IT IS REALLY ALL UP HILL FROM HERE

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  Buenos Aires, Argentina
Monday, May 12, 2008

April 28 - May 2    Wetlands, glacier and Butch Cassidy
 
Well, we thought we were at the end of the road, but there was a small grey line on the map leading east from Ushuaia to something called Lapataia. We decided to explore and found ourselves heading west from the center of town to a junction where the road turned to gravel. On the way, we stopped within 2 kilometers of a glacier, but the climb through the snow required better shoes than we had on. The views were spectacular of the Beagle Channel extending to the east and the west, and we wondered if Darwin ever made it to this point. We continue down the road to find out what Lapataia entailed: a wonderful natural park and the final end of the PanAmerican Highway, Route 3 in Argentina (see pictures), with a large sign proclaiming the end point. We met many travelers on our way who were going to Ushuaia, but no one who knew about Lapataia. We were amazed at the natural beauty of the low-lying forests, with many pools of water and tree trunks leaning where they had fallen. It reminded us of the forests in Alaska, with the same landscape and surrounding mountains

Birds of a feather?

. How surprising that the environs of the South Pole have the same look as the North Pole.
 
Leaving Ushuaia the next morning, we found the snow had melted in the mountain pass, replaced by rain. That was much better, except for one stretch of black ice. The winds were pretty high when we took the ferry across from Terra del Fuego to mainland Chile, with waves of 6-8 feet, as we made our way back to the first border crossing from Chile into Argentina. There we were recognized by one of the border officials, who was especially fond on John's watch (that I was wearing). It's a funny feeling to know border officials well enough to joke with them when you're at the bottom of the world. The 75 miles of gravel roads were as hard as on the way back as they were on the way down, plus the wind was stronger, but we arrived at the ferry crossing at the right moment, waited only 15 - 20 minutes and were the third car loaded. The buses and cars have priority over the trucks, so the truck drivers sometimes have to wait for the ferry to go over and come back before they can load. With good timing, we made it to Rio Gallegos before dark and found a good 3-star hotel and a decent buffet restaurant - advertised as Chinese - not far away. It had Argentine barbeque - "parilla" - and just about everything else, but no Chinese food that we could recognize. Rio Gallegos was distinguished only by the history of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, who stayed there with Sundance's girl friend Ella until the Pinkerton agents made it too hot for them

From the hills of Ushuaia

. From there they moved west towards the Chilean border and finally met their end in the famous shoot-out at a remote cabin.
 
Our real goal was El Calafate and the nearby glaciers and lakes of the national park. We drove across the pampas for the first time and found a great place to stay - Lonely Planet calls it "a log cabin on steroids" - with a warm atmosphere, friendly service and a resident dog, or so we hoped. There were so many stray dogs in town that our hotel had a collection box to start a shelter, and we helped them out. The next day was the 1st of May.
I associate it with English girls dancing at dawn with flowers in their hair.  We spent it visiting the spectacular Perito Moreno glacier and watching it "calve." The national park had excellent wooden stairways built on the side of the hill facing the glacier and the lake it bisects. We were lucky to catch one spectacular calving. As the glacier moves, the snow is compressed into towers with spires, and in between the ice in the crevasses turn a pure shade of blue from compression. When the pressure builds up enough behind a certain spire, it simply collapses into the lake, with a giant cracking sound like a rifle report amplified many times, a booming hiss as the snow falls into the water, sending waves out in circles for great distances. We walked around the wooden viewing stairs for quite a while, then retired to the park restaurant for lunch and waited for the next boat trip out to the glacier's face

Glacier Morena

. We didn't get close enough to the face to worry about, but we could hear the grinding and cracking of the glacier's movement and see the blue cathedral vaults between the spires - an impressive encounter with the force of nature. On the boat, we met an Italian in-between investment banking jobs. He had left JP Morgan in London and was joining another equally impressive house within the next few weeks, so he decided to backpack around Argentina. We felt bad that we couldn't drive him out to the bus stop, but we had taken the back seats out of the Jeep and replaced them with luggage and gear.
 
Back in El Calafate, the driving need was to wash the Jeep. It had mud on both sides above the door handles and was getting hard to enter and exit. The local place wanted 80 pesos, nearly $30, so John borrowed the hose from our log cabin hotel. We had steak and excellent local trout for dinner and slept the sleep of the innocent who have breathed fresh air all day. The next morning we headed north on gravel roads and then turned east across the pampas. It was an experience in loneliness - one gravel road across a few hundred miles of empty upland desert, with one desolate small town and one gas station in the middle. It was obvious from the construction going on that the government is putting in a paved road, but we quickly learned how to avoid the gravel and drive in the ruts of dirt surface. If you drive just fast enough, the Jeep settles into a kind of planning over the bumps

Heading down the last 25 km

. With our satellite phone, we stopped in the middle of nowhere and called daughter Fran to wish her happy birthday before she jumped out of airplane sky-diving to celebrate. We were pretty relieved to arrive at the coast road - Ruta 3 - and make our way to Puerto San Julian on the coast, but very proud of the Jeep and ourselves for making the desolate drive across the pampas.
 
May 3 - 7   Heading for Buenos Aires and staying ahead of the volcano ash
 
We heard about the volcano El Cheiten erupting in the mountains of Chile, close to the border with Argentina. Then we began to see the effects ourselves. Easterly winds brought the volcanic ash to the Atlantic coast of Argentina, and we found our Jeep covered with a layer of ash two days in a row. The sky turned dark with the floating ashes. When we stopped, we saw pictures on TV of the town closest to the volcano. It looked like the North Pole, but the white stuff wasn't snow. The skies were grey and lowering on the coast road, with reduced visibility. We stopped in Puerto Madryn - a Welsh settlement originally and now a charming ocean-side town with a welcoming hotel on the oceanfront. Dinner was "white salmon" at an excellent restaurant on the water. We were so charmed that we took an extra day for R&R. One of the hotel staff became our buddy. He grew up in New Zealand and then returned to Argentina with his family, so he spoke perfect English and Spanish and was one of the many Jeep admirers.

In English?

The ash, however, was chasing us up the coast, so we headed on to Bahia Blanca, a mainly industrial port with a romantic name. There we learned Argentine traffic laws: it's illegal to make a left turn off any Avenida. That forces traffic to go around several blocks in order to get anywhere. So we walked to the main square for dinner at a typical Argentine 'comedor.'
 
At Bahia Blanca, we left the coast, which headed east, and we headed north to Buenos Aires. We didn't want to arrive in BA in the dark and rush hour, so we turned off the highway to a lake town San Miguelo del Monte. Persisting in following signs down dirt roads to a so-called Swiss inn, we found ourselves in a lovely resort, still open with only one room occupied until we got there. The service was excellent, the rooms lovely, our private dinner in the dining room very tasty. The staff and the one other couple there - two men - were watching the soccer finals on TV.
 
May 8-12 Buenos Aires and the Hurlingham Club
 
We approached BA around 10 am, which was good timing after rush hour, since the expressway system looked daunting on the map. But we made a perfect arrival to the "Microcenter," the very heart of BA and found our small hotel without even asking. It was very discreet: one glass door with a buzzer for admittance in a street off the main avenue. Without the address from The Lonely Planet guide, we would never have found it. They didn't have parking, although it was advertised as such, but there was one within two blocks that was high enough for the Jeep, reasonably priced and had security day and night

It is bigger then you think

. We checked into the hotel, put down our luggage and headed for the Brazilian consulate to start the visa application process. All we could do that day was enter our application into the computer before the consulate closed at 1pm. So we strolled down the main avenue, stopping at cafes and watching BA life. Back to the hotel, we needed to make reservations and get information, but it had no phones, so we learned to use the local Locutaria. It's a business: you go there to use the phone and pay by the elapsed time.
 
Friday we returned to the Brazilian consulate, finished the visa application, paid the required fee at a nearby bank and returned with the bank confirmation. Brazil is the only country where we've had to get a visa in order to enter. The actual processing by the consulate takes 5-7 days, but that's much better than the 30 days we heard originally. We celebrated our work with lunch at a charming French restaurant near our hotel, complete with a charming French woman. She and her husband joined their son in BA, who was enamored of an Argentine girl; the girl split, but the family stayed and opened a successful restaurant. Dinner was at a recommended "parilla" - pronounced pah - ree - ja - in the nearby pedestrian avenue. There we saw the biggest steaks of our lives. They arrived at the tables on serving trays surmounted on a bed of glowing goals that kept the meat warm and allowed each diner to let his food cook longer if desired.
 
The rest of Friday and part of Saturday were spent locating shipping companies for the Jeep's return to the US

It is Calving while we watch

. It was a frustrating task; many shippers have stopped working with Brazil because their port procedures are so complex. We left it behind to go down to the "Boca" - the original port of BA where all the immigrants landed. It's old and scruffy, but has become artsy and a tourist destination. You still have to be careful if you get off the main streets. Saturdays, there are art fairs and lots of Tango dancers at the bistros, which set up their tables in the streets, so we joined in the local color. There is an excellent museum of modern art funded by a wealthy Argentine artist. We'd seen it on our previous trip to BA, but it had some new works and was worthwhile. Dinner was in the Puerto Madero, newer than the port in Boca, but also now restored and turned into chic stores and upscale restaurants. Scanning the menus, we picked one of many by its ambiance and price - not outrageous - and had one of the great dinners of our trip, the best salmon in years.
 
Sunday morning we left BA and headed west - literally straight west on a street two blocks south of our hotel - for a suburb called Hurlingham and the Hurlingham Polo Club. It has a reciprocal relationship with the Oxford and Cambridge Club in London, to which we belong, thanks to Carol's student days. As we drove out of the city on this perfectly straight street, posh modern BA turned into upscale suburbs and then run-down areas along the train tracks. We managed to find our way to Hurlingham without much trouble, but finding the entrance to the polo club was a challenge

Just beautiful

. Not that many people play anymore? Finally, we drove into a guarded entrance in a long wall and found a vast expanse of golf courses, swimming pools, polo fields, stables for at least 200 horses, riding rings, tennis courts and  wooded pathways. The clubhouses have dining rooms, bars, sleeping rooms, billiard rooms and libraries, plus locker rooms and dressing rooms. It was started in 1888 and lies on the main railroad line west. It's not hard to imagine the Edwardian gentlemen and ladies strolling the paths and watching the polo matches. They still play polo, and we saw stables full of beautiful mounts, each with its main trimmed like a crew-cut, leaving one long strand at the nape. We surmised it's intended to keep the neck free for reins at high speed. So here we stayed Sunday and Monday, enjoying the peace and quiet of this huge expanse of grounds and trees, we were the only ones there  - we gave the help the evening off and also Monday. It is amazing to have 500 plus acres all to yourselves and 200 horses.

More Pictures

Look at the blue	Look at the km marker	Look Snow	More Patagonia
Patagonia	Someone needs a haircut	The ice house with spikes	The other end
The swells or waves are 6 to 7 feet	The Truth	Tomahawk mountain	Volcanic ash - the rest of Patagonia

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