Where's Grayleen?

Argentines are known for eating late and going out late.  On the other hand, I am known for going to bed at 10pm every night (though admittedly not so famously as the Argentines).  Ever trying to participate as much as possible with local culture, I shifted my schedule dramatically while in Argentina, and surprisingly, I did just fine.  (Tip: Eat a large snack at 4 or 5pm to tide you over until 11pm dinner and then just ignore all feelings of being tired.)  I even appreciated the late dinners while down in the deep south of Patagonia where the days are super long and chock full of outdoor activities.  However, any notion I had that I could keep up with the locals went right out the window when I arrived in Buenos Aires.  These people stay up LATE, every single night!

Buenos Aires at night*

Lucky to have a number of friends in town that we’d met along the way, we definitely had opportunities to participate in the Buenos Aires night life. Here’s a rundown of our string of late nights:

Sunday: Tango on a public square; out until 2:30am.
Monday: Drum show & dance club.  Home by 1:30am, but only because someone incorrectly told me it was after 2:30am.
Tuesday: Birthday dinner and drinks for Aileen and friend Hans.  Home around 4:15am.
Wednesday: Early to bed (midnight) due to early morning ferry to Uruguay.
Thursday: After returning from Uruguay at midnight, chatting with friends at a cafe; out until 6am.

And it’s not like we were the only ones out – the streets were packed with all manner of people and of all ages.  Every night, except the last one where we made it until the sky started to light up, I felt like grandpa heading to bed while the party was still raging.  And these are weeknights, people!

The entire week was a non-stop blast, but left me way, way behind on sleep.  Luckily, that sleep has been more than made up for in Fiji.  When it’s 6am in Buenos Aires it’s 10pm in Fiji.  Take that, jet lag!

Sadly, we have no pictures of Buenos Aires to share because our memory card was stolen from our checked luggage.  Bummer.

*photo borrowed from http://holanewlife.blogspot.com/2009/05/last-night-i-met-girl-in-heavy-metal.html

We do love road trips. Perhaps it is the American in me, but I have to say, it sure feels good to have the road under your tires and a potato chip in hand as the beautiful countryside flies by. So when we rented a car for a few days, after months of being beholden to bus schedules and taxi meters, the freedom felt a little heady. All of us (Gray and I, along with our friends David and Régina) were eager to have our turn at the wheel.

After loading up on munchies and camping food, our first destination was Lago Roca. Just 55 km from El Calafate, we had Lago Roca almost completely to ourselves, away from the hordes of tourists making their way to the Perito Moreno Glacier. Finally blessed with good weather, we did a lovely (albeit windy) hike up to the top of Cerro Cristal. The views from the top of the mountains, lakes, and glacier were amazing.

View from the top of Cerro Cristal. That's me on the far left.

Next stop: El Chaltén to see the famous granite spires of Fitz Roy. Once considered impossible to climb, Fitz Roy and the smaller but even more challenging Cerro Torre have legendary status among rock climbers. Where over one hundred people summit Mount Everest in a single day, just a few people make it to the top of either of these peaks in a whole year. World-class climbers will camp at its base for two or three months to have a weather window to make an attempt at the summit. Yep, the region has famously bad weather and high winds: welcome to Patagonia. As we approached in our trusty car, we realized our recent weather luck was holding and we were blessed with a clear view of the usually-cloud-enshrouded peaks. Wow– many visitors never get to see them!

Granite spires of the Fitz Roy Range

Over the next couple of days, with the weather continuing to mostly hold (despite a park ranger’s promise of relentless driving rain), we did a 35 km hike in the park, followed by a gorgeous drive to Lago del Desierto. We chose the Laguna de los Tres hike in hopes of getting a closer view of Fitz Roy. When we got to the top, while the glacial lakes were spectacular, Fitz Roy’s peak was hidden in clouds. After waiting for two hours for the clouds to disperse, with us girls doing jumping jacks and burpees to stay warm, we gave up and headed down. On our way back down, the weather turned against us and we had wind, snow, rain, and low visibility. Suffice it to say we were happy to make it back to town, where we showered and went out to eat– you guessed it– steak.

Régina does jumping jacks by Laguna Sucia in front of Fitz Roy

Our final night in El Chaltén, we did a big parilla (barbeque) at our campsite. With the high quality Argentinian meat and David’s cooking skills, it was perhaps the best barbeque food I have ever tasted!

David gets the grill ready for our parilla

The next morning we drove back to El Calafate, where we reluctantly returned our rental car. Good times, little Geo hatchback, good times.

More photos here.

Having traveled to Alaska twice and spent a week in Torres del Paine, I’ve seen my fair share of glaciers.  And let’s be honest, everybody loves glaciers.  There is something irresistible about the idea that snow falling over millions of years slowly compacts into ice and, under its own crushing weight, flows downhill, leveling mountains along the way.  Perito Moreno glacier is the granddaddy of them all – not because it’s the largest, but because it’s wildly active, with enormous ferry boat size chunks of ice crashing into water, and because it’s incredibly easy to get a safe, close-up view of the show.

Two hundred foot face of Perito Moreno

Perito Moreno is a stable glacier.  This means that, while it advances about 6 feet per day, it also calves off about 6 feet of its face into the waters of Lake Argentina, keeping the face of the glacier in the same spot.  This stability has enabled the park service to build a set of permanent viewing platforms on land right up against the face of the glacier.  And with a sheer cliff-like face that is up to 200 feet tall, there’s a whole lot of ice crashing into the water.

Intently watching the glacier show

Splash!

From our first glance of the glacier, we were hooked. We rushed to the viewing platform and that’s where we stayed, riveted to the spot, for over four hours. We could hear the groaning of grating ice stretching to the breaking point, and saw small chunks of ice break away and crash into the water with huge splashes. We were too afraid to look away for even a minute in case we’d miss one of the big ones.  After an hour or so our friend, Regina, had to use the bathroom.  Right as she left up the path, a huge 200 foot tall section of the face gave way and crashed into the water.  After that, no more bathroom!  We even ended up breaking out a camp stove and making our lunch right there at the overlook, earning us some looks from other tourists.  After four hours of intense glacier watching and a whole lot of awesome ice falls, we had a bus to catch.  We reluctantly peeled ourselves away.