficulties didn't end there, however: on Sunday morning, our hot water tap didn't work in the shower. No big deal, we just skipped that morning's shower; but when we returned that evening, it still didn't work, and we had to switch rooms for our final night. Still not the end of the world, except it seemed like about the millionth accommodation hitch in five days.)

On our last night, after a day that saw us cab out to one final bodega (Escorihuela) only to be informed that it was closed for renovations (stickin' it!), we at last got to The Vines of Mendoza, a fantastic tasting room a block from our hotel. We shared an absolutely delicious flight of stars from Argentina's various regions, and watched, from the comfort of our seat at the tasting bar, as the city where it went seven months without rain last year was inundated by a torrential downpour and then pelted by hail. But it was too late; we were safe inside, with glasses of the country's best wine in hand... a little bit of weather couldn't change our minds. We'd strolled the shady streets, enjoyed the patios along Villanueva, gaped at the mountain scenery on an excellent day tour to Aconcagua, eaten at some fantastic restaurants and succeeded in taking advantage of the region's wineries. Despite all its efforts to convince us otherwise, Mendoza was a fine place indeed. And it's especially satisfying to know we like it in spite of its desire to make us hate it. Now who's stickin' it to who, eh, Mendoza?

That's right.

See you next time, city.

Peace.

Lies, damned lies, and a bike ride

Our other excursion from Bariloche was to the Parque Nacional Los Arrayanes, a stand of Arrayanes trees that are said to look magical and Disney-like due to their mottled bark, twisted branching forms, and the flattering effects of dappled sunlight upon them. The park is at the end of a peninsula, reachable either via a 12km path or via short water taxi ride. We opted for the taxi ride, not feeling much like hiking 24k; the other option would have been to bike it but as neither of us were mountain biking enthusiasts (much less veterans) that option was even less appealing than hiking.

And so we packed some layers and some snacks for the road, and just barely caught the bus to the town with the boats, Villa La Angosturra. There we inquired at the tourist office as to the whereabouts of the water taxis, and their hours, and costs. It turned out, however, that the day we had picked for our little jaunt was some kind of holiday in honour of mariners, and therefore none of the boats were running. Whether this was an international, national, regional or municipal holiday I have no idea, and subsequent if half-hearted googling hasn't turned up anything. For the Spanish-speaking research-o-philes among you, readers, feel free to dig around the old interweb and see if you come up with anything. (It was not, at any rate, a strike, which in itself is noteworthy.) But: we were right there! It was so close! We wouldn't have another chance! Plus, we didn't feel like just taking the bus back in defeat. It was well into the day, though, so walking was out; and the bike rental place was half a block away, per the woman in the tourist office. We resigned ourselves to the fact that we would just have to bike it.

Twenty minutes later we were strapped into our ill-fitting helmets, and we took off down the street towards the park entrance on bikes that shifted through about 60% of their advertised range of gears, and not smoothly at that. More astute adventurers might have taken this as a sign from the universe to reconsider, but we reckoned that if all the bikes were like that the trail wouldn't demand all that much of them or their riders. This reckoning, it turns out, was way off the mark.

It was three paved kilometers from the rental place to the park entrance. It wasn't long into this stretch that the road began to climb, and it continued to do so for two of these three kilometers. Soon it became as steep as any street in Toronto heading north to Saint Clair Avenue, and we were forced to dismount and walk our bikes to the top of the hill. Eventually the slope reversed direction and we descended steeply, braking squeakily all the way, until we finally reached the shore, the park entrance, and, to our considerable consternation, another bike rental agency that the tourist office failed to mention, which had we known about it we would for sure have picked, saving ourselves the trouble of biking six very hilly extra kilometers.

Then we were in the park and the trail began in earnest. Twelve kilometers to the forest. Seemed doable.

The trail began with stairs. Two hundred stairs. Steep ones. Grudgingly, we hefted our bikes onto our shoulders and set about climbing them. At the top we finally got on our bikes, thinking the tough part was over. We pedaled for maybe a minute before the trail rose steeply, forcing us off our bikes again, this time without the benefit of stairs. We pushed and carried our bikes uphill for another kilometer, on an unrideable switchback trail past cliffs with signs warning us not to stop due to the risk of falling rocks. At last we reached the summit of the peninsula, where we were greeted by a sign indicating that our destination was... 12km away. This, then, is the first lie: the trail is more than 12km long. And the first, uncounted bit, is not bikeable and is all uphill. (It turns out, incidentally, that pushing is much harder than carrying. The latter allows you to walk with a normal gait, more or less, while the former causes you to walk all hunched over and to lean most of your weight into your bike, which is neither comfortable nor efficient.)

From kilometer 0 the next three or four clicks were very hilly, and our lack of experience coupled with our less than fully functional bikes meant that we had to walk the steep bits, both up and down, to keep from losing all momentum and/or wiping out. Eventually the trail leveled out and we were able to make better progress, but by then we were getting tired and frustrated, and by the time we approached kilometer eleven your humble scribe was in a bit of a huff. Where the hell was this magical forest? It sure didn't look like we were within a kilometer of it. Maybe its magic was really that those who tried to find it were destined never to reach it. The prospect of having to do the whole damn trail in reverse only made matters worse, and it was taking so long that we'd barely have forty-five minutes at our destination before having to turn around and head back. Nor did my mood improve when, after a very steep decline, we reached kilometer 12 and were still not at the forest's entrance. Instead, we were at the fence that demarcated the forests boundary. Lie 2, then: 12 kilometers brings you to the forest, but not the forest's entrance. Instead we had to follow the fence for another kilometer, this stretch littered with tree roots that once again were beyond our novice capabilities to ride over. I'm a little ashamed to admit that when at last we reached the gate to the special forest, I was in no mood to even look at the trees let alone fall under their spell; and as for the language I directed at the contraption that had brought me there (or rather, it seemed to me, vice versa), this is not that kind of venue. I should mention that my lovely and talented companion was not in such a foul mood as I was; in fact we've noticed that we have a remarkable tendency to balance each other out, so that if one of us is being a cranky-pants the other is invariably more optimistic, which good humour eventually proves contagious so that nobody is really pouty for all that long. And so, after letting me vent for a while and participating good-naturedly in the verbal abuse of our now-parked bicycles, she eventually led me reluctantly into the forest we'd come to see. I remained unreceptive to the place's charms, though, until we happened to look out onto the lake just below and spotted two docks, with one boat parked at each. Lie Number 3: boats were running! At least two of them, and that was one more than we needed. The further one was a big yacht, and looked as though it had come carrying a tour from Bariloche, but the closer one was much smaller, and just tying up, and had, as far as we could tell, only two passengers. This second boat, we thought, might just prove to be our salvation. I wasted no time approaching it and inquiring as to the possibility of getting a ride back to Villa La Angostura. Sure, they said. For 80 pesos each. We had found ourselves a water taxi -- for all we knew the only one of the day. Thinking it might be unlikely that we would have exactly 160 pesos, and taking advantage of Argentines' horror at having to make change, I offered 150 for the two of us. They agreed. Huzzah! But:

We had bikes, I added.

No problem, they said, they would strap them to the deck; but it was up to us to bring them down to the dock.

Yes, yes! I said. There is no problem. We were saved! We didn't have to bike back! Everything was marvelous! We practically skipped off the dock and into the forest, where we followed the deserted boardwalks -- our choice of day had this benefit, at least: there was virtually nobody else there -- through the forest, appreciating every nuance of dappled wood and twisted trunk with the utmost receptivity and wonder.

And then we loaded our bikes onto the boat, and held on to our hats in the wind like glamorous old-timey movie stars as we sped back to town across the sparkling blue of the lake, and we laughed at our earlier surliness. And when we docked, and got our bikes back, we hardly noticed the long push up the hill towards the centre, and we cruised down the other side and into town feeling relaxed and satisfied. We even had time before our bus left to search out and find me a new pair of sunglasses, the loss of whose predecessors occurred somewhere around kilometer 7; and my most important audience considered them an improvement, so even that worked out alright in the end.

Boardwalk and magical trees.

Salvation!

Twisty branches.

Sun-dappled bark.

seven lakes + fifty billion yellow flowering bushes = one awesome drive

When you stop and think about it, traveling through Argentina really ought to give you ecosystemic whiplash. One minute you're hiking among barren, rocky peaks and wind-deformed lenga forests, the next you're busing through a desert. Or one minute you're following winding, switchback roads through pine-forested mountains past brilliant blue lakes; the next you're cruising a dead-straight highway on the plateau above a shining lazy river.

This last juxtaposition is what we experienced on the camino de los siete lagos, a famously scenic drive from Bariloche to San Martin de los Andes in Argentina's Lake District. As the name suggests, the drive there takes you past seven gorgeous mountain lakes nestled among the mountains of the Andean cordillera. In contrast to Patagonia, these mountains were of a more traditional variety, at least where I come from, with pine forests blanketing all but the tallest peaks and normal grey granite child's-picture-of-a-roof-type silhouettes rather than the south's tumultuous, razor-sharp spikes that more closely resembled the same child's representation of their front lawn in extreme close-up. As the drive's name does _not_ suggest, however, the return trip takes you through completely different scenery with nary a mountain or glacial lake in sight -- instead, you through the steppes to the east of the cordillera that feature dramatic cliffs, winding rivers, huge open expanses, and one extremely long bridge.

We were also lucky to be there in spring, as the first day's road was bordered on both sides by an endless profusion of broom, a bush introduced to the region that produces brilliant yellow flowers at this time of year. These flowers, plus the yellow line down the middle of the (paved sections of the) road, combined in a continuous parallel yellow triplicate dance as the road wound its way through the mountains, which effect frankly overshadowed much of the lakey-mountainy scenery in terms of memorability.

Without further ado, photos of the drive.

Flowers, up close.

Flowers, up far.

One of the lakes.

Another lake away there in the distance.

The road just outside of San Martin de los Andes.

The scenery on day 2, transitioning away from mountains.

Ruta 40, Argentina's Trans-Canada Highway.
Note, neither mountains nor lakes.

Getting hillier as we get closer to Bariloche again.

Okay, maybe this part is a little spiky, or spiky after five hundred million
 years of erosion.

The Andes again. At the base of these, more or less, is Bariloche.

Our Weather Luck Officially Runs Out

For most of this trip we have been pretty lucky where the weather has been concerned. We arrived in Puerto Piramides the day _after_ it rained, and the unsealed roads were dry by the time my stick-shift initiation began; in Ushuaia it was calm and clear when it mattered most, on the Channel; Torres del Paine gave us three out of five days of pleasant, calm weather and never once soaked us in our tent; and if it was cloudy and rainy at the glacier this only added "sultry" and "mysterious" to the litany of praise I sang into the frigid winds blowing in across its luminous surface. In a little village a few hours north of Calafate, however, the weather finally, forcefully, thoroughly stuck it to us for real.

El Chalten is a tiny centre in a gorgeous setting by a river and a long wall of cliffs, which grew to tiny from virtually invisible after the trekking masses discovered it a dozen years ago. It's the base for trekking the northern parts of Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, the southern portion of which is home to the icy object of my desire. The north features some world-class super-spiky mountains known as the Fitz Roy Range. Our plan was to do a day trip or two in the area to see them. Due to some scheduling complications in El Calafate, however -- which story will have to wait, alas, but the ingredients of which include misinformation regarding bus times, ill will on our part towards the dude at the hostel who misinformed us, and subsequent restoration of our faith in humanity in general and that hostel in particular through the generous and apologetic actions of another, possibly more senior, hostel employee upon learning of the snafu -- due to this complication, we ended up with only one full day in Chalten instead of two.

Things got off to a bad start when we arrived at the hostel we'd booked. This was the one booking I'd continually neglected, because my preferred choice, Albergue Patagonia, was not bookable online and I never got up the willpower to go through the comparative inconvenience of actually phoning them. And so the day before we were to get there I chickened out once and for all and booked another place online without ever calling our first choice. This is how we arrived to find a hostel which immediately instilled in both of us that sense of stress and dread and mild panic that comes when you are somewhere you really don't want to be. To start with, the place had been disinfected that morning and our room was thick with unbreathable toxic sweetness, which we were assured would dissipate in an hour and furthermore was not at all indicative of bedbugs. The person telling us this seemed entirely non-plussed to see us, which was also off-putting, but then he gave the air of being non-plussed about everything so it was hard to take it personally. The coup de grace, however, was the DVD library: it was, as advertised, extensive, numbering well over a hundred titles; but EVERY SINGLE ONE of these titles was a metal, hardcore, or hard rock concert DVD. We knew what we had to do: taking big gulps of the relatively clear air in the downstairs lounge, we plunged into the toxic soup, up the stairs and into our dorm, chucked all our packs on the floor and wished them a hopeful au revoir (there were no lockers, nor a lock on the door to the room), and fled to the nearest confiteria to plot our escape. Which plot, in the end, was pretty straightforward: given the size of the village, we decided to just walk to Albergue Patagonia (which was maybe five hundred meters down the road) and ask if perchance they might have a couple of beds to spare for one night. To our overwhelming relief, the friendly, smiling woman at the desk said they did. We retrieved our bags from their still-smelly prison, not needing more than the three word opening -- "we can't stay..." -- of our carefully constructed cover story (that I was asthmatic) on account of the proprietor mumbled "bien" and barely looked up on hearing said intro. And so we ended up at the Albergue Patagonia after all, and it lived up to the recommendations we received -- cozy, cabin-like, friendly, and relaxed. Also, extremely proximal to La Cerveceria, a microbrewery with outstanding homebrews and delicious food, which is about fifty meters from the hostel's front door.

But this is a story about the weather. The day we arrived, it was mostly cloudy and a bit breezy but warm when the sun did show itself. We took it easy, though, after all the to-ing and fro-ing between hostels, and went for a short walk to a waterfall just outside of town, reckoning too that it'd be better to start our longer trek early in the morning on the following day so as not to run out of daylight. However, as the night came on the wind picked up, and by the early hours the house was shaking and creaking with alarming vigour. In the morning, as we watched the stunted tree outside being buffetted mercilessly under very low cloud cover, we seriously debated calling our hike off, and if we'd had the luxury of another day would certainly have done so. But it seemed pointless coming to the town and spending our only time there lounging around watching movies, and, aware that the weather could get better just as suddenly as it could get worse, we got ourselves organized and headed out into the bluster. We were not at all sure we'd get anywhere, and thought that if we reached a lookout just an hour away that would be enough of an achievement to call it a day.

And it was unpleasant out there in the wind. Much worse than Torres del Paine ever was: constant, hard, sustained wind, with occasional stronger gusts that really did push you around. Though it was warmer and drier, it was still a lot like walking the streets of Toronto in January during a blizzard, with no streetcar in sight: hard work every step of the way, with a lot of wishful thinking (for salvation) and a lot more rueful thinking (at having decided to go out in the mess in the first place). But as soon as we reached the top of the ridge above town, the wind abated, and we peeked out from under our hoods and saw small patches of blue sky here and there, though the clouds still hovered very low overall. Encouraged, we continued on, much more easily now, until we came to the lookout that was supposed to be our consolation destination. At this point it was almost comically cloudy -- Cerro Torre (yes, there was a Torre here too), object of the lookout and our would-be ultimate destination, was completely invisible, as was pretty much everything.

The, er, view. There was a rainbow, at least.

But we were in good spirits, and somewhat hopeful that the clouds might still lift, and up for adventure even if they didn't, so we kept going. And we went down, into a wide meadowed valley, and then through a beautiful old mossy forest and through the burnt-out, grassed-over remains of a forest, and along the side of a river, and over a moraine, and at last we reached our goal: Cerro Torre, that jagged finger of stone set among a ring of razor-sharp peaks, a scintillating glacial lake at its base.

We got to see the lake, anyway.

See that glacier crawling into the lake? That's at the base of
the mountain we came to see.

Still, the wind was mild and it was lunchtime, and who knew what might happen in a few minutes' time? So we sat down and made our cheese-n-mustard specials and ate them, and while we ate we implored the clouds to lift, just for a moment, to let us see the mountain we had come so far to see. We implored them in song and verse, we cajoled them and used reverse psychology, and even offered up an interpretive dance improvised on the spot by my lovely and talented companion. We begged the clouds to leave for about forty-five minutes without any discernable improvement, and finally gave up. Thanks for nothing, clouds, we said, picking our way back over the moraine to the path.

This, it seems, the clouds heard.

It started raining at about the burnt forest, lightly and intermittently at first; but by the time we reached the lookout it was coming down with a steadiness that suggested the rain was here to stay for a while. It made for slower going on the rocky, hilly path back from there, but we kept on in good humour without too much trouble until we got to the ridge above town. At this point the rain really began coming down. Worse -- much worse -- the wind returned with a vengeance. Our good humour quickly dissolved in the driving rain; the adventure became an unpleasant slog.

Now, we all know that precipitation can be annoying, and strong winds make for hard work, but it turns out the combination is a third thing: it is acutely painful. Rain drops become very very hard when accelerated to speeds above 60kph, and when they drive at these velocities into the skin of your face they feel like hail. Which we thought they were at first, but forensic evidence confirmed it was liquid water droplets that seemed to be piercing our face-skin. To reach our hostel through the fusillade took maybe twenty minutes, objectively speaking, but in the tradition of pretty girls and hot stoves, it felt like an eternity. We had to pull our hoods right down so we could hardly see where we were going, which meant stepping into more puddles than before, plus the occasional sharp sting of a bullet that managed to sneak past our defenses. At last we reached the hostel, and just stood dripping in the vestibule for a minute decompressing and considering whether we were hardcore or just foolish in the end. Then we peeled out of our rain gear, slopped out of our puddly boots, and sat down with our heaven-sent over-sweet vending-machine hot chocolates, and decided confidently that we were indeed hardcore. A few sips later, enthusiasm restored, we agreed we would just have to come back and try again some day. Next time, with enough flexibility to wait out bad weather.

My love is huge and blue and glowing and cold

Yes, I am in love with a glacier. Specifically, Perito Moreno glacier.

It's the most captivating natural phenomenon I've ever seen. It's indifferent, it's bewitching, it ties me up in knots with its contradictions. Is this not unrequited love? Truly, it defies easy categorization: silent yet constantly creaking; immovable yet ever on the march; eternal but ever evolving. And huge. God, the thing is enormous. It spans the wide lake as though staking a claim to it, and stretches back from wall to wall seemingly into infinity in the misty distance. And though from a boat up close its height seems modest, maybe three storeys, when you return to the balconies and you see the next boat approach the face of it you understand just how tall the glacier really is -- averaging 70m above the water's surface and 170m top to bottom. Standing in front of it, watching that giant hulking beauty just sit there, as it has done for millenia and as it will do for millenia more, you realize how puny and transient your existence really is, and you feel okay about it. The thing glows all shades of blue from within, and this makes it seem to have its own energy, giving you the feeling that you're looking at an entity as opposed to just some coincidence of ice, dirt and stones. It's as beautiful as anything I've seen, and it is unnervingly obvious it cares nothing for me, if it even noticed me. Woe is me! This flame of love will burn  forever; but not too close to its object, as I wouldn't want to melt even a cubic millimeter of its cold, hard face.

Love at first sight.

See how gigantic!

How elegantly it sighs towards land!

How graceful its uncountable spires!

Tears of the unrequited mix with raindrops on my lens.

That black speck on the water is a catamaran that holds 200 people.

It goes on forever (just like my heart will).

See how many shades of blue! My love is like a monochromatic rainbow.

That irresistible glow.