No long driving day?! What are you kidding me! Yes I am taking a break! Or at least that’s the plan!??! I woke up along side as the hitchhikers were in their tent. I was in the van. Not the best place to camp, but we got away with it. We even had time for a little breakfast.
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| El Chalten, Argentina: Such a beautiful place, no words need to describe it further. |
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Mt Fitz Roy (aka- Cerro Fitz Roy, right side of the photo) stands tall and proud as it dares climbers to breach it's summit. It remains one of the most technically challenging peaks on Earth to climb for mountaineers.
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We went into town to the National Park office to see about trails, permits and etc. We first initially got there and it was near empty then a bus arrived with ill-prepared tourists. We were herded together like animals like the farmers do their cattle before they are slaughtered. The park officer wanted to tell us the gist of the park trails, rules, etc to us all at once vs. one a time which sounded fair to me. There were a few assholes in the back talking and making it hard to hear the guy, so the park officer told them to LEAVE!! Good for him...
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| The very strange hippie car I parked beside at the visitor cenre |
After visiting the visitor centre, I was re-directed to go down another road to and look for a particular business. I found it easily. It’s a small town thing. I went inside and then café girls there were helpful, but I realised the cost per day was very high. Also, considering the near gale wind was nasty today; it was not a good day to go fly fishing at all. I asked if the permits for fishing Patagonia covered Chile as well. They said “No sorry, but only Argentina”. Oh bummer! So I did not buy a fishing permit. I will wait until I get to the right spot and for the best weather (aka – no wind!!) to do it! I did however get some postcards for myself for a little project I want to do at home for the living room. I mailed an “El Chalten with love” postcard to Rebecca. I wonder when it will get to Wellington, New Zealand?
I drove into town in then hopes to find touristy/Westernised coffee shop to sit down to sort out my blog, travel plans, etc. I wanted a good pastry and cappuchino as well. I found a great spot. As of now (23/2), I forget the name of the place, but it was damm good coffee, and the pastry was good too. I also got a tomato/cheese omlete for lunch.
I actually sat there for 2.5 hours sorting out stuff, wrote a few emails to IT recruiters and did some trip budgeting. I was also figuring out what I was gonna do since I was not leaving down. The staff were all friendly at the coffee shop and the climbers I met there, (all from the USA) were bragging on their climbing feats and etc. I have to wonder if they were always telling the truth to me. Hummmm... Are they armchair climbers or the real deal or a mix of the two?
Anywho, I left to fill up my tank for petrol which was just 250m outside of town. I noticed by the bridge that there were like 6 (2 x 3 sets) of hitch hikers there waiting for a ride to somewhere. I stopped for first set. They wanted to go North as I was, but they wanted to go then and NOW. They gave me some advice for travel and they I said, "sorry for but I am not leaving now, but thanks for the advice.". I then saw two smiling girls with a sign saying “Rte 40 North anywhere”. I told them the same story. I said, if you want a ride with me, well you’re going to have to wait until “tomorrow” morning. They asked to join me now for my local drive/hike. I agreed. So then threw their stuff into the van and we drove off, BUT before we did leave, the original couple said, “hey we asked you first” Looking all sad. I replied with, “I am still leaving tomorrow morning - they are joining me NOW though”. They were ok with that. They were from Brazil and their names were Beatriz and Jacqueline.
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| Beatriz, Jacqueline (back of the van) and myself in El Chalten |
I drove 250m outside of town, and got in a queue for petrol. With typical Patagonia fashion, it took 20 mins to the tank filled up. Oh well… LOL! I drove back into town towards the 37km long one-way in gravel road. The girls were nice, but only Beatriz spoke English. This was going to be an interesting day indeed. We stopped for a few crazy pictures of my acting like an idiot in this magnificent place.
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| Myself with Mt Fitz Roy in the background BEFORE the weather turned bad for that evening... |
We saw some really really cool campsites, but they were very expensive @ 100-150 pesos each. We got the end of then road, the hiked a wee bit to the lake. Wow! A deep blue lake just probably teeming with fish! It had big green, rocky and white capped peaks all around them! I reminded me of the Canadian Rockies, but they have different trees up there in Canada. Us 3 sat there for an hour just admiring the scenery and fresh cool air. I was only talking to one of the hitchers because one of them knew zero English and her Spanish was light too. She spoke Portugese only where as her friend was tri-lingual. The english speaking hitcher was flirting me a wee bit (front seat) saying I had lovely blue eyes and etc stuff like that. Her friend in the back of the van,looked a wee bit pissed off for some reason? WTF?!
We left the lake and went back to van. We headed towards town trying to find a reasonable place to camp that was free, but nothing was good. The road was all fenced in making us feel like cattle on a farm!! We scrambled our way back down the long dusty 37 km road over the next hour. We ended up van camping near the trail head to where my other hitchers went to. As we arrived there, a guy was getting ticketed for using his tent for camping there. It seems the park official do NOT like tents but vans are OK as long as we use public faciities to pee and etc. It’s all good, but it’s windy as hell… like a night in Wellington @ home!
I pulled out the camp stove, 1.25 bags of a pasta, some tuna cans, some cheese pasta sauce and make us dinner for 3 as the 2 girl (hitchers) were freezing their asses off. You see, they are from Brazil so they are not used to cold .. any cold at all. I was teasing them in a friendly way about it. They giggled. We ate our feed and they seemed happy to be eating HOT food for the 1st time in like 10 days. It seems they’ve been living off junk food and bread over the last 10 days. Not good at all. Anyway, we ate all the food, not waste at all.
I washed the dished up. Since we needed a bathroom, we drove down the El Chalten Visitor Centre and got there just in time before it was locked. We brushed our teeth, did our stuff and left before the cleaning women yelled at the girls anymore than she did already. We drove back the campsite realising ..”oh shit.. you can’t use your tent here…”. They said, “Yeah, it’s too windy and rainy too.. Can we stay in the van with you?”. I replied ..” ummmmm yeah sure ok. Facing forwards, they took the centre and right side of the van. I soon realised that these girls were not just friends, but they were ‘together’ if you get my meaning.
As soon as we get settled into the van, the cuddled like a couple. I heard some light kisses too. “Wow! Lesbians!” I am thinking? Anyway, I turned off my torch and tried to sleep. At some point in the night, I rolled to my LEFT side and stretched out my right arm, but when I did it went on the hips/ass of the one girl (non-English speaking one) who was spooning with her “friend”. I was in/out of sleep and I felt her , LOL, slowly pick up my hand and move it away. After this, later in the night, I rolled over to face the direction of the girls. I woke up saw them spooning eachother while facing me. The English speaking one, was squeezing the breasts of her 'friend' underneath her shirt. It was obvious to me what was going on. They were a lesbian couple. Well, I was used to be alone and at the time & I was dreaming about Rebecca so I was imagining her with me. It was an odd night to say the least...
It was around 23:45 when I remembered this night last ….
Zzzzzz
2345 bed zzzz
Daily Summary:
Magnificent scenery in El Chalten. I wish my first set of hitchhikers well on their journeys. The second set of hitchhikers I picked up midday was unplanned. Perhaps I should not of done that(?) as I kind of want time alone. The one-way gravel road drive was okay but the road was really bad/ hard-driving. I have a strange feeling that these hitchhikers I have now, these two girls from Brazil, are going to be with me for a while. At this point, I feel that I'm fully immersed in the Patagonian lifestyle. The "traveling lifestyle" that is. I don't think 24 days is enough for this road trip because I'm beginning to feel "rushed" - Time will tell though.
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