Hiking in Torres del Paine national park

"Nothing prepares you for the spectacular beauty of Parque National Torres del Paine," says my guidebook and is absolutely right. Snowcapped mountains, lakes in different shades of blue colour, glaciers, forest in autumn colours... Five days of perfect weather, no rain or snow! I was afraid I would be too late, but this was the best time to visit the national park. Good weather and few people.

First day in Chile

• Don't expect a continental breakfast at a guesthouse, even if the room costs 2-3 times more than at a hostel. All you get is medialunas (Argentinian croissants), which I like, but not every morning...
• The winter is coming. There was some frost this morning.
• Today, the die cast (= 'arpa heitti', I tried to say, not sure if it's correct) me or the destiny brought me to Punta Arenas. The first car that picked me up on the road came here, so here I am, in Chilean Tierra del Fuego, trying to get used to a new currency. I did a lot of passive smoking on the way, otherwise I enjoyed the lift.
  
• I hate artificial, plastic flowers; they are the ugliest thing in the world! Here the cemeteries are full of them. Today I saw them in the church also. Even at the althar.
• I've got somehow used to the normal dinner times here, i.e. 10 or 11 pm. But today I was starving at 6 pm. Had my first fish plate in Chile (more will come for sure) - and some artisan beer. Mmmm...
• I'll try to go to Torres del Paine national park this week. I heard that there's already some snow! Now I miss the waterproof windstopper pants that I left home. One or two huts should be open, I'm not able to sleep in a tent if it's cold and snowy outside... don't care even though the huts are expensive.
• Time to go to bed... My bed at this hostel is supercomfortable! It makes me wanna stay here and rest instead of hiking in the cold weather...
  

Emptiness

Emptiness. The huge, massive emptiness. Have I told you about the impressive Patagonian emptiness? 360 degrees of nothing. Just the straight road ahead. Imagine standing on a field. A field without an end. It just continues and continues. Dozens, hundreds of kilometers of dry, yellow grass and dry, brown bushes until the horizon. Above this hangs the wide open Patagonian sky.

Today I felt energetic again, said goodbye to Mariana, hitchhiked to Rio Gallegos and took a room at a guesthouse. Tomorrow I'll find myself in Ushuaia, Punta Arenas or maybe somewhere on the way..?

Two days in trucks

Two days of travelling in trucks (El Bolson, in the West - Trelew, in the East - Puerto San Julian, on the way to the South). Watching the impressive Patagonian emptiness. You can drive two hours without seeing a house or a village. Just the small, dry bushes on the plains. And maybe some sheep, guanacos or horses. Chatting with the truck drivers is the best possible language course! Hitchhiking here in the South doesn't seem different than in Europe. Truck drivers are not monsters, so don't worry about me. I trust them by having the courage to go in their trucks, they trust that I'm not a maniac. I appreciate them, they appreciate me.



Yesterday the road was cut near Caleta Olivia by some protesting people who've been made redundant. It was a bit difficult for a Finn to find out and understand what was going on. "How can a road be cut?! The trucks need to go, companies are waiting for the goods! And the people need to get home." Luckily we only had to wait for two hours. The truck drivers had mate (national drink here, like strong green tea) and empanadas (typical Argentinian pastries), the landscape to the sea was amazing and I've got time, so I didn't mind.
p.s. I just heard that today the road was closed for 9 hours!



Today I've only been resting and sleeping at my host Mariana's house in Puerto San Julian. I couln't even go to see the sea, because I had fever. Mariana just made some magic soup and I feel much better now.

Hitchhiking to El Bolson

Ok. I shouldn't tell you this. I hitchhiked today. Alone. And it was totally safe and really cool! When I eventually got a lift. It was a guy from Israel going to El Bolson to pick up two girls from an Israeli farm - which is actually more like a hostel in a village. The place (http://www.ondaazul.co.il/) sounded so nice that I decided to fight my prejudice against Israelis and stay there instead of rushing towards south today. Not that I have anything against Israelis, but there's a lot of them travelling in South America and they mostly stay among themselves, so other travellers kind of despise them. But here they have actually talked to me (honestly, I'm not this prejudiced as I sound) and I've also played table tennis with them.



After my afternoon nap in a hammock (I slept only 4 hours last night) I went to the center of El Bolson to check out the market. El Bolson is a really nice hippie town with "cool vibes" as someone put it. Where else does a hostel (not this one) advertise that - in addition to normal linen, kitchen, laundry etc. - they offer organic garden, peace and freedom? The best ice cream ever is also made here (http://www.heladosjauja.com/). And there would be hikes to the mountains... Maybe I do one of them on my way back from the south..?



Another great day, a lot of luck and new experiences. I love this freedom and how things work out!

Hiking in Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi, Bariloche

I'm in love with Bariloche! No, it's not a hot latino guy with brown eyes and dark, curly hair. It's a town situated on the shore of lake Nahuel Huapi. The sunsets at the lake are amazing, there's lots of hiking trails in the national park Nahuel Huapi (http://www.nahuelhuapi.gov.ar/) and there's chocolate and ice cream shops around every corner.

But tomorrow it's time to move on... further south - I hope I won't freeze there, today it was quite cold here. It was a good decision to take the winter jacket.

I've done a one-day hike and 2 overnight hikes, spending the nights at mountain huts. Now it's late and I need to go to sleep, so I let the photos speak for me. Besides, I wouldn't find the words to describe the landscapes and experiences, especially at the 'Refugio Otto Meiling'.

On my first hike I saw a panorama view to lake Nahuel Huapi:

The second hike was to a mountain hut called Otto Meiling (small house on the mountain in the photo). What an amazing place with gorgeous views! "When you leave a place that you like, part of your soul dies." Leaving this place... I think I left part of my soul there.



At the hut I met a French guy who found the car salesman in him and persuaded me to join an excursion to the nearby glacier. Amazing experience, I'm forever grateful to him! (BTW, Our guide, who took us ice-climbing, had a T-shirt of Amorphis and had been to their gig in Turku!) "The Condor Team" = me, Nirvani from USA, Tony from New Zealand and the Condor Leader, Jérôme from France:
After Otto Meiling, I went to another hut in the mountains. Nothing compares to the landscapes I saw and the experiences I had at Otto Meiling, but I still had a nice weekend at Refugio Frey. It was snowing in the evening, so in the morning the ground was white:

Long busrides, breath-taking landscapes

What's so bad about a 17-hour busride? Nothing, in my opinion. There's time to relax (obviously, there's not much you can do), no big decisions to make like where to go & what to do, the buses are comfortable here (even the 'semi-cama', half-bed is good enough for sleeping and using your sleeping bag as a blanket keeps you warm if the air-con is on), I love the feeling of being on the road - and the best thing: the landscapes! While watching the pampa between Buenos Aires and Mendoza I was wondering how long it would take to reach a point in the horizon by walking. I also dreamt of a possibility to visit a farm in the middle of the plains. Yesterday, the landscapes before Bariloche just took my breath away! (photo above) In Iceland I was impressed by the big emptiness, the vast areas of wasteland and the fact how far you could see. Here in Argentina the emptiness is even bigger. Yesterday I saw huge lakes without any buildings on the shores, just some mountains around.

So, what happened in the last few days? I arrived in Mendoza on the morning of Good Friday and was very lucky: I hadn't found a Couchsurfing host (many people went away for Easter or had family or friends visiting) or made a reservation at any hostel, but found a bed at one of the hostels, which were fully-booked at Easter time. Mendoza itself was touristy and boring. I ended up taking a bicycle tour to Luján, where I visited the family vineyard of Bonfanti and big, internationally owned vineyards of Norton and Terrazas de los Andes. For Saturday night I got an invitation to have a barbeque on the small mountains... How could I have said no?! On Sunday I took a tour to the high mountains. (photo below) Taking all these tours, buses, eating, hostels... I'm afraid I can't keep my advisory budget of 1000 EUR/month if I continue like this. Now I know what I was working and saving for so hard in Finland.

Now I'm in Bariloche, couchsurfing with a friendly and active 61-year-old woman. Beautiful home with a view to the lake and the mountains behind (photo below), hot water in the shower, Susana loves to cook... It's almost like being in a 5-star-hotel! Susana doesn't speak English, so I have to survive with my Spanish. Luckily I can always use my hands and smile to communicate! :-) This "intensive course" is really good for me.

Now I should plan my onward travel, decide where to go next, buy the bus ticket and send Couchsurfing requests and also plan what to do here in Bariloche. So many options, so many decisions to make...

So many things to learn

So many things to learn... Sometimes it can be hard for a perfectionist, but it's nice to have challenges. :-) In Buenos Aires I went to a tango lesson 3 times and a milonga (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milonga) twice. And realised how far I am from really knowing how to dance tango. Going to 'lavatanssit' in Finland wasn't much of help... But now I know at least the 'ocho' steps. And I can continue practising in August when I´ll be back in Buenos Aires for my return flight. I wonder if I´ll be using my dancing shoes anywhere before that.

At milongas I met two Finnish guys who´ve taken a break from work, rented an apartment in Buenos Aires and are learning & enjoying the tango scene of the city. Sounds tempting, anyone? :-)

Another, big thing to learn is the Spanish language. I'm hearing and trying to use it every day. Absolutely the best way to learn a language is to travel to a country where they speak it! I'm struggling with the verbs, I'll try to learn the past tenses quickly. I need them when telling my hosts what I've done during the day or before coming to their town. In Couchsurfing groups (on the CS website) people seem to use mostly Spanish. Oh, how we are abedient to the CS rules in Finland, using only English. Well, much more travelers speak Spanish than Finnish.