It’s very early to have a certain view on the trip in retrospect, I’m still bewildered from being back, but it’s a trip that has changed my life, and my view upon life, but then, all great changes in your life do exactly that.
Certain people on the trip have made a bigger impact than others, of the most important I can mention: Mike Gasson, Jimmy, Dave, Sarah, Carl, Miguel, Anne Dorte, Stephen, James, Johno, Karin, Flavio, Julian, Magte, Tono, Antonio, Heather, Lisa, Moni, Bob and the star of the show… Gilbert.

I have also had a lot of help from the homefront: Hanne (mother), Jesper (father), Anne Sophie (sister), Bo (stepfather) and Anette (friend). Especially without the help of these individuals, the trip never would have been or it would have failed while I was underway.

With a disregard to all that I have just written, I would like to extend a thank you, to everyone on this list:

Family, friends and everyone who has been reading the blog!

Uruguay: Those 5 Danes

Colonia Del Sacramento: The Brit and the Aussie

Puerto Madryn: Sarah and Kyle

Rio Gallegos: Timo, Jonah and Fred

Ushuaia: Andreas, Uri, Layden and the 4 Israeli girls

Punta Arenas: Carl, Tamar, Adina, Keenan, Irish couple, Jack, Roman, Mike and the two Aussie’s in their 50′s.

Puerto Natales: Bill, Kat, Bo, the guy from Punta Arenas, Monty (the cat), Britney, Jenny, German girl, Vicky and Sophia

Torres Del Paine: Urs, John, John, Susan, Katy, Rafael, Natasha, Albert, Nick, Whitney and the two Irish guys.

Calafate: Edward

Chalten: Mike

Futaleufú: Eyal, Rachel, Dave and Eddie

El Bolsón: Lucia

Bariloche: Patrick, Reut, the Israeli twins and Jimmy

Bariloche -> Valdivia: Lindsay

Pucón: Everyone at hostel Etnico, everyone who went up the volcano with me (in particular Yong)

Santiago: The staff at La Chimba hostel and Mike (of El Chalten fame)

Rapa Nui (Easter Island): Miguel, Chen, Kieran, Melissa, Larry, Jimmy (From Bariloche),John, Emma, Brian, John (Montana), Alejandra

Buenos Aires: Eddie (of Futaleufú fame), Anne Dorte, Jon, Karen, Elena, Jane, Becky, Eric, Madoka, James, Steve, Stefan, Darren, Deborah, Chris

Puerto Iguazu: Two German girls, Canadian girl and the two Danish girls

Ciudad Del Este: Dan and Rommi

Santa Cruz -> La Paz: Lorgio

La Paz: Patrick (from Bariloche) and Danny

La Paz -> Cuzco: Florian

Cuzco: Steve and James (from Buenos Aires), Karin, Anna, Heather, Ley, the 3 Norwegian girls, Ingrid, Johno, Maria, Charlotte, Mike Gasson (from El Chalten and Santiago) and the Kiwi girl.

Inca Trail: Flavio, Julian, the porters and the cook, Rob and Dee Ann

La Paz: Nadja, Yasmin, Heather, Uval, Maud, Jonathan, Ivan and Macro

Potosi: Cameron, Monica, Allan, William, Anaïs, Angela and Aaron

Uyuni: Angela (from Potosi), Declan and Judy

Sucre: Andrew, Tamsyn and Trevor

La Paz: Jimmy

Pampas: Jimmuy, Laia and Tono

Jungle: Jimmy, Antonio and Jesus

La Paz: Jimmy, Heather, Roly and Anita

Copacabana: Jimmy

Habana: Lisa, Amasa and Lily

Santiago de Cuba: Lisa (from above)

Comandancia La Plata: Moni

VIlla Santa Domingo -> Camaguey: Shane and Steve

Cuba: All the family’s I stayed with, ate with and talked with; you showed me the best side of Cuba.

Washington, D.C.: Hiro, Carlos, Rachel & Eyal (from Futaleufu and Bariloche), Bill Colburn, Jackie, Rick and Rav Shmuel.

New York: Tony, Anne Sophie (my sister), Peter & and his son Tony as well as

Chicago: Bob, Amanda and the people on the Wicker park tour

Boston: Amelia

I’m just gonna leave you with a feeling of my trip, I know with this massive list of people above, it doesn’t feel right, and I’m not saying it gives a sense of my entire trip, but you will also notice that few people are mentioned more than once (it won’t work if you are reading this in an email, you have to go to the website):

[See post to listen to audio]

So before I leave you… Beyond the sky and the earth, thank you.

I checked out and went down to the Terminal to get my 11 o’clock bus, boarded it and paid my 3 pesos, and so it set off. I got stamped out of Argentina, went back on board the bus and got dumped off in Brazil? That wasn’t to plan, but there wasn’t much to do about it. The busdriver told us (I got off together with an English guy, German girl and an Argentinian girl) that another bus would be along in 20 minutes. So we all got our Brazilian entry stamps. Back at the bus stop, nothing happened. 20 minutes passed, then 30, 40, 50, 1 hour had gone by and still no bus. The German girl was getting extremely impatient and kept muttering to herself as she had wanted to catch a bus from Ciudad Del Este to Santa Cruz (Bolivia). So when a bus finally came, it wasn’t with out company, so we couldn’t get on it. The German girl just bought a new ticket from the bus driver and was off.

In hindsight, I would have gotten on the bus with her, but I had no idea that the bus would never come along… After a little while, the 2 Danish girls I had met the previous day came along, waited for their bus (they were only going to Foz de Iguacu (the Brazilian town) and left. They were followed by 2 Swedish girls who did the same. So eventually I got to know the people I were waiting with quite well. Daniel (Dan) from England and his girlfriend Rommi from Cordoba (Argentina, not Spain), who were out traveling until Dan had to go back to England again (a week later). We talked especially a lot about our bus, and whether or not it would actually come. So after 2 hours and 40 minutes, we had just had enough. We got very upset with out bus company NSA (Never Stops Anywhere) and took a taxi, it was 60 peso all the way to Ciudad Del Este, a lot more expensive than the bus, but then the bus never came.

Leaving Brazil was easy enough, there was no queue, we just got our stamps and drove across the international Friendship bridge, a bride you should never walk across, unless you don’t care about being mugged. On the other side we did our border formalities, got a very beautiful stamp in my passport and located our hotel, which our driver offered to take us to for free. The hotel was in the Lonely Planet guide listed as 13 dollars for a single room, but upon arrival it turned out to be a 35 dollar room. So Dan and Rommi offered to share a triple room with me, which brought the price down to a much more sensible. Had the final price been 35 dollars, I would have found another place. But 15 dollars was acceptable, especially since it was a nice hotel (Hotel Munich), and in Ciudad Del Este, you don’t want to scrimp. There are plenty of very cheap places, but there are even more dodgy places with absolutely no security.

Dan and Rommi had initially hoped to go to the Itaipu dam, but unfortunately it was too late for that trip, so we walked around Ciudad Del Este, an enormous cheap electronics market… My kind of place. For lunch Dan had read about a Lebanese place in the Lonely Planet guide, unfortunately it was nowhere to be found, so instead we went into a mini-market next to a mosque, and asked. The owner didn’t know of it, but he was Lebanese and his uncle owned a restaurant not far away, so he had his little brother take us there. Without him we would never have found it, in fact, without the little brother we would never have entered the building, found our way to the second floor and sat down there. The place (not the restaurant) looked extremely dodgy and ready to collapse, the restaurant itself was a kitchen with 1 table and 4 chairs, but the food… The food was fantastic; this was one of those places where locals come, and it stays local, because they don’t want to share the gorgeous food. I had a sort of roll with minced lamb and assorted vegetables in it, part of which tasted like some vegetarian meat replacement, which I had once tasted in Amsterdam at a shawarma place (not surprising).

We went back to the hotel and relaxed as there wasn’t much to do, the market was beginning to close, and that really is all there is. So we settled down, Dan and I talked while Rommi slept. Once it was late, Dan and I went out looking for dining places that weren’t too expensive. We eventually found a nice place, so we went back to the hostel, found that Rommi was awake and went out to eat dinner. I had a wonderful lasagna, Rommi the same an Dan had a really good looking Paraguayan fish.

Nothing major, ate my breakfast, tried to send some more DVD’s to my father, but the post office was closed (Saturday). I said goodbye to whoever was around (Karen and Ilene had left the previous day; James and Steve was nowhere to be found), such people as Danny and Anne Dorthe. I went to the bus terminal, waited for my bus and boarded my bus. I fell straight to sleep and woke up many hours later, read in my book and fell asleep again. The only thing I did today, was when I went to see the courthouse of Buenos Aires.

30th of March:

I arrived some hours late at 9 in the morning (who is counting in South America?), dumped my bags at my hostel, and went straight to the Iguazu Falls. There is no easy way to explain Iguazu; you first hear the falls some way off, then you can see it sometimes in between branches, and then suddenly it leaps out at you. The falls are massive, all over and you just can’t get enough.

I had booked a boat tour which goes under the second largest fall, and somewhat close to the largest fall. That’s right, you willingly get into a boat and sail under the fall… Simply put it is an amazing experience, you don’t feel like you are about to die (as one might have expected), although you do feel like you could be washed away. It sort of fills you with even more awe (if that’s possible), and once you leave all you want is more (which is why they turn around and do it a second time).

Out of the boat you walk up again, and head out onto the higher catwalks (you get to the boat by the lower ones), and from here you get a spectacular view of the eastern falls. Not to mention pretty rainbows, butterflies and a picture of me.

I then went to the top and caught the park train to the Devil’s Throat, by far the most impressive part of the falls, however some of my pictures, have got obvious amounts of water on the lens, but there was a constant and heavy rain due to the falls, so there was nothing I could do. However this part is truly amazing, a deafening roar, with a clear sight of Brazil and the abyss of water. I also managed to arrive so that I left, just in time for the Asian train (lots of Asian people) to arrive, and this is what that looks like.

Instead of going back to Puerto Iguazu, I went down a sidetrail, the trail was long and unrewarding, so at the bottom, I took a few pictures and turned around. Back at the entrance center, a lot of shops had been set up, selling woodwork and other handicraft. After a long wait I took the bus back to Puerto Iguazu and met two Danish girls from Esbjerg, talked with them while the bus was going back, and went back to my own hostel in Puerto Iguazu. Later in the evening I went out for dinner (I had a little bit or Argentine peso left, too little for a currency conversion) and back to the hostel afterwards, where by some extreme luck, American Dad was being shown on telly.

When I got back it was around 12 o’clock, and about 10 of us gathered to go play football, and as we were leaving the hostel, picked up 2 Israeli’s, making it a total of 12, 6 vs. 6.
The first two pitches we went to were in use, so we played in one of the parks, and it really was a lot of fun. I have always played defender, so I didn’t score any goals, but it was still great fun. I didn’t really know all who went for the game, but those I do know are Chris, Danny, Darren, Eddie and Steve. The rest were mainly people from other floors on the hostel, but that didn’t matter, they were all good fun.

For dinner I went to the supermarket and bought some pasta with carbonara sauce, but I didn’t have any milk for the sauce, so it was mainly just flavoured water which I poured over my pasta, just like in Punta Arenas (not sure I wrote about that incident, but I sure do remember it).

It was followed by 5 of us (Eddie, Jane, Becky, Eddie and me), who sat down out on the terrace and talked for a long while, and then we were joined by more and more people as time went, and by the time I went to bed around midnight, there was more than 20 people.

On this day it really felt like I didn’t see that much, but I did oh so much; of my 3 days in Buenos Aires, this was the second best (after the Recoleta day). That’s not to say that the first full day was bad, Buenos Aires is just so big and crazy.

Walking around the rest of the graveyard was quite stunning still, those graves always get bigger and bigger; well others are left to crumble or otherwise feel the ages. The one final grave I want to mention is that of Juan Manuel de Rosas, the guy who features on the Argentinian 20 peso note.

Afterwards we walked around Recoleta, the fanciest neighbourhood in Argentina, went down to the University and then came back up in the direction of the hostel, where we ate lunch and upon arriving at the hostel, discovered that on this night Boca (Argentina) was playing Colo Colo (Chile), that is the Argentinian top team vs. the Chilean top team, playing in their equivalent of the Champions League, in a game that both teams has to win, and Boca had to score at least 3 goals and win, so an aggressive game seemed sure. So both of us bought a ticket for 150 peso through the hostel, and cooked dinner before we left for the game around 6 o’clock.

At around 6:30 we left, and on the bus I met Stefan, a Swedish guy from Stockholm who sounds Norwegian to me (that statement would almost warrent a death sentence), whom I talked a good deal to. When entering the stadium, everybody gets searched twice, and in that process the second time I got searched, the guy doing it grabbed my ass, something I pointed out, but the only thing that was done about it was another guy who said “lucky boy”.

The game itself was crazy though; we were inside the stadium at 19:30 o’clock, and kickoff was at 21:10, so we had a long wait, but the atmosphere was amazing (almost explosive), and all the locals were ready for a big game. Boca had to win and score at least 3 goals, otherwise they would have no chance of progressing from the group play, in the Latin American version of Champions League.

The ball was kicked off, and within 4 seconds there was a freekick, and the Argentinians played an extremely offensive game, always pushing forward; however it didn’t take long before Colo Colo scored the first goal of the game (to an excessive amount of booing from around me), followed not long after by a penalty kick to Boca, which they somehow managed to miss (the player didn’t hit the bar, nor was the ball taken by the goalkeeper, he simply missed the goal), but about 90 seconds after that, an amazing goal was scored, where one player simply just took on 3 defensive players and the goalkeeper; really good playing.

The offensive playstyle continued, which ended in a red card to Boca, followed sharply by a 2-1 score to Cole Cole. But Boca came backafter the brek in the game and scored to 2-2, this surely was a lively game, with lots of corner kicks, shots on goals and everything you want. Boca kept on scoring the goals, first to 3-2 and then to 4-2, before the Chileans caught up and scored to 4-3, which was the ending score. Two South American teams, 7 goals, 1 red card, who knows how many yellow (the referee does), even more freekicks and corner kicks… Was this one the best games I could have possibly gone to? You bet!

Breakfast was rather simple, bread with different types of jam I don’t like, so I just ate a lot of bread and set out to find busline 64. I took bus 64 to Caminito, a famous poor neighbourhood in Buenos Aires which is heavily guarded and shown to tourists, but I got there very early (9.30ish) so there were hardly any tourists. Now why did I have to take a bus? Because Caminito is on the other side of “La Boca” a very tough neighbourhood of Buenos Aires where daytime muggings and robberies aren’t uncommon, so me being a bit paranoid of my posesions, combined with a 1,5 DKK busticket (20 eurocent roughly) it really was a nobrainer decision. The neighbourhood is very colourful, but very small and there were almost as many police officers as tourists. I caught the bus halfway back to Avenida Paseo Colón and walked my way back, seeing some really beautiful buildings, much in the same style as Santiago, just a bit more dirty (quite a bit actually) and eventually made my way to Plaza de Mayo with a beautiful statue, more grand buildings, walked to the end of the square, headed down the pedestrian street Florida and took a left after 4 blocks, leading me up to Avenida Corrientes, still hunting for a netcafe where I can burn DVD’s and because the operator of my floor at the hostel highlighted it on my map, although I have no idea why, it is a big street, but it was very busy, very noisy, very polluted and VERY ugly; there is nothing to see here. And still no netcafe’s here allow burning of DVD’s, althought one did but they were to incompetent (despite speaking English) to burn a DVD.

I walked back up the main square of the city, walked down another big avenue; and eventually found a netcafe to burn DVD’s, although it wouldn’t allow me to copy my DVD #2, which is now lost forever (the one my father received doesn’t work properly either), but when I get home to Denmark, I will try and save what I can, but it is certainly sad. However all the best pictures are stored on flickr, although the quality has been degraded to make it easier to upload.

Back at the hostel I had agreed to meet with Karen and Ilene, two Australian girls at 21, and we would then go to dinner at La Cabrera, recommended to me by the Danish girl who lives in Buenos Aires that I met in Uruguay two months ago, but by that time a lot of people had been invited along (which was great), and we ended up going 9 peope. Karen (Australia), Ilene (Australia), Jane (Australia), Becky (England), Anne Dorthe (Norway), Jon (Norway), Eric (Wisconsin, USA), Modaku (Japan) and me (Denmark…). When we got there it was absolutely stuffed, but we only had a one and half hour wait befor we got in. In the meantime we went to a bar, sat down and talked.
Once we got into the restaurant, we figured out why it was really expensive, not only did you share an order between two people, the portions were massive, and together with Anne Dorthe we ordered an ojo de bife, which was beyond this world, it was just so juicy and tasty, it almost sent me into orbit. To go with it, I had spanish cut french fries (think slices of potato, fried on a pan) with scrambled eggs poured over it, and it was just so amazing; there really aren’t words to describe a culinary experience like that one. We got in at 23:00 but didn’t leave till around 01:30, and by the time we were leaving, it wasn’t raining, it was pouring… The skies had just opened up and created a waterfall over Buenos Aires (which made me feel sorry for the protesters; the government is trying to heavily increase tax on meat, so the farmers are protesting, and the fact that we could get meat at the restaurant, was incredibly, most of the city has run out), but just like getting there, we caught a cab back to the hostel, and relaxed for a while before the clock struck 02:30 and we all went to bed.

P.s. One of the people I met on Easter Island, Marko Kulju (I didn’t mention him as I didn’t talk that much to him), has been arrested and is being charged for destruction of national heritage (a moai), and the government is hoping to give him 7 years in jail. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7313878.stm
I think it is fair enough, it’s a horrible thing to do, and there really is no excuse for it.

Back at the hostel I started reading in my new book (in fact, I had read one chapter already), The Odyssey by Homer, but after having read one chapter, a Norwegian girl started talking to me (yes, a Scandinavian!), her name is Anne Dorte, and check this… She’s from Trysil. We started talking and after a little while we were joined by none other than Eddie from Futaleufú and later by another Norwegian (now it’s crawling with Scandinavians) Jon, two Australians whose names elude me at the moment as well as some random people here and there. However around 22 o’clock a lot of people left for dinner (I had eaten a huge lunch), and by 23:40 it was just me and Anne Dorte again, so I went to bed (had had a long trip to Buenos Aires), only to find someone else in it, so I had to find another bed, get new linen and then go to bed (that did annoy me endlessly).

The bus started at Bariloche, and so loaded on a lot of people, delaying the departure by about 30 minutes, but that didn’t matter much, my destination was Valdivia, and it was only a place where I intended to find a bed, sleep and get the earliest bus to Pucon the next day. But the busride had a good factor, I sat next to a girl called Lindsay from Oregon, but who lived half the year in Alaska (not exactly sure if it was a half year) guiding groups around the wilderness, it sounded very exciting. But of all my bus trips, it was by far the best unexpected company I have had. She was only going to Osorno (a couple of stops before Valdivia), so I slept for the last part.

When I arrived in Valdivia I found a cheap hostel (6000 peso is cheap in Valdivia unfortunately), ate a sandwich and went early to bed as I had bought a 6.50 ticket to Pucon for the next day.

Dave and I got up early as we had to meet Eyal and Rachel early for the car. We ate some of the wonderful breakfast the hostel serves and went to the Marco Polo Inn (where Eyal and Rachel stays), where we found out that Rachel was ill and would stay at the hostel, while Eyal, Dave and I drove around the seven lakes. I felt that renting the car was already expensive, and sharing 286 pesos 3 ways is even more expensive than sharing it 4 ways. But off we got, and even though Eyal was used to automatic gears, and Dave to driving in the left side of the road, everything went fine.
When we came to the first village, we stopped and Eyal and Dave had some mate (I tasted it, and found it much too sweet as Eyal had added sugar), and we got to try some Havanna chocolate biscuits, really good.

We continued on and made it to San Martin, which is the end of the line; here Eyal and Dave played 3 games of pool, which ended in a 1-2 score in Eyal’s favour. I should mention that on this day there was extraordinarily grey, with the latter part of the day having rain. But the views were absolutely gorgeous, and I can scarcely imagine what it would be like on a very good day. We eventually made it back to Bariloche (around 21 o´clock) after a long beautiful day, and finished the day by eating at a fantastic Mexican restaurant called Díaz de Zapata (days of shoes) where all of us had fajitas.

Back at the hostel, Dave, Reut, two Israeli girls and I sat down and talked from about midnight till 2 in the morning, it was very nice, but by that time I was absolutely knackered

9th of March:

I really don’t like “these days”. Especially the weather played tricks on us; yesterday when we drove around the 7 lakes we had bad weather, and for the entire duration of this day, I didn’t see one cloud… Not even the tiniest wisp of cloud at the edge of the horizon, it was just blue, blue, blue and blue. But the day wasn’t without thrills, for example I spent an hour walking to the bus stop, bought my ticket for the 10th, and walked an hour back!

But both Dave and I had overslept, as we were supposed to be up early to return the car. But Eyal came round and made sure we got up and ate breakfast. We then (all 3 of us for some reason) went to return the car, which to our surprise happened very frictionless (they always try and go for some more money).

After doing a check of my picture DVD #2 (DVD 1-3 made it home to my father by mail, but DVD 2 didn’t work) which works, I went back to the hostel and met up with Reut, Dave and the two Israeli girls, and together we went to the chocolate museum in the town. Few people know this, but Bariloche is famous (don’t know about worlds famous, but certainly famous) for its chocolate, I don’t know why as I don´t really like it (what’s with dry marzipan?) but the museum was cool, it was about the history of chocolate from a worldly perspective, and the benefits of chocolate (such as endorphin).

Later in the day, Eyal, Dave and I went for dinner at a fantastic Argentinian steakhouse, it had been recommended by more or less everybody here in Bariloche, and what a treat it was. All of us ordered 500 gram steaks, and while Eyal and Dave are both somewhat bigger than me, they more or less fought to get the last pieces down, whereas I was still hungry afterwards (yup, really). However I didn’t eat more, I actually had a chance when we afterwards went to a microbrewery bar, where Dave and Eyal both had 8 small glasses (each) with different beer in every single one of them, I realised that it would just be a waste of money, I had had more then enough food, and it was quite a pricey place for food, so I didn’t eat and went to bed when we returned back.

Dave and I then spent most of the day walking around Bariloche and taking in this famous city, it sure isn’t a looker, but it has its moments… Such as the puppies of the main square and the nice place where Dave and I have now had lunch two days. There isn’t really much to tell about Bariloche, the funniest part of the day was trying to negotiate a lower price with Cesar, operator of one of the car rental agencies.

For dinner I once again cooked chorizo sausage with mashed potatoes (easy and delicious), but besides the potato masher being completely broken, I do believe I will be introducing some variation soon. Generally I spent a long time just wandering about, doing my pictures (lots of new ones: flickr), getting a 13th of April date for my Inca Trail instead of late April or mid May as I had hoped for, which means my time in Paraguay will be limited, and I have to completely skip Bolivia and come back afterwards, rather annoying,  but the only possibility.

In the evening after my dinner Patrick (from yesterday) came over and we talked for 3 hours, and were joined by Jimmy (from Holland) and partly by Sean (from Canada). After that I went to bed around midnight, looking forward to the following day, driving around the lakes.

The bus trip was short and comfortable (Argentinian buses are great, but our arrival was… Unfortunate. It took us 6 tries (and plenty of walking) before we found an hostel with room (“When all the other ones are fully booked, this one might be worth a try.” to quote wikitravel), however for the next day we got ourselves into the Tango Inn hostel (“Modern, clean hostel. Free breakfast, fast internet, WiFi. Three-star-breakfast buffet (thats the free breakfast!). Very quiet.” to quote wikitravel again).

Later in the day we met Rachel and Eyal again (who I had gone rafting with in Futaleufú), and a plan was put down to rent a car (Rachel, Eyal, Dave and me) and drive around the seven lakes in the area of Bariloche. For dinner Dave and I had booked us into an arrangement at the Tango Inn hostel with unlimited pizza (it truly was) and live folkloric music; and it was simply magnificent. It was two male acoustic guitarists playing both famous songs (La Bamba) and more local songs, and in general mostly Argentinian songs; they were extremely skilled and very good singers. There I met a very nice Irish guy called Patrick who was wearing a Trainspotting t shirt.

After the music stopped we all (Dave, Patrick and I) headed to Wilkenny (and Irish pub), where we met Rachel and Eyal again (it was all arranged) and hung around talking. Around 2 o’clock I did however decide to leave and went back to bed.

The way up was easy, but very rewarding in the beautiful nature (pictures will follow at some point or another) and after a long (not really, only 3,5 hours) and entertaining walk (it is always fun around Dave), we arrived at the Cajon Del Azul and shared a pizza for breakfast and lunch (one pizza for two meals for two people, yet it was plenty), after that we had a long break at the scenic top, Dave tried persistently to get a close-up picture of one of the wasps (the place was full of them), while I was trying to stay as far away from them as possible (they scare me to death). Afterwards we descended down a different path, which meant taking off our shoes and wading for quite along way (it seemed like that), navigating our way over submerged slippery rocks through icy cold glacial water… It just felt like maybe my feed would never feel good again.

But we made it down to the trailhead, and my feet did start feeling better (in fact they did after 2 minutes). There I bought some bread for ,75 pesos, it was a type of fried bread which was so good that I ended up eating 3 pieces :).

Back in El Bolsón, we went for an internet cafe and ate a sandwich for dinner back at the hostel while talking with Lucia.

After the market I sat down and wrote in my diary, over these past days I had gotten really far behind, and the park the market is in is really nice and big, and what´s more, the music being played (generally acoustic guitar) is a very nice background sound

For dinner I was tired of always eating at restaurants (and paying for it), so I bought some potatoes and 2 nice big chorizo sausages, with which I made mashed potatoes with sausages. While eating I talked to Lucia who invited me to meet her in Buenos Aires, where she would show me the city from her perspective, and after all she is studying tourism, so why not.

I read in my book for a long time and finally went to bed, the following day Dave and I were going to hike in the mountains west of El Bolsón. The plan was to camp up at a refugio, and then go down again the next day. And for that we had to get up at 6.30, which is why I went early to bed.

Today Dave, Eddie and I were supposed to go on a dayhike, but they had been invited to go to lunch at the house of a local family, so during the entire day… Not much happened.

For dinner Eddie was supposed to cook, but after the huge lunch he and Dave had had, he wasn’t interested in dinner; so the 3 of us and 2 Israeli’s went for a nice little dinner at a teahouse, eating a burger. As the bus next day was early in the morning, I hit the bed for an early 23 o’clock night.

3rd of March:

I got up early to cook my lovely egg sandwich for breakfast and to catch the 7.30 bus  Argentina. The ride to the border was smooth, just like the border crossing and the bus to Esquel on the other side. Once in Esquel we only had to wait 15 minutes for our 2 hour busride to El Bolsón; and there was where you really found out that you were in Argentina.
The busride was cheap, the seats were big and comfortable, and the 2 hour busride included a full free meal and drink, not even remotely possible in Chile.
We arrived in El Bolsón and traversed the entire city in order to make it to fantastic hostel “La Casa del Viajero”, an organic-hippie-feng-shui hostel run as a sort of commune, which works fantastically here, especially as El Bolsón is known as the hippie town of South America.

Dave and I started out by walking about the town, finding out when and where the different buses to Bariloche leave, and when/where the buses to the surrounding areas (for a bit of trekking) leave, before settling down for an ice cream. Argentinians are very proud of their ice cream, and that’s okay as it is good; but it is only the ice cream which is good, the cone is kind of like soft cardboard, so for me it doesn’t quality as an ice cream, but that is a matter of definition.

Afterwards we went back to the hostel for some relaxing, I read in my book and Dave had a nap in a hammock. We then started talking to a girl called Lucia (who works at the hostel) who told us about the area (trekking) and about a really good nearby restaurant where we would eat dinner.
So when the time for dinner came, we walked to the place (which ended up being quite far away) which was closed. So we consulted the Lonely Planet and found a nice place at the complete other end of El Bolsón (walking from extremity to extremity) just to find another closed place. So we found some random street place, a little bit pricey (not a lot) but delicious. We then walked back to our hostel for a nice long sleep.

Oh and on a side note, I managed to swap my fantastic Master and Commander novel by Patrick O’Brian for The Odyssey by Homer.

Monty is a cat living at the erratic rock hostel in Puerto Natales. When it first came around the operators thought it belonged to another American who lives in the area, she has an entirely black cat as well called Vladimir. After 3 days they discovered that it wasn’t Vladimir, and Kat, (ironic yeah) an intern at erratic rock named the cat Monty.

The cat holds a special meaning to me as it bit my headphone cord exposing the innards, luckily for me the staff at erratic rock had some duct tape I could fix it with.

When I get a cat of my own, I am absolutely going to name it Monty; I just wouldn’t get a black cat, I would rather prefer one of these red/whitish cats… 

Yamanaka Hajime:

I first met Yamanaka Hajime in Rio Gallegos, he claimed to be “above 60″ but that was all he would give. As his name implies he is asian, and more specifically Japanese. I had some lovely conversations with him (he had often had a lot to drink), but the peculiar thing was our travel patterns. We both stayed at the Casa de Familia Lecira Contreras in Rio Gallegos, took the same bus to Ushuaia where we both ended up in Los Lupinos (by pure chance). After a week there, we (by chance again) took the same bus from Ushuaia to Punta Arenas. I never saw him again after that, and I unfortunantly never took a picture of him, but I vividly remember what he looks like. An elderly (but lively) Japanese man with a slightly weathered face and short white hair.

erratic rock:

If you are EVER going to Torres Del Paine or just Puerto Natales, you are cheating nobody but yourself if you don’t stay at erratic rock hostel. It is a most wonderful place with great staff, good beds and the best omelet for breakfast that you can ever imagine, accompanied by freshly baked bread. Every day at 15 o’clock there is a great information meeting on hiking in Torres Del Paine, without it I would have been lost.

Mesita Grande:

Located in Puerto Natales, prepare yourself for the best pizza outside Italy, the thinnest crust, best ham/cheese/tomato/salami/whatever-you-might-desire. The atmosphere, the long wooden tables and benches… Everything just feels perfect about this place, so after a successful trek through Torres Del Paine, please treat yourself here… You won’t regret it ;).

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.

Well the service was… Unique. I entered and got shown to a table, after which the operator/waiter/cook asked me “aléman?”. I told him that I was Danish (all this is in Spanish), so he just looked at me with a blank stare and once again asked me “aléman?”, so I just accepted that he though I as German and he went away. Two minutes later he appeared and asked what I wanted to bring, I asked for the usual still water, which they didn’t have; but on his own initiative, he did present me with a glass of tap water (which I didn’t touch). Shortly after (and to my surprise) he served me food… Apparently the “aléman” deal, had been a dish (he hadn’t bothered to show me the menu) consisting of a meatwrap with something disgusting inside which I never identified (scraped it out) and mashed potatoes.

I went back to my hostel and joined conversation with some other travelers for some time before going to bed, absolutely knackered; and now in Chile, with even more time difference.

We had arranged with the taxi driver that he would pick us up at 7, so at a point we realised that we had to turn back, even though we wanted to go forward (and see the nice caverns and the glacier). But we turned back and only waited for 10 or 15 minutes at the starting point before the taxi driver appeared and took us back.

Once back in Ushuaia I bought five stamps and posted my postcards, went to an internetcafe, went to dinner at a place called “El Turco” where I had a Milanesa Completa, which is a kind of schnitzel with 2 eggs and french fries, quite delicious. Thereafter I hurried back to my hostel to pack my bag and go to bed, as I had to get up at 3.30 in the morning and catch a bus to Punta Arenas… That’s right, this was my last full day in Ushuaia, I will now be going into Chile.

P.s. If you are in doubt (well how could you know), David has long hair, Oscar has little hair and Santiago is the one in between (talking about hair). From left to right (http://www.flickr.com/photos/twaize/2244618911/):  David, Santiago and Oscar.

P.p.s. The title of today’s post is an expression similar to “what’s up”, only far more informal, and it only works in Buenos Aires; it was an expression that David and Santiago taught me, it is pronounced as “hey wauchin”.

Today (4th of February) I decided would not just be an idle day waiting for that Wednesday bus; so I got a taxi to the base of the mountains behind Ushuaia (I didn’t know how to get there), got the chairlift up, and walked upwards for about 1,5 or 2 hours before I reached the snow, and then another 20 minutes up and you couldn’t go any further (most of the snow/glacier, wasn’t stable enough to walk on). It was very beautiful, and I nice walk in fresh clean air (although the snow was dirty), and I did get some good pictures. You can of course see all of this here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/twaize/. The trip down was 45 minutes, down the chairlift, after which I decided to walk all the way back to my hostel which took about 1,5 or 2 hours; quite a scenic walk (some of the pics are from there), and definitely worth it. Back in Ushuaia I bought a lovely new pen, some pasta sauce for my dinner, went back to my hostel for some lunch and wrote a fourth of my five postcards.

Now that is where I thought the day would end, but oh my was I wrong. After I had eaten dinner (19 or 20ish), I found myself once again talking to the guys from Buenos Aires (David, Santiago, Leo and Oscar) from my room, and although I had already eaten, they invited me to come with them to their dinner (they ate out). It was a very fun evening with lots of talking (they speak English); and around midnight they wanted to go to a pub, but couldn’t find an open place. So we went home to bed, but not before I was invited to come to the Lagoon the following day, I was told it was a very nice place and I had indeed thought of going, but didn’t feel like it alone; so this was just perfect.
But before I end for the day, I have one last thing to mention; and that is the place where the Argentinian boys chose to eat, they played a lot of famous songs, except they were all dubbed into Spanish… Oh the horror.

This has been one of the days with nothing really to do, tomorrow I’m gonna go up to the local glacier; instead I had time to convert a lot of pictures for flickr, and I thought I might try and reflect on the time I have had so far.

Lonely Planet writes that if you stop the music, the continent will grind to a halt, and oh how true that is. Wherever you go there is music, waiting outside for a bus at too early in the morning, in restaurants, on the street and everywhere else.
Everything follows its own pace, be it buses, tour-boats or the people, nothing goes to plan (time-wise) which is okay, I was expecting it, but I didn’t know it would be this bad (especially the buses).

So who goes backpacking? Well I have met no Scandinavians (the Danes at Cabo Polonio, were not backpackers, but on a trip from Buenos Aires to the beach), I have met 2 Germans, 1 Brit, 1 French, 2 Australian , a couple of Americans and a few South Americans and endless heaps of Israeli’s. Down here they are everywhere; not being an Israeli is almost a small achievement, some have even spoken Hebrew to me, thinking I was from Israel, since everybody else is. But I do expect that eventually I will bump into more West European people; hopefully some Nordic people even.

The continent (so far) is incredibly beautiful, the nature, seaside, wildlife; everything just seems natural. According to other travelers, I haven’t even begun to see the really beautiful sites, something I am really looking forward to, and which should pop unto flickr eventually.

My cooking is becoming more natural now, on a day as today, I am making all 3 meals myself, and so far the variation is good, and the food is passable, occasionally good (I’m not a good chef). One thing that bothers me is that eventually, the variation will stop, as I get used to everything that can be made cheap and easy. As I (so far) am always making food alone, I am not really bothered to make more elaborate dinner, but maybe (and quite possibly) that will change, but time will tell.

When I first arrived, I was rather sceptical as to whether I actually thought this trip was a good idea, but at this stage, I am very happy that I indeed went. I have enjoyed myself very much the entire way (except for Cabo Polonio), and I am very much looking forward to what I have yet to see.

I promise to keep you people at home updated, although I might stop writing as frequently as I have been, although that depends on how occupied I will be in the future.

We landed on an island known as Isla H, primarily (and solely) named so because it has the shape of a H. It is a protected nature reserve, and the company I had chosen is the only company allowed on the island. On and island I began talking to Uri, an Israeli who was also taking a lot of pictures, and we easily got talking. We talked the entire way back on the boat, and eventually went to a seafood restaurant and ate dinner before parting ways, Uri had salmon, and I grilled trout. I then went to an internet cafe and back to bed, feeling like it had been a day well spent, but certainly wondering about what to do the following day, maybe just nothing?

I woke up at 8 thinking it was midday, turned out I’m so far south I had totally lost my bearing on time. I was alone in my room so I made plenty of noise, and found my way to an icy cold shower, so cold that… Never mind. I stumbled further down to the common kitchen (now fully clothed) and made my oatmeal breakfast before going down to catch a bus to the Tierra del Fuego national park. The national park is a fantastic place, very beautiful (pictures will come later) and with a wonderful day hike (6 hours). It started by weaving up and down around a big hill giving inland views before going down to the coast and giving views of the mountains on the far side of the Beagle channel. What really interested me was the weather, one moment it could be sunny, and within 5 minutes it was hailing; then it started raining followed by sun again, it was very unpredictable. While waiting for the shuttle bus back to Ushuaia I started talking to a very friendly German called Andreas, who had been on and off traveling for 15 years, while working with a travel agency in Dresden. He gave me a lot of very good advice about South America, about where to go, and what to avoid (the bad parts of Colombia in particular). We talked a lot about traveling and about everything else, all the way back to Ushuaia (except for parts where he talked to the German girls behind us).

Back in Ushuaia I decided to get my ticket for Punta Arenas. Silly me thinking I could get a bus ticket with just 3 days warning. So now I have to wait for 5 days until the Wednesday the 6th of January before I can leave; which is longer than I was expecting to stay in Buenos Aires, how is that for a change?

But I would not be deterred and went back to my hostel to make dinner, so the supermarket I chose to shop in didn’t have pesto or anything good to put on pasta, so plain pasta would be too boring, and instead I just bought some ravioli and decided to have that. While making food I started talking with the Israeli’s there making food, the funny thing was the two groups they were split into. One group being orthodox Jews who could only eat kosher meat (none of that here), and the other group being fine with any meat (except pig). The orthodox Jews were actually planning to boil their plates and cutlery to make sure it was completely clean (a bit extreme); but it was good conversation, and I ended up eating with the reformed Jews (the orthodox didn’t eat till later). When I was done eating I cleaned my plate, wrote in my diary, wrote a postcard and went down to an internet cafe to write on my travel blog and then back to bed.

The bus trip was unlike any I had been on so far.  The bus was crammed full almost to the point of bursting, with a fair share of screaming children. What also made this trip peculiar were the border crossings, 4 of them. Leaving Argentina, entering Chile, leaving Chile and entering Argentina; all of them separate, instead of just a logical 2 crossings. It resulted in lots of waiting in line for stamps etc. I got my first entry stamp to Chile about 3 hours before I got my first exit stamp, so in total I got 4 stamps within 4 hours. Eventually the bus pulled to a final halt and everyone got out, got their baggage and went somewhere else, and so did I. But my map didn’t fit with this place? So I asked someone for directions; he told me that I wasn’t in Ushuaia but Rio Grande. “Clucking bell” was my initial thought, but I went into the office of the bus company I was using and asked about what was going on. Apparently another bus would come by shortly and pick me up, and surely it did, and some of the people from the first bus returned, many as bewildered as me. Eventually the bus halted in Ushuaia and we all got out. Now at the internet cafe where I had reserved my bed in Ushuaia, I couldn’t print; and thus I had no idea what my hostel was called or where it was, so the first thing I had to do was to go to an internet cafe and find out. I was staying at Los Lupinos hostel which luckily turned out to be quite close. I went and paid for two nights before going out for dinner (no supermarkets were open, and you can’t transport food across borders here), and I had a lovely ham and cheese omelet with French fries, immediately after I went to bed, very tired and with a long day of walking ahead of me.

For dinner I made my own ham omelet which turned out to be very succesful (read: not VERY burned). As is possible in a hostel I followed up my dinner by first talking for quite some time with a friendly American named Mark (from Idaho) and afterwards an Australian, a French and a Japanese all at once. While I was making dinner I was talking the israeli couple with whom I shared my room (as well as Timo), and as I was making a ham omelet, I couldn’t help but make a few jokes (about the ham). I went to bed around midnight as I had to get up at 6 in order to catch my bus to Ushuaia, but more about that tomorrow; so in recap… Rio Gallegos is a very uneventful place.

But I actually want to say a little about it, I arrived more or less 3 hours too late, at 4:15 in the morning. Come on, that’s roughly 10 minutes late for every 60 minutes the bus drove. We were never in a queue (while I was awake) nor forced to drive slow; so I honestly have no idea what happened, so try and picture how uneasy I felt when I woke up at 3 in the morning and found the bus driving :S.

When I was finally in Rio Gallegos I had to wait for the ticket office to open (7:30) before I could get underway to my hostel. Now check this out, it isn’t possible to buy a ticket from Rio Gallegos to Ushuaia unless you are in fact in Rio Gallegos. So the first ticket I could get was 2 days later, on the 31st of January. When it happened I was rather disappointed; but I have come to the conclusion, that maybe a bit of rest after all that traveling will do me good, but who knows? When I did arrive at my hostel I went to straight to bed and woke up around 13.30 and about 14 I set out to have a look at Rio Gallegos. I ate some lunch (I ordered ravioli, but got ravioli soaked in butter, eww) and had a look about and saw nothing spectacular, except for a museum which combined dinosaur skeletons, modern art and physics experiments, quite a cool combination actually :).

Back at my hostel I met a German by the name of Timo (I think) who had an arrangement to go eat dinner (around 21) with two Americans (Fred and Jonah) and so I decided to tag along. While we were waiting outside a computer cafe while one of the Americans were finishing, a man in the loudest car I have ever heard (Hells Angels on Harley’s don’t even come close) drove up and parked close to us. He then (nobody knows why) decided to come and talk to us, he told us about how he was a veteran of the foreign legion, had 8 sons, 6 ex-wifes and was a few teeth short; his Citröen was running on 2 cylinders instead of the regular 4, he wanted to improve mileage so he took out two the spark plugs and as a final note… To drive 350 km he needed 200 liters of water for the engine, what a man :) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/twaize/2230305761/).

Subsequently we went to get dinner and found ourselves in a cozy little place, where Timo and I had a wonderful peace of meat (best piece of well-done meat I have ever had), and the Jonah had lasagna and Fred ravioli. We had a very long and interesting discussion, concerning both our travels as well as international relations and politics, it was really very interesting.

After dinner we went to a bar (don’t worry, I didn’t have anything) where we continued our talks to around midnight, after which Timo and I went back to our hostel and I presume Jonah and Fred went back to their hotel.

Once in the park we saw Guanaco’s, a hare like animal, armadillo’s, penguins, sea-lions and big fat sea-elephants. It was very nice and all, and you will all get to share it once I get my Argentina pictures up; but at the end of the trip some people went out on a boat to look at the same animals, which stranded some of us in a small town for 2 hours and 15 minutes with little shade and less to do. It was alright I guess, I knew it was gonna happen (just thought it would be 1 hour), but the rest was nice and the tour was really the reason why I had come to Puerto Madryn.

Back in Puerto Madryn I shopped for some groceries (bread, ham and lettuce) for the 17 hour long drive to Rio Gallegos the following day, and had some lovely fish for dinner before going to bed. However before eating dinner I went to an internet cafe and called home as a sort of celebration after having been going for one week, that’s right from sunday to sunday; and I am definitely beginning to enjoy it more… Ushuaia here I come!

I boarded the bus and set out on a very uneventful tour through patagonia, with movies shown that I not already had seen but which were also in Spanish, and no there was no way to not listen to them (the movies), they were out on the speakers. One very pleasant thing however, was that they showed The Sentinel, I very much appreciated that as the question of who the main role besides Kiefer Sutherland was, a question which had been nagging me for days (it was Michael Douglas). Now the trip itself really highlighted Patagonia; Patagonia is not at all unlike Australia, although there is more vegetation. It is the limitlessness of it all, wherever you look there is a sea of green shrubs, as far as the eye can see (and even further). Normally that doesn’t seem so immense, but it’s like the world isn’t round here (with the horizon barring your view), it seems flat in the sense that you can see for ever and ever and ever and ever. The view is breathtaking, but so far I haven’t been able to take a picture of it (and uploading pictures is proving very difficult), but I will.

I arrived to Puerto Madryn about 20 minutes late and quickly found my way to a hostel with space, and what a hostel. In previous hostels I had often found myself internally complaining about the state of the place, but this place is very clean and tidy, with English speaking staff, free giant lockers (fits my rucksack easily), very tidy beds and a very neat bathroom; all at a low price of 40 Argentinian pesos per night. I also booked a tour to Reserva Faunística Península Valdés, a reservation which is very rich on animals, the very reason I came to this town.

After I had eaten dinner (pizza) at a very cosy restaurant with kind waiters, I sat down in the hostels common area and started writing in my diary, when two Americans Kyle and Sarah http://www.flickr.com/photos/twaize/2229108408/ (from Colorado no less) and I started having a conversation culminating in the three of us walking around the town looking for ice creams and ending up looking at knives (don’t ask). Eventually we made our way home and I went to bed around midnight, thinking I needed some sleep before the tour to the wildlife reserve.

I’m quoting Lonely Planet when I say “picturesque Patagones, with historic cobbled streets and lovely colonial buildings”, which really feels like they got something wrong, because this place has none of that. It doesn’t matter much as it was still quite a charming place. I went to see the church which has southern Argentina’s oldest depiction of Saint Mary (oh, really?) and some flags captured in a battle with the Brazilians in 1827. The main attraction for me here though, was a nice little museum outlining the history of the city, and get this… The information around the place was there in Spanish and English, so finally I understood everything. It has to be noted though, that throughout the day it rained; the first rain I have had so far, and it was lovely (cooling).

For dinner I walked about 8 blocks to a restaurant which just turned out be closed for holidays, but back at my hotel there was a place to eat, and oh my if everything isn’t cheap in Argentina. Before dinner I was feeling rather hungry, so I bought two apples, 1,5 liters of water and a big packet of biscuits, costing the immense sum of 5 peso (I have understood that not everyone knows how to convert currency, http://www.xe.com/ucc/full.php so there is a link to a great currency converter). However I sat down for dinner and asked for some pasta from the menu, but they didn’t have any pastas on that day… So all that was left was desserts and drinks. I asked about that, and it turned out there was a page missing. I ended up with some fried fish and a bottle of water. Having eaten I went to bed and slept very comfortably.

When time got around for dinner I went to a seafood restaurant and ordered something that sounded nice, but turned out to be shrimps coated in deep fried fish. It wasn’t exactly tasty, but rather cheap; although I do regret my choice, but such is the world.
I know I have to get into a system of making my own food, but it is a process and I’m still moving around rather rapidly. I am very interested in getting to know how to transport e.g. meat around in a bag without it going bad, or bread without it crumbling. As I am only one person traveling, my food consumption doesn’t cover an entire bag of bread in a day, or a pack of sliced ham and a head of lettuce in a day; but I will get there.

After my glorious dinner I headed back to my hostel, and fell in conversation with 2 other traveler. Simon from Kent (England) and Rob from Sydney (take a guess); both backpackers and good company. I went to bed around midnight.

24th of January
Not the most thrilling of days, I woke up at 8 and went to get a ferry from Colonia to Buenos Aires at 10:45. At roughly 11:15 I was in Buenos Aires, and at 11:25 I was in the Bus Terminal (what a place) where I bought a ticket for Carmen de Patagonia (where I am now); and set out discovering the place. I bought a digital watch for roughly 20 DKK which has the time (duh), light, a calender and a stopwatch. I ate lunch (French toast) and dinner (very fat cheese burger) before boarding a bus which was 30 minutes late (enough to upset any Nordic/Swiss person, but not the natives); the time was 22:15.