Anna goes Camping

March 21 Friday Buenos Aires, written about El Chaltén, March 16-18 and Calafate 18-20

"He should be endowed with an active, indefatigable vigor of mind and body, which can. . . support, with a careless smile, every hardship of the road, the weather, or the inn."- Edward Gibbon (1760) on the qualifications for a traveler

On Sunday I took the early bus to El Chaltén to visit the north end of El Parque de Los Glacieres. El Chaltén is an adorable sleepy little town with no paved roads, no ATM, and not a lot of anything. I had to walk around for awhile before I found a place to sleep, and in the end wound up crashing in Hostel Marconi which I would NOT reccomend. The other people staying there were nice enough, but the owners were a little on the nutty side. I had a met a girl from Israel in Calafate and we planned to camp together - spent some time buying food, renting a tent, sleeping bags, etc., stopping for Hot Chocolate and cake (the hot chocolate is just amazing, I'll be lucky to not put on ten pounds). That night I had a very long and involved conversation with two guys from Spain who were staying at the hostal. It was a good Spanish language challenge for me, and we managed to talk about everything from mystical energy foci (like Machu Picchu or Stonehenge), 9/11 conspiracy theories, the origins of the indigenous people of South America, the origins of the Basque language, the possibility of early visitors from the Iberian peninsula to New England . . . . it was fantastic.

Lets cut straight to the important part (especially since at this point it is actually March 21 and I'm actually in Buenos Aires).

Anna actually behaived like a true backpacker and trudged up a mountain with a pack on her back, complete with tent, sleeping bag, mat, and food. The views of Fitz Roy were amazing and I really enjoyed the hike up. We set up our tent, I hung my food from a tree (having been warned about mice) and I went off for some solo walking which was lovely (great glacier views). When I came back to the tent, the plastic bag holding my food had been absolutely torn to shreds and my food had been eaten!! The only things that survived the attack were my peanut butter and honey which were helpfully encased in glass. I started cleaning up the shredded plastic (you can't leave that kind of stuff around in a National Park!) and I noticed a HUGE bird walking around looking for more! I am still not completely sure of the identity of this evil bird.

I started poking around the campsite, looking for some one to chat with in English. I met a few guys from Texas on a quick week camping vacation, and they helpfully gave me a breakfast bar and an apple. Then, just on the edge of the campsite I encountered a motley group of Americans, mostly traveling solo, who were in the middle of a feast. They invited me (I brought along my peanut butter and honey) and they fed me course after course of corn soup, pea soup, noodle soup, pasta with alfredo, pasta with tuna, lentils, etc., all made on a camp stove of course! It was a lovely night and ended with a gorgeous view of the stars and the moon. I saw the southern cross, and a gorgeous shooting star.

I climbed into the tent around 10:30 pm, nice and early since we had a very ambitious plan for the next morning. The normal activity for the campsite we stayed at was to wake up an hour and half before dawn hike up this crazy path to watch the sunrise over Fitz Roy. We were excited and set our alarm and went to sleep . . . here we made our mistake . . . . we FORGOT to close the weather-proof flap at the front of the tent!! Of course it wound up pouring all night and our stuff got wet - yay!! Always a happy way to wake up! Needless to say, we did not hike up (no sunrise to see in the pouring rain!) the steep path. We quickly packed up the tent and headed down . . . making it back to town in half the time it took us to climb the hill.

I had at least two hot chocolates that day, possibly more! I took a shower at the big hostel down the road and waited for my 6pm bus back to Calafate.

I took it easy in El Calafate the next day, shipped some things home (so they should be there sometime in late April), and poked around in the shops. I got an email from my dad saying that I had been accepted into the Public Policy program at UMASS - yay!! With a free ride and everything :-) Some other solo travelers celebrated with me, wine, all-you-can-eat steak, chorizo and spring rolls (it was an interesting restaurant), and then we visited the casino (I won 24 pesos on the slots, very exciting), and went back to the hostel and crashed.

Yesterday I got up early to catch my flight to Buenos Aires, and here I am!! More to come!!

Much Love, sorry things are a bit rambling and pieced together!!

Anna

pictures coming soon hopefully