20th of February -> 26th of February

Because I am a fair share of days behind (due to the big post from Torres Del Paine), I will put the next couple of days in one big post to avoid spam.
Please note that even though I link to some of my pictures here, there are far more pictures on my flickr page.

20th of February:

I had an entire day in Puerto Natales, and used it to treat my pictures, upload them to flickr and write the first part of the Torres Del Paine post. Not much else happened, but with the horrible internet café's in Puerto Natales, not much work got done.

As this was my last day in Puerto Natales, I decided to eat at Mesita Grande for dinner. I know that I have eaten there every night in Puerto Natales so far, but the pizza is simply just so damn good. And who would have guessed it? I certainly met other people there (notice the irony)! I fell into conversation with Vicky and Sophia; from Birmingham (Vicky, with that funny Birmingham accent) and London (Sophia). They weren't having much of a dinner as they had had a big lunch, but Vicky had a salad (as far as I remember) and they stayed around for conversation until I had finished.

Back at the erratic rock I bought a tshirt, it's orange and it has embroidered:
erratic rock
Patagonia, Chile

Before I could go to bed however, I had to repack my bag (I had stored most of my possessions with the hostel in another bag, as I had to drag around all sorts of stuff in Torres Del Paine). Next to me doing the same thing was Mike from Bournemouth, England. We started talking a bit about what we had seen and done in the park; but all that talk about the park faded when we discovered our mutual passion for Blackadder. We sat for quite a while quoting different parts although mainly season 4, and especially Lord Flashheart.

What is most special about this day, is what it marks. I left Spain on the morning of the 20th of January, which means that on this day, I had spent one month in South America. But unlike the day that marked my 3 weeks in South America, I didn't have any reflective thoughts or anything.

21st of February:

At much too early in the morning, I caught a bus to El Calafate after having eaten my last erratic rock omelet. Next to me on the bus sat Edward, a Swiss/Scottish/Argentinian traveler, we had some nice conversation for most of the trip and once we got to El Calafate we decided to go see the Perito Moreno glacier together. As soon as we arrived in El Calafate we bought a ticket to the glacier (left 45 minutes later), found a hostel, dumped our bags, ate a sandwich and just made it to the bus.

After first having gone on a boat ride close to the glacier (1) (2) (3), we made it to the top and walked around looking at the glacier from above. The only unfortunate event of the day, was the rather gray weather and the rain; but we managed anyway, I even snagged an artistic photo. The glacier itself was a fantastic sight, a 60 meter tall wall of ice, the creaking noises before a huge splash that sounded like it could crush anything, only to look in the direction and see that it was just a small part; and then imagining what a huge part would be like.

Back in El Calafate Edwards creditcards didn't work, but he did have enough money to get back to Puerto Natales the following day, he just wouldn't be able to afford dinner. So after having bought my ticket to El Chalten together with Mike, he and I went out for the best dinner I have had so far. I had an omelet with red peppers, cheese and some very lovely spicy sausage. But the food was not what made it great, Mike and I quoted Blackadder all evening, and at several times I couldn't eat as I was laughing so hard. Eventually we finished eating and decided to go back to our hostels as we had an early bus the next day.

22nd of February:

Got up early and headed for the bus. Mike was there waiting and we soon set off (I arrived 2 minutes before the bus left). After driving for a while Mike woke me up (I had been sleeping with my head on the windows so my neck hurt like hell) as we had arrived at a roadside stop where a small guanaco (llama relative). When we finally did arrive in El Chalten, we found a nice hostel, bought our tickets onwards (the only bus was the following night), ate lunch at the most wonderful little "teahouse". It was the most delicious sandwich I have ever had, followed by the most delightful of all waffles.

But we did get serious (eventually). After a lot of kicking about and spending money unnecessarily, we got up and took a dayhike into the valley ahead of El Chalten. The views were incredible, the path nice and even (in fact it was madly steep at places, but after Torres Del Paine... that was even anyway); the highpoint of the hike was a panoramic view of Fitz Roy the legendary mountain but as you can tell from my picture, the peak was obscured. Despite these setbacks, it was a great dayhike. If any of you had been wondering what Mike looks like, well here is an appetiser. Eventually we made it back to town and we both went to an internet cafe to sort out our stuff. Afterwards we went to the towns only (and not only bland but very much lacking) supermarket where despite the shortage of goods, Mike bought what he felt was necessary for our dinner (yes, he cooked for me).

I was rather skeptical about the dinner, but with 3 kinds of vegetables (carrot, red pepper and vegetables), potatoes and some huge sausages (yummy) he cooked up a wonderful meal. With us for the dinner was Emm (or so I think her name was) from Seattle, USA. After dinner we went to a small bar where Mike and Emm had a locally brewed pilsner and we all had a nice chat. It was a cool place, neat wooden decorations, good music (including Roxanne and other police songs); and instead of placing bread on the tables, they had popcorn :D.

23rd of February:

You really come to understand just how fragile the human body is. It was a 5 hour daytrek (both ways), but after 1,5 hours of walking I couldn't go much further knowing that the scenery wouldn't drastically improve (1) (2). So I went back (totaling a 3 hours trip) while Mike went on; back in Chaltén I went to an internet cafe and managed to finish my Torres Del Paine post (although I didn't publish it at the time as it needed proofreading). Having done that Mike was back (it was now around 20) and once again we set out for dinner (funny how you do some things every day, like eating dinner?) and found a nice place with an idiot for a waiter. Instead of charging one sidedish of chips (french fries) to us, he gave us a full price each; but Mike and I had had a lot of fun during the previous days we had known each other as well as this dinner, so we didn't make a fuss of it and just accepted it. We went to the best place in town (Del Bosque) and I had yet another (and last) waffle. We were to catch a nightbus out of El Chaltén on this day, in fact it left at 1:20 in the morning. But it was a long wait from when the last waffle had been eaten (2 hours) so after watching some football on the madly discoloured television (spaced out colours, purple, pink and so on) until I fell asleep for about 20 minutes. Mike woke me up, we got our bags, walked to the bus and got on.

24th of February:

This time when I woke, my neck didn't hurt so much I thought I would never be able to straighten it out. Instead I pulled out my copy of Master and Commander and continued reading; I woke up around 9 o'clock and my bus wasn't schedueled to arrive for another 7,5 hours (16.30), so I had plenty of time to kill. I had recently begun reading Master and Commander (the movie is based on several books in the series, but it does take a few parts from my copy, the first in the series) and it is a most splendid book, I really hope I can pick up some of the next in the series once I hit Santiago. After a long ride we arrived in Perito Moreno (named after the same guy who the glacier is named after) where Mike was getting off and everybody got a 30 minute break; so I got off the bus and bought an ice cream. When I got I (to my extreme horror) saw the bus drive away! After some moments of panic, someone told me that the bus was just going to get refuelled, and true enough, not only was the bus empty as it drove away (apart of the driver), it did in fact return 25 minutes later (to my relief). I got on the bus and drove the last 25 minutes to my final stop of the day... Los Antiguos. Shortly after my arrival I found my way into a nice hostel, walked around this dull/dead city, went to an internet cafe to proofread my Torres Del Paine post, started talking to a French girl named... Fanny. She invited me to come to dinner with her and a group of people she had met... Israelis. I accepted and came along, but yeah it was a bit of a mistake, I felt very much out of place and just watched Catwoman with Halle Berry dubbed into Spanish (bad enough on its own, but dubbed?) instead. For some odd and quite horrible reason, restaurants in South America always have at least one tv running, and quite loudly at that; it is a horrible distraction, but the locals seems to enjoy it. I just went straight back to bed after that ordeal, and the tiniest omelet you can possibly imagine.

25th of February:

As always I woke up quite late, but that didn't stop me from being ready for the announced 11 o'clock bus from Los Antiguos to Chile Chico (in Chile). But at 11.15 it still hadn't arrived, so I went to ask for it. And so it went every 15 or 20 minutes until I got picked up at 13.30. Quite nice isn't it? A bus being 2,5 hours delayed doing a stretch which takes 10 minutes... Anyway I got across and that is the important bit, it didn't matter how long it too, I would be stuck in Chile Chico anyway as the next ferry wasn't till the following day.

Once in Chile Chico I had a sandwich (had some leftover money from my last stay in Chile) and then to my horror, discovered that the only bank in the town wouldn't give my money "invalid transaction", lovely right? So I went to an information office and got the price for ferry. I had enough money for the ferry and 2000 pesos (I had also bought some bread) in excess, which I didn't spend in case the ferry price wasn't accurate. So I went back to my hostel and paid the owner with some of my remaining Argentinian pesos; and stayed there for the rest of the day, doing anything costs money in South America.

For dinner I had some leftover pasta from the last time I cooked dinner, so I greedily ate a lot of it and watched Snatch together with Ron, one of the Israeli's from yesterday who was staying in the same place. When I was about to go to bed (in fact, I was in bed), the rest of the Israeli's poured in at about 22 o'clock and started to cook (10 people in a 4 people room) their food on stoves, turned the tv way up and started blabbering in Hebrew... Lovely.

26th of February:

The ferry I was getting on didn't leave till 16.30 so I had nearly a full day with no money... Luckily the hostel had an English language tv channel (the one that had shown Snatch) which had an all-day special on Bruce Lee... Mind you not his movies, but a super crappy 80's documentary on him, with the interviews in English but the speaker in Spanish... Oh the agony. Anyway I watched that for several hours (and ate some more pasta) before I got my gear and walked down the ferry. Don't you love getting wrong information? Well so do I. The ferry was there, but I was supposed to buy my ticket the previous day (a new concept in South America), whereas they had told me at the information to buy it on the ferry. So I got to wait in the sun for two hours, underneath the hole in the ozone layer, until at last I was allowed on board (at a higher price then they had told me at the information). On board I snapped a few decent pictures (1) (2) (3) (4) (5), but mainly I just sat down below trying to relax for the 2,5 hours the trip took.

On the other side mini-buses took everyone to Coyhaique (I imagine a few people stayed in Puerto Ibañez), the trip took 2 hours; but as soon as I was in Coyhaique I set out for a hostel. It took me 3 tries, but I found one, dumped me bag, went out for dinner (it wasn't a hostel but a crappy hotel, so no cooking), back to my room, watched an episode of Sherlock Holmes (in English) and then straight to bed.