Hello folks. Greetings from the very picturesque town of El Bolson in the Lakes District of western Argentina.
Blogging and internet access have not been easy lately. Most of the internet cafes are small and slow. Sometimes they only have one computer, so CG and I have to share. I don't like sharing....
We spent three nights in El Chalten. On Thursday, we hiked around 20 km to Laguna de Los Tores. It was the windiest hike I have ever been on. My left knee was a little buggered, so I wasn't in the greatest form. As we got to the top, we realized that the final ascent to the glacial lake required a fairly technical climb up a field of boulders. I settled in behind a big boulder, out of the wind and rain, and waited for CG to go up and back on his own. Several times I tried to stand up out of the shelter of the boulder and nearly got knocked over. I don't know how CG did it (in his sandals, no less) but he came back triumphant and happy. I cannot say I feel as though I missed out on anything.
Thursday night we had a beer at a teeny tiny microbrewery in El Chalten. It was quiet and calm (and out of the wind) until a group of English speakers boisterously entered the restaurant. I was ready to feel the usual sense of embarassment about loudmouthed American tourists..... one guy walked right up to the counter and said "Tell us all about the beer you've got here." (There was only one brew on tap.) "We're Canadian. We love beer." Relief. And amusement. Take that, CG!
On Friday, we left El Chalten and undertook the hair raising experience of driving the infamous Route 40. The unpaved section. It was trecherous and exhausting and I think since I have done it once, I might not ever do it again. We had hoped to make it to Cueva de Las Manos (UNESCO heritage site with cave paintings) but we were too optimistic about how fast we could drive on this unpaved highway and arrived after the Cueva closed. We managed to find an unused road through a sheep ranch about 4-5 km off the main road and made a camp there. I wasn't particularly happy about camping illegally on someone's ranch, but I did not want to get back on Route 40 for the life of me. We set up amongst the sheep and enjoyed a beautiful sunset, gorgeous star gazing, and a spectacular sunrise. We were just eating some breakfast (we made our fire in the middle of the road to minimize the risk of it spreading), when we heard a car approaching. I let out a whole string of expletives and started moving our gear out of the road. The car belonged to an older couple who had lost their way and meant to head towards the cave. It was most improbable that they made their way to our campsite. After we redirected them, we had a good laugh.
Cueva de las Manos was fascinating and awe-inspiring. These ancient cave paintings, some of which date from 7,000 years ago, consist almost entirely of left hands which are stenciled on rock faces and inside of caves in red, blue, orange and yellow-- hundreds and hundreds of outlines of hands of all sizes. 90% are left hands (the right hand, for most people, must have been involved in whatever process was required to apply the paint around the left hand-- probably with some sort of blow straw). There is one six fingered hand, one foot, and several outlines of choique feet (choique is a large bird like an emu or rhea). The paintings are beautifully perserved and presented. The caves are set deep in a verdant canyon. I am so glad we went.
From the Cueva we drove on the partially paved Route 40 and picked up a hitchhiker (the advantage of having a traveling partner who is a guy). Ironically, he turned out to be a heavy machinery operator working on the "paving" of Route 40. He was heading to Los Antiguos for a long weekend of "cerveza y chicas" (beer and girls). The poor guy rode in the back of our stuffed car with firewood, boxes of camping food, and water bottles. He was a captive audience and I finally had a chance to ask all of the questions about Argentine culture that had been nagging at me. We breezed through Los Antiguos (which was beautiful but crowded) and onto the paved section of Route 40 (halelujah!!) to Sarmiento where we checked into a hotel (I insisted) and crashed. On Sunday morning, we visited the second petrified forest of the trip and drove to the sweet little towns of Esquel and Trevelin. Trevelin was settled by Welsh folks and the architecture and culture are still a nice mixture of Argentine and Welch. This town specializes in baked goods and we wandered around a Sunday afternoon fair enjoying the sites and sounds and sweets.
We spent Sunday night at a campground right on a fishing river outside of Trevelin. This is where were first came into contact with the very interesting and illusive Argentine redneck. The folks at the site next to us played their car stereo at top volume..... which was annoying but tolerable. CG and I made dinner and did our best to ignore them. But then there was some rustling in the trees and out come three men with a ladder. A ladder? They proceeded to use the ladder to cut down a limb from a nearby tree to burn in their campfire!!! Really! Hilarious.
Monday we spent in Parque Nacional Alceres which is supposed to contain huge, old trees which are like sequoia. We never saw the trees, or much of anything, really. Let's just say this particular park is made for folks who like more sedentary recreation. We had planned to spend another day there, but the rangers would not register us for hikes after 11 am (in case it took us too long to come back), so we motored on to our current location-- El Bolson.
Until the next good internet cafe.....
No comments:
Post a Comment