Escalando Mateando Lloviendo

Fog rolls across the high plains, pressing up against the rocky heights, meshing with the clouds, rain and unyielding viento which pound  down onto los altos cumbres. Sipping bitter but comforting yerba mate, I watch as the weather worsens and drenches the stone maze of ancient towers from which we sped down only some hours ago hoping to evade the weather and make it to a small shop down on the plain stretching out below two hours hike away from our camp high up in los gigantes. We wait all afternoon because there is only one bus a day out here traveling the lone dirt road that winds its way from Tanti to Villa Dolores. We drink some wine and eat ham and cheese sandwiches, listening to the wind howl and trying to distinguish the groan of the bus far out in the fog which has now enshrouded everything. We can no longer see the rocks amongst which we've passed the last four days. 


The bus comes and it is raining. It is forty five minutes late but that is normal in this weather and on this road. We wait outside of the bus while the passengers disembark to use the toilet and buy snacks for the remainder of their journey. Children run up and down the length of the bus, hiding from one another amongst the seats while their parents pass a little metal mate cup back and forth. We load our things in the back of the bus and sit down. The driver gets back on and shouts out "Hay mas?" Another passenger boarding responds, "creo que no" and so the driver nods his head, honks the horn, and steps on the gas. I press play and El Remolon's  pulsating digital cumbia blasts into my ears. Careening down the dirt, well, now mud road, the bus hits bumps and all the passengers fly into the air. The children laugh and everyone else hangs on as we fly down towards Tanti, some forty kilometers away. Edges of cliffs, mud,  some sliding and all the while the driver chats happily with a friend who sits in the first row of seats next to him. It has been a good weekend. 


We learned of some climbing in a stretch of granite domes and towers way out of town and decided to check it out. Taking the bus early in the morning from Cordoba, we arrived and began the long hike from the 'main' road along a side road past a house and a man slaughtering a pig which hung from it's legs in a tree, and onward up a small trail leading higher and higher into the mountains. Eventually finding a nice place to camp a ways above the trail on a little rock tower overlooking the river way down below on one side, but with easy access to pump water, we set up shop and went to explore the area. I'd heard that people have been lost in this area when fog rolls in unexpectedly (though the frequency which this occurs would lead one to believe that it should be anything but unexpected) but now seeing the truly wild country we've journeyed to, I understand. Vague paths wind their way through high brush, up incredibly steep hillsides studded with massive boulders and rock towers reaching a few hundred feet at their highest. We boulder a little and go back to camp where we cook and watch the sunset reflecting orange and red against the rocks that surround us. 

Camp at Lost Gigantes

We wake up in the morning to somewhat frantic sounding shouts and go outside to eat breakfast while watching the source of the yelling: two guys climbing a nearby face with runouts stretching to some twenty feet between bolts. The leader, understandably, seems a little stressed. We have mate and eat cereal with powdered milk, pump water, and pack our climbing gear and supplies for a day up in the rocks. The trail exits our small valley steeply and soon we've gained some eight hundred feet of elevation and find ourselves moving upwards through a passage of rock walls on both sides coated in neon green lichen. The sky is a deep blue and the sun beats down unrelentingly. It is is already getting hot, but a constant light wind keeps us cool. We hike until we reach a rock called the Gorilla and go to the backside of it where an abundance of routes stretch up it's walls and look down a long valley stretching all the way to the plains below. We have an awesome day of climbing and head back down late in the afternoon, checking out some routes up one of the big domes for possible climbing for the next morning. If all goes nicely, we plan to climb a route up the center of the dome all the way to its summit three hundred feet above floor of the vallecito, literally, "little valley. As we go to sleep the skies are clear and we can see Cordoba far down in the distance, 80 km away. 

Climbing at Los Gigantes

Naturally, all does not go according to plan. I wake up in the early morning hours to the sound of rain pounding down on the tent and all around. The wind threatens to pick us up and throw us down the valley but there is nothing to do so I go back to sleep. When we wake up later in the morning it stills rains in off and on spurts of manic intensity followed by a light, teasing caress. Even when it stops and we emerge from the tent, the rock is too wet to climb. Being a very crumbly composition of granite, it is unlikely that it will dry (assuming that the rain does not begin again) enough to climb today. Instead we spend the day hiking and exploring the many passages winding in every direction up and down the mountain. It's a little disappointing but we've become used to it. The previous week we spent five days climbing and camping at another area up in the mountains and encountered rain nearly every day. Everyone says it is very unusual this time of year but from what I've seen, it seems to be standard. The last morning we packed up early while the tent was dry and raced down from the mountains all the way to a small shop to wait out the impending weather and the arrival of the bus, mentioned above, later in the day.

We're back in Cordoba now and taking care of some paperwork before leaving on Friday. We will take a twenty hour bus North to Iguazu Falls on the Brazilian border before going to Buenos Aires to spend Christmas with a few new friends. Ah, and more news, we've been hired for a great sounding teaching job in South Korea, so in late February we will move to Milyang for the next year. 


Happy Holidays to everyone, whatever it is you do or however (if at all) you celebrate!

     Kate at La Ola

Bouldering at La Ola (Tom in the right hand corner)

Kate at La Ola

Climbing at La Ola

Some Pictures

Here are a couple of photos from the past week since we left Bariloche. We spent three days in Mendoza and then took a bus up into the mountains to stay in Uspallata from which it is possible to hike and visit Aconcagua Provincial Park....

(Valle Encantado from the bus leaving Bariloche)

(Kate at the Thermal Spa outside of Mendoza. We also went wine/olive tasting)

(Snack Bar at Puente Del Inca where we waited for the bus back to Uspallata)

(Apparently Aconcagua is right behind me...also note my hair. It was very windy.)

(Puente Del Inca - Inca Bridge - a natural bridge that was part of the Inca Trail. It looked much

crazier in real life)

(Puente Del Inca)

(View walking down from Aconcagua Provincial Park looking at Puente Del Inca)

(Walking the 4 miles back to the hostel from Uspallata)

Piedras Blancas y Milanesa

The sun has returned to Bariloche, well at least it had for the past week and a half or so and thus we summarily tried to take full advantage of the surroundings, though now it hides once again behind a thick layer of gray cloud cover and I'm back on the computer. It is partially because of this change that there's been no update to the blog for some time but I'll blame most of it on the internet being down at our old hostel. That is honestly the reason why more pictures never went up and so I both apologize and will try to get them up a little later on today. One day it was working and then the next it stopped forever, at least for our computer.

As insinuated above, we've been very busy these past couple of weeks both with Spanish school as well as hiking and climbing in the areas around Bariloche. I learned about a climbing area a few weeks ago that we could walk to straight from town and so after buying a small guidebook to the area, we ventured up to check it out. It's kind of a hike as it involves about a thousand feet of gain/descent and 8 miles of walking roundtrip, though it's definitely worth the effort and we've had a lot of good days there. The style of climbing suits us well, for the most part being granite slabs with decent though not unnecessary protection in a range of grades from easy to difficult. It's more of a local crag than a destination so to speak, though that has been perfect for our days after school when we can't actually get going until 1pm. We're still going to the gym as well and have gotten to know some of the local climbers there who've been helpful in telling us about different areas in the region. It actually works pretty well because most of them like to practice there English while I like to work on my Spanish so we just speak in the other's language and eventually manage to figure out what is going on. Next week we'll be leaving Bariloche and heading North where we hope to visit some of the famous climbing areas in Cordoba for a few weeks so we should be pretty well prepared.

Yesterday we finally managed to haul ourselves up to Refugio Frey, a mountain refuge situated six miles high in the mountains along a currently frozen lake and surrounded by rocky spires of burnt orange granite. We'd not planned to climb there on this trip as it is supposed to be impossible this time of year, though yesterday when we got up there we saw two guys working there way up one of the walls closest to the Refuge, likely being one of the first climbs of the season. Everyone seems to talk up the hike to Frey, though we didn't find it too bad and cut the four hour expected ascent time to two hours and thirty five minutes. This was good as that same morning we had checked into our host family for our week long family stay and didn't actually get on the bus to head out to the trail head until around 10. We hung out around the refuge and ate lunch before heading back down, promising that we'll come back to climb someday in the future. Upon returning to Bariloche we had dinner with our "family" who also happen to own a well known restaurant in town so the food was excellent and we had a chance to speak a lot of Spanish outside of the classroom. Thus far it seems like it will have been a good decision to stay with a host family.

Besides climbing and hiking, we've also gotten away from Bariloche to check out a town about two hours South called El Bolson. El Bolson is mostly famous for it's relatively large Hippy population, it's affinity for producing beers (it holds an annual international beer festival in February), and the weekly crafts market on Saturday. We went on Saturday and spent the majority of the day wandering around browsing the many stalls and sampling various delicious foods and beers from the seemingly endless number of local microbreweries who had set up shop in the market. One particularly awesome snack was the Milanesa sandwich, an Argentine speciality, which can come in many forms though in it's most common, and that which I found myself chowing down on, fried veal schnitzel with lettuce, hot chili sauce, garlic sauce and tomato. It was delicious....

(eating milanesa and thus making new friends in El Bolson)

(Kate at Piedras Blancas)

(At Frey)

(Climbing at Piedras Blancas)

November 2nd Update

So I guess it's about time for another update from rainy, stormy, and occasionally blissfully beautiful and sunny Bariloche. I'd guess it's pretty apparent from that introduction, but the weather has continued in more or less the same vein since my last posting. We've had a few nice days that we've luckily been able to take advantage of by going hiking and climbing but otherwise we've been into playing "inside" games. 


Sometime last week a new friend of ours mentioned that the hostel he was staying at was having an asado (barbecue) and that for the mere price of around ten USD we'd be served a couple of sausages, some other meaty animal parts, and something like three or four steaks in addition to various sides and unlimited wine. Not wanting to miss out on the Argentinean cultural bastion of what is more or less a weekly drunken meat binge, we signed our names on the sheet without hesitation. A puddle of drool was practically already forming at my feet in anticipation of what Friday would bring and sure enough, my expectations were fully met. Things started out nicely with a couple glasses of wine around ten thirty at night and a chorizo sausage in a roll. This was followed by blood sausage, and a tasty little treat familiar to the Irish folk at the table called "sweet breads" (or, thymus/pancreas made into little grilled bits). At this point the first steak was brought out and we commenced with the real business of the night: consuming massive amounts of beef. As the night went on, each progressive steak cut was one better than the last until a culmination of something so bloodily awesome that I still salivate in thinking of it. 


Of course this was all good and fun the night before, but come the next morning not only did we require a fair bit of yerba mate (an herbal infusion that the people here drink at all times in all situations with an obsessive mania bordering on full blown addiction), but the very thought of a single bite of steak made me cringe in revulsion. I think I even told Kate at one point that I wanted to subsist fully on raw vegetables and fruit for the day (anyone who knows me can attest that this is a sign of something gravely wrong) and I seriously began to wonder if eating over one and a half pounds of meat in a sitting might have some sort of overdose effect (yeah, yeah, I do realize that it does in fact, and whose sweet name is triple bypass, though apparently all the bases are covered as the yerba mate thins the blood and the red wine does something good too...).


The next night we planned to attend a Halloween party and thus spent the day running errands around town in a sort of meat induced coma and trying to put together some sort of outfit that could be vaguely called a costume. This night though we vowed to go in early as Sunday was forecast to be sunny, clear and perfect for climbing. We went as something that was called a mix between Rambo/Bulgarian Trucker/Myself in Ten Years. In a show of great success we managed to get back early by around one and up in time the next morning for the hour walk or so up to Piedras Blancas, a stretch of white granite towers situated on a hillside overlooking the city. The day was great and we had a nice time finally being able to climb outside. It's supposed to be sunny again later this week so hopefully that will be the case and we can go out again. 


Our daily efforts at Spanish continue on and some audible progress seems to be occurring from both of us. Not that either of us are analyzing Márquez in his native tongue yet, though perhaps with a little more time...


Some pictures will be added later but we're both tired and must be up early tomorrow as usual for running (outside now!) and class. 

Foundational Extremes

Ah, the beauty of Patagonia. Sweeping mountain vistas spotted with cobalt lakes and ringed by gnarled pine trees. Up above, a lone bird circles, transposed against clear blue skies. At least that’s what the guidebook said. Actually, I don’t know anything about any of this as it has been snowing, sometimes to a degree to which it becomes impossible to see, for the past 18 hours. Well, alright, so yesterday was much more wintry, but in a Patagonian summer sort of way…

View from our room onto Lake Nahuel Huapi.

Before the snow began to drift towards Earth, the town of Bariloche became privy to over twenty four hours of a constant, unending (at least until it turned to hail, and then snow) downpour. The only perceptible change in the weather, as the sky continued to vomit water down to Earth, was to be experienced in the wind which changed direction every couple of minutes apparently to insure that no single area of one’s body should be drier than another.

Luckily, having lived in Holland for the last year, we’re both pretty comfortable with the idea of having to involve something akin to an unexpected bath each time one needs to go out to take care of any sort of day to day business. Nonetheless, that doesn’t mean it’s a necessarily fun experience.

Yesterday we woke up deciding that the first order of business was to find someplace selling the climbing guidebook (which is ever so useful when it is constantly snowing and raining along with ninety mile an hour winds). This involved multiple stops at various locales which eventually found us at a mountaineering shop and success. Following this, we decided to find a rock wall which is supposed to exist somewhere in town though as of today, it’s location, or even existence for that matter, remains mysterious.

Being my cumpleanos, we also went out for steak and wine (Kate had pasta with some sort of butter cream sauce which I imagine is certainly healthier than the slab of cow I consumed). This gave us time to dry off before heading out to be immediately soaked again. I know I’ve touted the glories of cheap steak and wine though I find that the thrill hasn’t began to subside, and in fact, I think my faith and allegiance to this Argentinean institution is only strengthened with each juicy morsel that passes my lips.

In a true display of bizarre extremes, today I’m following a vegetarian diet as a sort of counteractive force against yesterday’s excesses.

Aside from supposedly incredible views out towards the lake (I jest, we actually have had a few moments of “clear” weather in which it was possible to take in the beautiful surroundings),  our current abode has a complimentary private Jacuzzi that can be reserved in the morning for use later that evening. In addition to steak, and wine, this will likely assume a position of permanence in our daily routine.  We’d best find the rock wall lest we acquire mental and physical flaccidity. Well, perhaps Kate will not. At the moment she is twenty minutes into forty of running in place inside of our room. Having run around 45 miles a week before coming, she simply can’t bear to do nothing. As for myself, I’m managing to cope with this loss.

Did I mention extremism?

Steak Eating Machines

I've found in the past that writing, even if just typing out random thoughts onto the internet, is a somewhat difficult thing and also something that I shy away from if given even the slightest opportunity while doing so. This is particularly amusing to me as I've always enjoyed writing - must be some sort of a love/hate relationship I guess. I've made this blog as a way to both inform friends and family about what Kate and I are up to and also as a means by which to force myself to practice writing. I preface like this just so that anyone who's decided to read this blog is not surprised, nor worried if I forget to post, appear to ignore the blog, or in the most extreme case completely disappear from the "blogsphere." I'll try not to do any of these things and actually use it as it's supposed to be used, as well as for the reasons I've mentioned earlier. Anyway, enough of that.

Early this morning, at approximately seven thirty am, we found ourselves floating over green stretches of beef producing Argentinean grassland on our way to land in Buenos Aires. Initially we'd planned to continue on directly to Bariloche, a mountain town about two hours via plane (or some ungodly number via bus) today though ended up "deciding" to spend the night in BA after our flight was cancelled and rescheduled to a time that we couldn't make. So tomorrow we will fly to Bariloche while tonight we will eat steak (most likely it will be me indulging in this meaty glory while Kate will eat plants and other things grown in the dirt...) and drink excellent Argentinean wine. As a side note, I read today that Argentineans eat somewhere around 70kg of steak per person every year. This translates to roughly 154 pounds every year, or .4 lbs of steak a day. That sounds like a lot of beef to me. This either bodes very well for me, or threatens to kill me but either way it will be delicious, I am sure.

I suppose cancellations have been worse...