Random thoughts 1 week in

I can´t believe I left only a week ago. Right now last Sunday I was eating guac at Papasito´s in the Houston airport waiting for my connecting flight to Buenos Aires. One week and I´ve been to 3 cities already. Not bad! I´m already getting antsy thinking about all of the travel over the next few weeks. After Argentina I don´t think it´s too awful, but looking at what´s coming up -
Tomorrow I go to El Chalten to hike for 2 days.
Then I have a 29 hour bus ride to Bariloche on Rt 40, which I heard is the most awful road ever. 
After Bariloche it´s a 20 hour bus ride back to Buenos Aires. I´m there for a week with a few day trips to visit Montevideo, Uruguay (I deserve a beach after all of this cold weather). Then Iguazu falls, 18 hour bus. Then Salta, 23 hour bus. Then Cordoba, 13 hr bus. Then Mendoza, 10 hr bus.  Some won´t be bad if I can catch night buses, but the 20+ hour ones sound torturous unless I make a new friend that will make it more bearable.  I wish flights were cheaper like in SE Asia or Europe, but the flights are all crazy! And with all of the traveling and excursions, I´ve spent WAY over budget for my first week. So bad that it´s making me nervous that I´m going to go through all of my money too quickly. I bought yogurt and fruits from the supermarket for dinner twice now to save money on food to make up for the astronomical bus fares. I´m hoping I can find better flight fares to avoid some of the time spent on buses.
My lesson of the day was that you really can´t pretend you´re in NY in a lot of these places and do things like go for a leisureley morning jog.  After waking up to find there were 2 men in my all-girl dorm, and realizing I slept in only a sports bra and underwear because it was so hot in the room and the laundromat was closed and I´m already out of clean clothes to sleep in, I decided to go for a run to not have to be there when they woke up. It was beautiful out and I was so happy to be running just after the sun came out when the streets were so empty. But I had forgotton that this town is full of stray dogs that like to follow you down the street, pop up behind you and scare you half to death.  When I went for my run, the entire dog population of El Calafate decided I must be a thief or criminal since I was running, and they all came chasing after me barking. I was scared to death and ran up to the main avenue, where some local teenage boys were out and thought it was the funniest thing ever (it was not!) One of them started running next to me joking around, and the dogs ended up staying back after my countless attempts to yell ´Cerrado´ (stop) since I don´t know how to stay Stay, or Go Away. I tried to continue but another giant dog found me and started to chase me too, so I gave up and went home after only 15 minutes. I was very disappointed, and hope I´ll be able to run in other towns because I´ll definitely miss it if I can´t for 5 months!!
Today I found a new favorite ice cream place. They had an ice cream/gelato mix that had M&Ms in it, and chocolate with pieces of these chocolate bars that are native to the Patagonia region. Only $2.50 too, which is cheap for this very tourist-priced town.  My one friend left today, I tried to go to the next town but there was no space left in the hostels so I putzed around here today. We found a lagoon earlier that led out onto the Lake, laid down and listened to the waves crashing on the shore. So peaceful. Even for someone like me that has no clue how to relax (I´m learning!)
The next 2 days I´m staying in a town that only has about 4 hostels so I´m not sure if they will have internet. I might be off the map for a couple of days. I love that I´ve gotten to go on this first week. It´s helping the transition period. I know there will be points when it´s completely unaccessible (San Pedro de Atacama, the salt flats, Cuidad Perdida) so I will have to taper off. But it´s still the beginning so I need to be able to still have one convenience that reminds me of civilization!!

El Calafate & The Perito Moreno

Oh . My. God.
The Perito Moreno was THE most amazing thing I have ever seen. EVER.

We are now in the town of El Calafate, about the midpoint of the Patagonia region. After an 18 hour bus ride, a dinner of imiation M&Ms and gummy worms and buying coats off of random girls at the hostel, I passed out to wake up and find out yet again, wake up calls were not received. Luckily we got our stuff together in time to get on the ice trekking tour of the glacier. 
The weather was awful. It was pouring and cold and I the glacier was beautiful, but I didnt know how we were supposed to walk on it with the rain coming down.  But we made friends with Joel from Australia, went to the cafe for coffee and crossed our fingers it would pass.
And sure enough, the rain disappeared, the sun came out and a rainbow shone over the glacier, as if to thank us for our patience :)

We took 3 boats (the first 2 were broken) across the water to the back side of the glacier. As we took the boat through the water, chunks of ice that had broken off (if you wait long enough you can watch the ice fall in to the water), colored aqua blue, floated past.  We strapped on clampons and climbed on the glacier for about 2 hours. On the ascent, it looked like we were climbing up to heaven. All you could see above you was blue sky and giant clouds. INcredible.  It was beautiful weather, amazing to be up there, and one of the best experiences of my life to date. Close to seeing Machu Picchu.

At the end they surprised us with a table on the ice set up with whiskey and chocolates. Nice way to end the experience!  I learned today that El Perito Moreno is the 3rd largest glacier in the world, followed by Antartica and Greenland!  Also, on the way back so many chunks of ice had melted and fallen off, which the guides said happened only once before this season, that we had to walk about 20 minutes through the woods so the boat had somewhere else to pick us up and not have to hit chunks of the glacier on the way!

Tonight we are going out with our new friend Joel, and then tomorrow sleeping in and relaxing since I haven´t had a day of rest since I left my apartment which feels like years ago (it hasn´t been a week!) This town is super cute, it feels like a little Swiss ski town, and has lots of cute restaurants and homemade chocolate shops. So tomorrow I will sit and eat and relax and do absolutely nothing but enjoy Patagonia. Ciao!

Bus wheels keep on turning

I'm writing this as I sit on the longest bus ride of my life to date. 10 hours so far, with 7.5 hours to go. I can't complain though, because the trip from where I'm going to the next stop is 32 hours. I thought it would be worse than it is but I'm not having an awful time. I woke up just in time for lunch, which turned out to be a loaf of bread. There were other foreign objects on my tray that despite my hunger will not be digested by this girl, no way no how. So I started off the morning in a panic. The lovely worker at the hostel forgot for the second day in a row to pass along our wake up call requests. Luckily my back up alarm worked, but I didn't hear Baptiste downstairs, who wanted to be up at 4 to eat his breakfast before heading to the bus. I checked his room and sure enough he was still in bed, and we had 9 minutes to be at the bus. We got dressed in under a minute and ran off, with me making a mental note to not forget to review this hostel. We made the bus, but I hadn't had time to check if I had everything and my backup credit card isn't here. I ran back to the hostel, located 2 blocks up a massive hill, and with my lungs burning a pain I've never felt before, searched in the dark and then realized that even if it was there, leaving ALL my belongings on the bus was a stupider choice. If that bus left without me I had no ID, no money, no anything. So I ran back and am crossing my fingers the card  is in the room.
Things I learned today - I'm going to run out of space in my passport because Argentina and chile both feel the need to stamp it every hour as we cross the borders over route 4. I am going to contact the embassy when im back in buenos aires and get more pages added in. I met a girl who casually told me that get passport was stolen in London so she got a new one. I wouldnt be as casual about it but with enough time on the road, I think enough things happen that they become less dramatic and don't phase you as much.  I just found out that  my Brazilian visa is good for 5 years and I am now able to go to their side of the waterfalls at iguazu! That is a really nice added surprise and now I can go to see both sides and mate somewhere else in Brazil that I hadn't planned on going to! So exciting! Makes me feel better about the $180 I dropped on the visa 2 summers ago!
I think my favorite part of this experience is meeting people and hearing their stories. It seems that most Americans are on vacation. The standard 2-3 weeks, running from place to place to get it all in quick and get back to work. All of the South Americans, Europeans, Australians, israelis - they are the ones who do things right. I've met so many around the world travelers, who have been to so many amazing places. They wake up each day and decide where they'd like to go next and just do it. I'm still trying to plan my next steps but a little at a time and I'm going with it. I skipped 2 towns because of the weather and am playing the rest of Patagonia by ear. It's great because the people you meet are all going up or down the region. The ones going down can tell me about where theyve been and the ones going up can tell me where try are going. And sometimes you can travel together like I am with Baptiste. Possibly he will come with me to El Chalten or Bariloche. The next few weeks are hazy, I am going to try to stop crossing over the borders until I am sure I can get extra passport pages at the embassy in Buenos Aires.
I am also learning a lot about myself. For example, I pulled a typical Lori move - when we transferred buses in Rio Gallegos, I left my coat on the bus. I got to El Calafate, and instead of freaking it out, I said I would hold off on going to the glacier until I could buy a new coat. Good karma came around and a girl at the hostel who was on her way to the Torres del Paine heard me talking, and sold me her coat since she had just replaced it with a heavier one for her 5 day trek. I am learning to roll with the punches and enjoy each day as it comes!

Tierra del Fuego - The end of the world, and we´re the last 3 in it

Day 2 of Ushuaia. Wow. Words can not express what I saw today. We woke up in the morning, me and m new friends Yang from Brazil and Baptiste from France. We rode to El Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego, to hike at the end of the world. I literally felt like if I took a step into the water I would fall off the planet. We were at the farthest point you can get to before Antartica, which I am unfortunately not going to because a) I don´t have anywhere from $4,000 - $15,000 and b) this weather sucks, and wont be any better there.

 Today was snowing, raining, and somehow we managed to hike for 6 hours in it without dying of frostbite or sliding down the trails.  I fell in mud a couple of times, and Baptiste told me I jump like an American (oops) but it was well worth it because the views were phenomenal. The park sat around a lake, with snow covered mountains in the background and red and yellow trees surrounding the lake. The scenery changed every 30 minutes as you can see from the pictures. We were only on the hike from 9:30 am until 3:30 pm so it wasnt like we went so far, the park was just incredible.

I think my favorite part was when 2 little ducks came out of nowhere and swam across the lake. It was so peaceful there, I actually was walking without having a thought in my mind. I was completely immersed in the scenery and taking in everything around me, that I couldnt formulate a thought. then out of the blue these 2 ducks swam by and I remembered there was life out there aside from the 3 of us. Since we did seem to be the ONLY 3 people to hike the park today due to increment weather. But I am stubborn, and devloping frostbite in this city so need to move on tomorrow. My second favorite part of the day was getting my passport stamped at the ´´post office at the end of the world´´, which wasn´t a post office like I thought but a place where they will stamp your passport all pretty saying you were at the fin del mundo. Becca, don`t worry, it doesnt replace my love for our Macchu Picchu stamp. I am a little bit nervous that they stamped the last page OVER my passports barcode, so I hope there isnt trouble getting into any of the next 5 countries. Time will tell. So after we got back to the hostel and I turned a shade of purple Ive never seen before from frostbite followed by a COLD shower to wash off the mud (thanks hostel for the no hot water in this 0 degree temperature), I had a nice dinner of lamb (gross) and carne chorizo and felt better. Now I can knock myself out to be up at 4 am to get the bus to El Calafate. 15 hour ride with 3 hours of stops for food and checkpoints as we cross into Chile. This should be interesting, or a lack thereof. As I am typing I realize that the spanish computer is trying to autocorrect every single word I am typing. Thats pretty funny.

Also, we stopped a ta sign that marks the end of Rte 3, where we met a biker from Brazil. He had just rode down from Sao Paolo to start at the beginning of Rte 3 and was riding his bike all the way to ALASKA  He said it wound take about 200 days, which is about 8 months!! CRAZY! He was so cool, and when we asked if he was going solamente, he said he had 2 friends - god, and something in his trunk. As a typical New Yorker I anticipated a dead body to come tumbling out, but quite the opposite. It was a stuffed animal, Donald Duck, that he had his whole life. The most sentimental thing I ever saw, and this guy was awesome.

One last very important thing to mention - my Lululemon clothes were the biggest investment I have ever made. While everyone else got soaked walking around, my pants stayed dry. I was able to wash the mud off in 2 seconds and they are beautiful again. My friends loved them and I am going to have to open up locations around the world now to share the love. I cant wait to sit in them for 18 hours tomorrow!

Ushuaia - It´s the end of the world as I know it

I made it to the end of the world! Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, is where I flew in to this morning. I came to the hostel, changed, and ran out to do a boat tour.

The one that sails past the lighthouse wasnt running because of wind, so instead I took a 6 hour tour to go to a penguin colony where you get to walk right up to the penguins! There were 2 kinds of penguins, one kind were Magellenic (we are on the Magellin strait), the other I cant tell you because the tour guide was speaking in spanish but I do know they had orange beaks because I heard the word naranja. Either they had orange beaks or really like oranges.  The tour was awesome, and the town is cute.

There are a lot of locally made chocolate shops. The Godivas of Patagonia. I of course tried one, it was decent but I heard Havana is the best Argentinian chocolate. I will be sure to try it when I get back to Buenos Aires. I got to the hostel and started to pack for tomorrow´s 6-8 hour hike through Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego. A French guy named Baptiste explained the getting out of here situation to me, basically either I take a 15 hour bus ride a day earlier than I had planned (I do not want to go myself and he promised to let me teach him Scattegories) or I spend more than double the price to fly. So, of course my first reaction was to fly, but if I am going to last 5 months on this continent I need to stop impulsively booking insanely expensive flights. I need to learn to start playing things by ear more. I got very upset when he told me to cut my trip to Ushuaia short by a day. But then he said why did you say 3 days? And I dont even have a reason. There is so much of Patagonia to see that it´s probably silly to sit here with nothing to do but eat chocolate for another day! I´ll see how I feel tomorrow. I am glad that I found a computer to upload pictures. I want to try to do it every few days since I have so many and it takes 2 hours to upload!

The real highlight of my day today was a girl on my penguin tour who knew I was from NY because I was wearing my Lulu pants and headband. Only a NYer or Californian would recognize that!!

BsAs Day 2 - Recoleta, San Telmo & La Boca

The amazing thing about being here is that after only 2 days, I'm letting go and allowing myself just to live. No agenda, just playing things by ear  getting on a bus and seeing where it takes me. Today I rode a bike around the city with a girl from the hostel. She woke up the same time as me this morning, asked me to eat breakfast, and then spent the day together. I don't remember her name, but I know where she's from, where she's been and where she's going. This is the part about backpacking I like - everyone is instantaneous friends. There is no judging anything - looks, accent, background -  in a hostel, everyone becomes friends because we all have one thing in common. We are here because we want to be. Everyone is happy and wants to experience things and just live life. And as for natives - they are even better. They sit with you when you're alone at re dinner table, and they make sure you get where you're going and let you know the inside tips.

For example I am sitting at the caminito, a strip in the La Boca barrio, drinking a coffee and watching a tango show. The whole street is filled with brightly colored art and sculptures, it's truly gorgeous, but the bus driver made sure to let me know that if I walk a step away off the strip, I will get mugged. Good thing to be warned of, especially since I like to wander. I love Buenos Aires, and am so glad to be coming back here to see all of the parts I missed! I did make it back tO Recoleta cemetery and found Evitas mausoleum which was nice and another BA to-do crossed off since yesterday's cemetary trip was a big fail. I also four another heladeria, ice cream place, cafe grumpy which was good but nOt amazing like Freddo, the Grom of BsAs.

So 20 minutes after writing this, I actually witnessed a man get mugged. He was on the floor with 2 men pulling things out of his pockets. In all fairness I think the guy was a thief himself but either way was my cue to leave. I came back and met up with a friend I met in Peru 2 years ago for dinner. All I can say is the steak was incredible. The wine was delicious. He ordered and is living here so there was nO 2 Plates of salad or eggplant included. It was fantastic and a great way to end my entry into south America, or el America del sir. I fly down to Ushuaia tomorrow morning, winter coat ready to go. Thus is where this trip will go off the beaten path. Ushuaia's agenda includes a lot of cool things which I hopefully will get to do since I'm going at the end of the season. We will find out tomorrow!!

Buenos Aires, Day 1

After nearly 24 hours of traveling, I made it to Buenos Aires! It turns out the night before I left I realized I never paid for my flight to Ushuaia, and my flight was now gone. The second I got off the plane I hauled my 500 pound backpack and broken spanish speaking butt to the Aerolineas Airlines booth and somehow explained the situation to the woman, who graciously got me on the flight with an additional $87 fee.  So 10 minutes into the country, and I dropped $140 on a visa and $287 on a flight to Ushuaia. But, now that Im here its all settled and I can move on. I was so proud of myself, I figured out how to get from the airport to the city, and from the city on one of the 100 buses that show up to the bus station and straight to my hostel with no problems, except a very sore back (note to self = toss anything with weight out before attempting to lift this thing again).

I made friends with 2 guys that were on my airport shuttle who were here from San Fran, 2 Google employees - I think everyone I know works at Google now.  We got lunch, where I learned my next lesson. Just order things on the menu. This is not New York, and attempting to order a salad and add chicken will result in getting a plate of salad, a separate plate with an entire chicken, and a double bill. Ouch. Good thing its cheap here because that would have been annoying if it came out to more than $10!
I spent most of the day wandering around with my first South American friend Charles. We walked down to the pink palace where Evita and the rest of the Perons lived, down to this cute area by the water where I found Freddo, the famous ice cream shop of Buenos Aires. I got dulce de leche ice cream with brownies in it and it was awesome!!! There are 2 other ice cream places I read about that I need to find.  While we were walking I stumbled upon this junkyard filled with metal sculptures and pictures of crazy things like old men peeing. It was the randomest place ever, and I wish I had a clue what it was. I tried to ask someone and they told me it was a railroad museum, which doesnt explain why WallE was there or the urine art.

People are super friendly, I ended up losing my friends and walked to the San Telmo district where theres supposed to be really great restaurants and bars. I sat down to eat at a restaurant and was heartbroken to find out I didnt have wifi. I was sitting and staring into space, and some Argentinian guy named Don San Juan or something along those lines came and sat with me. Turned out he was a friend of the owner and he gave me free wine. I was just happy to have someone to talk to while I ate my eggplant salad (next note to self, only order things on menus that have pictures next to them. I totally thought I was ordering steak.)
I made another friends back at the hostel, a girl named Daniella from Brazil. Im relieved that its easy to meet people and make friends I was worried about that since Ive never traveled alone before with the exception of Israel, which definitely doesnt count.  Tomorrow I have one more day in Buenos Aires, and then its off to Ushuaia!