I arrived in El Calafate, named after a small berry-like fruit tree in the area, and stayed overnight at Hostal Lago Argentino, which was 100m from the bus terminal. I was lazy. But it ended up being my favourite hostel of the trip, and I used it as a base camp for my trekking missions. The guy in charge, Diego, reminded me of my friend Andy, so we became friends over the 4 times I visited. I used his advice for where to go after Patagonia.

I arranged to stay at a couchsurfer, Analia, who lives with her daughter, Valentina, on a small plot outside of town. They have a nice view of Lago Argentino, and because she has lived there 20 years, she gave an excellent tour of the glacier, which is sort of the main reason for the town's existence. She had a couchsurfing couple, an Argentine and Israeli, who tried hitchhiking to El Chalten, but couldn't find a lift, so they came back to stay another night. So they came along for the glacier tour.

I just paid the standard tour price that I was going to pay, and some extra bob for petrol, and Analia got us into the park without having to pay entrance fee's for the 3 of us hiding in the back of the van. Afterwards she took us to Lago Roca which had a pretty awesome sunset.

We saw a huuuuge chunk fall off the glacier, so then I brought out the camera, and filmed a medium size chunk fall off. Just before winter is the best time to see the glacier, because they have parts falling off every day. The Perito Moreno glacier is part of the Hielo Sur (South Ice), the largest block of ice other than Antarctica, and is the only glacier in the world that is still growing. This is because it snows 360 days a year at the source.

Analia's house	Ice cave
Pointing at the ice	Lago Roca sunset

I bought the first tent and thermal vest i could find. I was not going to sleep in my hammock for a week. I left my heavier things with Analia, (including the ridiculous 5kg blow-up mattress, which I never used except for rain protection, which I left with them as a sort of gift).

I stayed one night at the hostel, met a Swede named Carl, who was going south. So I recommended he looks into taking the boat from Punto Arenas to Isla Navarina, which I would have done if I was heading South. So that's what he did. I took the bus to Puerto Natales with him, and we must have gone through 10 painful riddles on that trip, which seemed to be his passion. I really stumped him on my old indian riddle, which I can tell you if you have never heard it.

Here's his killer riddle, which stumped me:

You have a bracelet with 7 diamonds, if you don't give the chief one diamond every day for a week, the tribe will eat you. You have a blunt knife that only has 2 cuts left. How can you cut the bracelet so that the chief is pleased?

In Chile, we were hounded by some crazy woman who didn't even seem to want to show us a hostel. We didn't know what she wanted. She blabbered some rant about English people being assholes. I asked if she meant the British, or all English speakers, because I was prepared to agree with her... but she apparently despised all English speakers, and so we shoo'ed her away.

I took out 200,000 Chilean pesos, which turned out to be a shitload of money, and I parted ways with Carl. I stayed at Casa de Teresa, which my friend at Hotel Carly recommended, if I was ever there. It was painted neon pink outside, and was really homely inside. Like seriously... there were 6 or 7 blankets on my bed. Puerto Natales is the closest town to the Mastadon cave, which I didn't visit, because I read about it in Chatwin's book, and it sounded pretty boring even 20 years ago. It is the windiest town I have ever been in.

Teresa turned out to be a mini-tourism agency, and sold me a cheap return ticket to Torres del Paines, which was for me, the only reason to visit Puerto Natales.

The road to Chile	The road to Chile

Probably the most beautiful and adventurous part of the entire trip, Torres del Paines (Paine's towers) are covered in clouds most of the year, and you are lucky if you see them. I saw a few glimpses of them, and then finally it cleared up on my last day, and I was able to see them from a distance.

The most common route through the park is the 'W', which takes about 5 days, as opposed to the Paine circuit which takes 10 days. I did a lower case 'w', because at every camp half-way to the 'Mirador' (Vantage point), it was snowing so much that you either couldn't see 10 metres in front of you, or you couldn't walk because the snow was a metre deep.

I did this trip carrying at least 15 kilograms, though it felt like more. I was very happy to have bought a tent, because it would have been a nightmare in the hammock. The first night I stayed at Campamento Chileno, which was only 2 or 3 hours up a valley. Others coming back down said they went to Camp Britanico, to the mirador, but could see nothing, and so I set up my tent on the covered porch of the closed lodge, which despite being sheltered from the wind on all but one side, was very cold, and the sideways-falling rain and snow still managed to reach the tent.

First day hiking	Toxic green
Night	Morning

The next day I returned on my cursive 'w', and continued to 'Los Cuernos', which was far away. It wasn't that far, I guess, something like 8km, but the whole day was like an obstacle course. The path was usually the eroded path of least resistance for the water, which made the flatter parts into small rivers.

That day I met two blokes from England, one originally from Spain, who were doing the, er, underscore '_' trail, (that is, the W without any side trips), and all they had was a 5 liter jug of water, a loaf of bread, ham, and cheese. I stopped and ate a sandwich with them. They were happy to meet someone else who didn't have a gas stove. It was their last day, and I think they were getting tired of ham and cheese. Andean condors with 3m wingspans flew overhead.

I arrived only as it was getting dark, and upon seeing the lodges with smoke pouring out, it felt like I was safe in the shire. I was particularly annoyed by then, because it turned out my Weathertek shoes were no match for a knee-deep puddle of mud. I unsuccessfully tried to traverse a mud lake, and then noticed the path cut through the forest to circumvent it. So I found the main office, and put my wettest clothes to dry by the fire. The lodge was built to extort, charging 19000 pesos for a bed (that is, US$40). So I chose the $6 camping option, which at least let me sit by the fire, and dry my shoes. The group that night was friendly, from Oz, Germany and England.

Lenga trees	More lenga trees
Huge condors	Typical river path

In the morning, there were puma prints in the snow, and I traded music with the guy running the place. He was happy to get new music, and he knew a few words of Afrikaans because he had been to Cape Town. So we got along. He said if Chile qualifies, (which they have), he will be back for 2010. So maybe I'll hear from him.

I got lost that day trying to find Campamento Italiano, but eventually realised I just needed to push on. I found the camp at 4pm, and the bridge crossing the river. Some Americans came from the other side of the bridge, and asked if I knew where Camp Italiano was, and so I pointed at the sign literally two metres from us, and said 'here'. They said they had been walking forever, and I should stay instead of going further, because it would get dark by 6pm, and the trail was covered by snow. So I looked for a nice tent site in the snow.

They were nice Colorado folk, who gave me a chocolate bar, and hot water for tea. I heard about a mouse problem, so I hung up my food and bag in my hammock. I was shivering like a parkinsons patient, and some damn bird was whooping, and the tree above me was dripping, and I recall thinking it was the worst night of my life.

Puma!	Camp Italiano bridge

That morning they went to see what they could of the middle 'W' trail, and I followed after them easily, as their footprints were the only ones. The snow started getting deep (up to my knees), and my socks started getting wet, and I decided to go back to carry on for the main camp lodge. It was fortunate that it snowed, because for a brief hour, there was no rain or cloud, and I could see the 'Torres del Paines', which I had come to see.

The weather started to clear up a bit, and as I walked away from the Torres, I could sense the worst was over. A puma or wolf had made the same walk as me that morning, as the snow was fresh. I got to a large lodge looking place, and sat by the fire with some beautiful german girl. I started to dry my things, but the manager said only guests of the lodge could sit by the fire. So I set up my tent outside.

Lakes	Torres
Following the Colorado guy	A nice rock

There was a sizeable group that night, and mostly jovial. The german girl asked if I saw her friends today, but they had gone on a different trail. But when they returned, it turned out her friend was none other than Corrina, the Kiwi. Also there were Polish and Czech hikers, who seemed like they were on happy drugs. And to round it off, a Swiss guy and English guy, who were like Beavis and Butthead. So we all had a fun night making jokes and eating bleak instant noodle meals.

The German girl was only 40 kilograms or something, so the uphill grind, plus her 13 kilo backpack was too much for her, so she was giving up the next day, and large Polish men were going to help her carry her bag back. I took the opportunity to buy her cooking stove and ground mat for a good deal.

Trees	Some plant or fungus thing
Camp Pehoe	Nice view of the Torres

I went for a short hike with Jaroslav, Agnieska, and Andrea, to go see Glacier Grey, but we only made it to 'Lago Pato', a lake with no ducks, that did not even warrant a blue dot on the map. It was too cloudy to see anything, and we all had a long way to walk that day, in different directions, so we turned back.

I hiked to the final campsite... On the way, I met some Canadian girl looking for her friends up ahead. I said I didn't see anyone. She had seen the German girl, who tried to convince her to go back, and said the Polish porters were rolling their eyes, as though she had been complaining often.

I made it to the final campsite of my trip, a three-walled shelter facing a hill. It seemed too good to be true, and it was. If it wasn't for the isothermic ground mat, it would have been the worst night of my life. As soon as dusk settled, the mice came down from the hills. I hung my food on a string above the tent. They scuttled to the roof, did some Mission Impossible shit, and nibbled into the food. When they failed, they fell down, and slid down my tent making 'sloop' sounds. Occasionally they would start trying to eat into my tent. I got out of the tent, carried the whole thing out of the shelter, cursing, and went to sleep on top of the snow. The snow melts below you to form a perfect orthopedic mold, and luckily, my newly acquired mat was pretty effective.

I walked out leisurely, and made it to the bus on time. I was damn lucky though, because my watch was 2 hours late, and I was only 5 minutes early for the bus.

Some guys on the bus gave me some peanuts because I was hungry, and I didn't want to eat the food the mice had pooped in. It was a majestic bus ride, and when we arrived back in Puerto Natales, we split up to find places to stay. But it turned out we all wanted to go to Casa Teresa, and since it was closed, we all went to Hostal Dumestre instead, which turned out to be great. I stayed two nights because I had already bought a return ticket, as had planned to be in the park for another night.

A midget with a humpback, Josè, did all the manual labour, and kept the fire going. I still had over 120,000 Chilean pesos, so I knew I would have to return some day.

Happy people	Mouse party
The Bells! The Bells!	Snow horses
Birds	Guanaco

I came back to El Calafate, got my things from Analia, and bought a ticket to El Chalten. Unfortunately, since route 40 was now closed due to snow, one had to return to Calafate. So I should have got the return ticket. I stayed the night at the nice hostel, where there were now some girls. I decided through email to stay faithful to my Cape Town girlfriend, so they couldn't work out why I wasn't hitting on them. They asked if I had a novio. I said I have a novia, and they giggled. They said my girlfriend would cheat on me, and I said that staying together was her idea. So they went into a sort of 'awww' mood. They said watch out, because Argentinian girls move fast.

Darwin's Rhea, or, Ñandu	The sky
Hombre de Araña bubbleblower	Diego

In El Chalten, the weather was perfect, and upon arrival, the lady from the national park came aboard the bus, and said we were really lucky to be able to see Mt. Fitzroy and the others. From reading the Chatwin book, I learned that Fitzroy was the captain of the HMS Beagle, and a devout Christian, and it was probably the 5 years of supper conversation with Darwin that turned them into diametric opposites. Another interesting peak is Mt. St. Exupery, named after the author of the Little Prince, who in his pilot days liked to fly over the Andes.

I could find only delapidated hostels, and I finally found the tourist office, which pointed me to a few I hadnt seen yet. I stayed at 'La Nativa', which was a family house, which was fine, except things bit me at night. I just did a small hike up to the 'Condor' and 'Eagle' vistas, which gave a nice panoramic view of everything. I walked to the local waterfall, and once again, saw the Colorado couple from Campamento Italiano! They gave me a sandwich and a lift back to town.

Mirador del Aguila	Bienvenido
Mmmm barfy burgers	A good sign

The next day I started a 3-day loop hike, leaving the heavy stuff at the hostel, and got on the trail. After a while, I stopped on a log, and I heard a 'yoohoo' or 'ahoy' and it was Jaroslav from Torres del Paines. The whole trip, we saw just one park ranger, and one old couple on a day hike. The national park was empty, and so I realised there are just a few elite weirdos hiking the Andes in Winter, and so it's more like natural selection than random chance that I run into the same Czechoslovakian in a forest 500 kilometers away from the last forest I saw him in.

We became good friends, and tried to climb 'Lago Los Tres' which was 500 vertical metres of ascent zigzagging on an ice mountain. But we did it, and it was quite spectacular. He hiked really fast though, and so the 3 day loop turned into a 2 day loop. We cooked a hell of a meal for camping. Pasta and meat with spices, and dessert. Then the mice came, so we rushed back to the tents. I hung the food in a tree again, and the mice ate through, but they only got into the trash section, and must have been eating plastic or snotty tissues or something. The wind was violently swinging the hanging bag, and anything the mice could eat, they deserved.

The next day we hiked to a spot where we could have gone to see the 'Cerros', which are spiky towers, but it looked very cloudy, and we decided to go back to town instead. Besides, Jaroslav had the bus schedule, and knew that we had to leave that day, or wait another 4 days. There was enough to do for 4 days, but I thought it would be more fun to go with Jaroslav.

Woodpecker	Lorikeets, I think.
Lake	Lake
Jaroslav	Lago los tres
Treacherous bloody mountain	Waterfall

We got the bus back to Calafate, and got the 5am bus to Bariloche. I stayed for the last time in Hostal Lago Argentino, and smoked a joint with Diego. I offered him A$10 to stay until 2am, and take a shower, but he said it was no problem, so I stayed for free.

The bus ride to Bariloche stopped halfway, and Jaroslav somehow lost his special bag, the bag in the bag with pictures, credit card, and money. He cursed and ran around, and I was afraid he was going to miss the bus, but I stood there with his stuff, and he came back. Neither of us thought the man at the supermarket stole it, so it must have been someone on the bus, reaching under his seat. It was unfortunate. He was scary, being 6'7" and unhappy.

We arrived in Bariloche, and walked to the center of town, which was a good few kilometers. We looked for a cheap good place. I was willing to pay A$40, but Jaro wanted A$30. We found an amazing one on the 10th floor of a building, but it was full. So we went to the recommended Hostal Las Moiras, which was good too.

We left our heavy things in the basement, and went the next day to climb Cerro Catedral. One day up, one day down. We took the bus with school kids, and got off at a rainy bus stop. It was only 10k up, but with a 3k walk before that. It was quite beautiful and rainforesty, with lenga and bamboo, but it was quite a hike. We found one cave which Jaro liked because it had a Czech explorer's name on the door, but we pushed on to the refugio. We had to cross a river at the top, which luckily had a rope to hold on to, further upstream.

The refugio was nice. It was inhospitable outside. That is, there was a frozen lake, gale force winds, it was hailing, and raining so much that you couldn't take a piss without taking a shower.

There was the park ranger and his girlfriend, and two guys who worked for the refugio. So they were sort of unhappy that we didn't buy anything. They offered cake, and I said 'ooh', and I paused and asked how much, and they said 5 pesos or something. I was sort of insulted that they were going to charge me after I took it. So we made sandwiches upstairs instead, and came down to sit by the fire. There was a cat, which must have had a grand time catching mice. I played a game of chess with one of the workers, and destroyed his confidence. The girl was reading 'My sister and I' by Nietzsche, and I said that scholars say he did not write the book, but she thought he did. I wish I had emphasized that she was wrong. But I haven't read it myself.

The next day was mostly downhill, but still, Jaro called it the worst hiking trail he'd ever been on. The poor guy tried crossing a broken bridge and fell in, getting his shoes soaked. My shoes had been soaking the whole time, so I sympathised. The bastards at the refugio told us we should go left instead of right, which is normally the shorter way to go back, but they didn't tell us about the lakes that had formed on the path. They also underestimated the time it took, and we missed the bus by 10 minutes.

Jaroslav thought it was intentional, because we didn't buy anything. But the puddles were treacherous and unpassable. So we got our shoes wet, and carried on. We waited for two hours for the bus, and unceremoniously urinated on the road, listening to the pumping techno music emanating from a bar that must have had a waitress and bartender twiddling their thumbs.

Glacial beach	A river
Me	Jaroslav
Looking up	Looking down
Mouse species altitude chart	Crossing the river
The treacherous river	The frozen lake

Jaro left the next day to go to Chile, to find his Javiera. He said he had had enough of mountains. I stayed on a few days to check out Llao Llao and Cerro Otto. Staying was a good choice, because some interesting characters came that week. Jaroslav gave me sandals and his ripped rain pants. I used the sandals, and converted the rain pants into a rain cover for my backpack by scissoring it apart and restapling.

I went out with the new hostel people. It was me, the Venezuelan, Brazilian, Argentinian, and 3 French. We went to a pub Wilkenny, where i bought 2 of the most expensive beers of my life. R75 for a liter of beer that in the store would have cost R15.

Then the French brothers heard about a reggae club, 'La Cantina', and it made up for it, cause it was R20/liter there, and about 5 people gave me beers, so it was free thereafter. Great reggae music all night.

I talked to 2 local breast implant blondes, and then the French guy pulled me away and said why bother with those blondes, when there are some gorgeous brunettes there. I told him I have a novia with red hair, and I am just saying hello. He said he also has a girlfriend in France but that you won't know Argentina unless you try its goods.

So I found the brunettes, 4 of them, and said i only wanted to talk to 2 of them, that the other 2 could go away. i asked the one her name, and she said 'me llamo yo', ("I'm called me"). But they took pics with me, and the one seemed to like me.

I came home at 5am, earlier than the others, standing for a minute in the lake. I was going to jump in but my sanity took over. I noted that Clifton was colder than this glacial lake.

Two nights later, I went to Wilkenny again, and they were playing reggaeton mostly. The guys I went with were the gayest straight guys I've ever met. But it was fun. We hip thrust to Madonna, 4 of us in a restaurant booth, surrounded by a packed club/restaurant where no one was sitting down.

I attracted a pretty 24 yr old girl, who sat with me, and then followed me to La Cantina. She had a tattoo of a mushroom (amanita muscaria, the fly agaric), and stars on her wrist. At La Cantina though, she revealed she has a 1 year old son. So that was that, more or less. Her baby's daddy and his thug brother were there, and we bought each other drinks, and they seemed to approve of me, but the daddy was a druggy womaniser, and I think he would really like nothing better than for me to take his place as child support sponsor. I said I'd go check out her 'African dance' class, but she never showed up.

The next morning there was some crazy drama at the hostel. One of the guys (the Venezuelan, Sebastian) with us at the table at Wilkenny was supposed to leave that morning, but went off with some chica. The chica was ugly, and the other guys called him "San Jorge" because that's the name of the patron saint of taking one for the team.

But Sebastian had taken his stuff already, plus he had convinced the Argentinian and Brazilian to give him the money to buy cheap tickets to Mendoza (~US$50) for them. So he skipped town with their bus money.

I went for a walk in Llao Llao, which was great, however I got lost near Lago Escondido, (hidden lake), and walked around aimlessly. The people who asked me to take a picture of them by the hidden lake drove by, and gave me a lift back to the bus.

I told the new girl at the hostel about the African dance class, and she was happy to find out about it, and said she'd go with me. So I went and watched, and didn't participate because it was sort of ridiculous. I suppose it's possible that Africans dance like they did, but typically they are high on drugs.

I ate a big lamb and cow and wine and pomme frite and gurgling provolone meal with the 3 French peeps. Then we ate a 1/2 kilogram of ice cream of 6 different flavours, then 4 liters of beer, and i felt like a witch's cauldron.

I climbed Cerro Otto, which had beautiful views of Bariloche. I went to the 'Nordic Skiing Centre' but there was no snow yet. I bought some chocolate, because Bariloche is the chocolate capital of Argentina, and a throwing star, cause I've always wanted one.

I enjoyed Bariloche, and moved on because I was getting lazy.

Some tree that only exists here	Low lying branches
I didn't try eat it	Lago Escondido
Old 'Roman' bridge	Afro dancing girls
Isla Navidad	Xtreme Ski-ing!
Horsey	View from top of Cerro Otto
Little rainbow	hehe