Larry Darrell

The Exodus

2009-04-13T10:42:00.005-04:00

The city was beckoning. It was already the first of March and school started for Haukur and myself on the ninth. Four months of travel were coming to an end.

1600 kilometers lay between us and Buenos Aires. Hitching as a team of three would take time. Time, we didn’t have. A brainstorming session of our options left us with the resolution to split up. We were going solo, but with a little flair.

We would race. A no holds barred hitchhiking race. No public transportation. No paying, or offering to pay for rides. Thumbs only. It was a mission, as Pétur would say.

Haukur:
Haukur never waited for more than fifteen minutes. He wasn’t even trying when he got his first ride. A car simply saw him walking out of Bariloche and pulled over.

Halfway into the first day a sedan pulled over. A middle-aged Argentine man offered to take him to Tres Arroyos, a few hours from Buenos Aires. A long ride. Night came. They pulled into a small town for some rest. They dined together, and afterwards the Argentine offered to buy Haukur a drink before bed. One drink became many. With alcohol in his veins the Argentine couldn’t suppress his desires. There was a transvestite prostitute in the bar that had struck his fancy, and, promising to get Haukur in the morning; the driver went off with him/her to a local motel. Haukur was drunk and alone. He had nowhere to go, and found the ground behind the bar to be a suitable bed.

He was awoken with a stir early the next morning. His chauffer was ready to get as far away from that town and his own shame as quickly as possible. They never talked about what happened.

From Tres Arroyos it was a massive, pot-bellied trucker that took him the rest of the way to the Capital Federal. A father of four, the trucker loved his children, hookers, and heroin. Stopping for food, the trucker bought half of a roasted pig, and ate the entire thing whole while flying down the highway, the grease dripping on his belly.

Haukur arrived in less than two days, covering 1600 kilometers in an unprecedented 42 ½ hours.

Christopher Brendan:
The morning was chilly when I started off, with clouds in the distance threatening rain. I walked several kilometers to the border of the Rio Negro and Neuquen provinces. I would spend eight hours at that border. No one stopped. By mid-afternoon the rain came. I had no jacket. I stood by the road soaked and cold, the wind chilling me to the bone. Evening arrived, bringing at last the sun and more hitchhikers.

Natalia and her seven-year-old sister, Antonia, were on their way home after spending a weekend volunteering, building natural and self-sustaining houses for the less fortunate living outside of Bariloche. We teamed up. Between us we had enough gear and food to survive the night. Our worries were needless. Twenty minutes after meeting, the three of us were in the back of a pickup truck, heading 400 kilometers to the capital of Neuquen.

Huddled under sleeping bags in the truck bed, we talked of consumer society and how we were going to change the world with a certain romanticism that only people our age have. Antonia slept cuddled between us as we watched the sun go down and the stars come out one by one.

I hopped out of the cab at the bus terminal in the town of Cipolletti. Feverish from the rain and cold, the ground outside the terminal was where I laid my head for the night.

The next day was hours of walking along the highway until a couple of short rides left me in Villa Regina, essentially nothing more than a truck stop. Forty kilometers outside of town, in the direction I was going, the highway workers were on strike, shutting down the highway between four and eight P.M. everyday. I arrived at three P.M.

At seven that evening a VW hatchback pulled over with two young guys in it. They were on their way to Buenos Aires, but had to finish working and would be heading out around midnight. I was welcome to come along; I just had to meet them in front of their hotel before they left.

Ecstatic, and thinking there was no chance of anyone beating me; I celebrated with a hearty dinner and a beer.

I decided to catch up on some sleep. So not to miss my ride; I lay down in front of the hotel where I was to meet my new friends. I was awoken to blue flashing lights. Apparently, the “homeless man” sleeping outside was making the guests uncomfortable.

The guys showed up on time as promised. It was a nineteen-hour ride in the back seat between two suitcases and my backpack. I slept for fourteen hours straight. We pumped reggae and maté the rest of the way until the smell of exhaust and dog shit led us back into the city.

Walking into Plaza de Mayo around 8:30 P.M. I arrived with a time of 56 and ½ hours.

Pétur:
Pétur is good with the ladies. Pétur is horrible at hitchhiking. He had no phone, no map, no Spanish, and two months without shaving left him looking like a 40-year-old-rapist. Haukur and I heard nothing from him for five days. When the weekend came, we assumed he was dead, or in Bolivia.

His first day he only got 50 kilometers and was left once again in Confluencia, the wonderful little town that had already called the police on us (Bariloche, The Valley). We don’t have a good reputation there, so he spent the night in a cave off the main road.

He slept under trees and bridges, hitched two motorcycles, shared coco leaves with a trucker, and got picked up by a family who not only made him dinner, but let him sleep at their home, and drove him back to the highway the next morning.

After five days on the road he was let off on the side of the highway 60 kilometers from Buenos Aires. The cars flew by at 150 kilometers and hour. “Fuck it,” he thought, “I’ll just walk.” A family driving past saw him stranded on the road and, like Haukur, pulled over for him. Their van had no seats in the back and Pétur enjoyed the final part of the trip on the floor with four kids, playing with them in broken Spanish.

109 hours. Pétur didn’t even come close.

We were finished. I cannot sum all this up with some profound conclusion, so I leave you with the words of a friend.

“Travel is such a funny thing. It’s a wonderful idea filled with adventure and romance- romantic ideas of places and all the wonderful things to do there with all the people to meet and all the people to be.

The truth is that a place isn’t anything until you invest something into it and live and walk and feel it. Be in it. Until then, it is all just a romance story written by some sleazy novelist for widows and housewives. Or small kids with big plans and even bigger ideas about big places where big things happen to big people.

Travel is bigger than the places, bigger than stories and certainly bigger than I can re-tell or summarize- it is the act of being lost mentally and physically without regard or worry to find a destination.”

-Robert Bottomley

In Patagonia

2009-04-07T13:58:00.002-04:00

The whole time we were down in the South, Pétur was lugging around his camera with the intention of making a documentary about the trip. He is a talented filmmaker and already has a couple of short films available on his website for Trailer Park Studios, (I posted a link on the side of the blog a couple of weeks ago.) We filmed everything we did and are now in the painstaking process of putting a film together. Recently, we completed a couple of trailers that you can view here. They are available for download in High Definition and there are links for viewing on YouTube. We hope you enjoy them!

Also, there is one final story left to be posted that I am working on currently. I expect to have it up by the end of the week.

-Chris

Bariloche, The Lake

2009-03-14T17:27:00.005-04:00

Lago Correntoso. One of the many bodies of water that span Argentina’s famous Lake District. Famous not only for being beautiful, but expensive. Full of quasi towns that popped up like weeds for the sole purpose of accommodating the hordes of tourists that visit year after year, we had a hard time finding a place without any human presence. Lago Correntoso served us well.

We set up our temporary homes a stone’s throw from the shore. We had a forest to keep us out of the sun and our own private beach. Picturesque, one could say.

Few days were left before our lives in the city were to begin again. We took advantage of every moment. The sauna that we failed to construct in the valley was up and ready to cleanse our dirty pores by early afternoon on our first day. Rocks were heated in the fire for hours as we eagerly awaited the steam bath. When they were finally good and hot, we dragged them into the sauna along with a kettle full of water to pour over them. Unfortunately for Haukur, one of the rocks had landed outside of the hole we had dug for them in the center, and his tiny, white little buns found their way on top of it. The fist-sized third degree burn that resulted made his sauna experience slightly less than pleasant.

We fished, unsuccessfully. Everyday we took an afternoon dip in the lake. Haukur baked fresh bread in the fire, and Pétur even made a harpoon out of the crossbow we had bought. Still, no fish. The evenings were spent in silence by the fire, until slowly we dozed off in the open night air.

It was our last time spent in the wilderness. Four wonderful days without a human in sight.

Bariloche, The Valley

2009-03-12T12:30:00.015-04:00

Fifty kilometers from Bariloche, on the border of Parque Nacional Nahuel Haupi, lies Valle Encantado. It’s a climber’s paradise, filled with rocky spires that sprout out of the ground like the fingers of God. It’s also private property.

It was to be our most ambitious mission. The goals were as such:
1) Build a raft.
2) Float down the river on the raft, camping as we travel. A modern Huck Finn tale.
3) Build a sauna in which to relax after a day of raft construction.
4) Don’t get arrested.
We failed to realize any of them.

To get to Valle Encantado we first got a ride to the ‘town’ of Confluencia, two kilometers north of the valley. Confluencia consists of a gas station, a bridge, and, on the other side of the bridge, a hotel. We left the gas station on foot.

Immediately upon arriving we met some of the climbers.
“What are you guys doing here?” they asked, with skeptic looks at our packs.
“We’re gonna camp in the valley and build a raft so we can float down the river,” I replied proudly.
“Oh…” and with that he walked off.
In fact, none of the climbers would give us a second glance. We didn’t know why, but they hated us. It turns out that, unbeknownst to us, the cops had come to the area the previous week to kick campers off of the property. The owners didn’t mind the climbers, as long as they enjoyed the rocks during the day and slept somewhere else. Now, due to the amount of people that camped there regardless, like us, there was talk of threats to close the property to everyone.

We crossed the river in little plastic boats. The loathing that the climbers had for us went so far that, as some of them were crossing the river at the same time as us, I offered my hand to assist them as they docked. They refused to take it. At that point we decided it best to get out of their territory and headed into the woods in search of a place to camp.

After hours of hiking, our packs weighing us down with tools and a week's worth of food, we finally settled on a site that would serve for our labors. It was right by the river, and hidden enough that we wouldn’t have to worry about being noticed by the police. The problem was, the highway was right on the other side of the river, and it killed the wilderness ambiance that we were looking for.

A hearty dinner with rice and whiskey led us to our sleeping bags.

The next day we had to prioritize our goals. The day before, as we hiked through hours of thicket and thorns, I had lost my rain jacket that had been strapped to the back of my pack. Luckily, Pétur had another thing in mind, which required him to backtrack as well. During our search the previous day we had come upon a rocky cliff that dropped off into the river. Pétur wanted to jump off it. After months without snow our adrenaline addict had to do something to get his blood pumping. Ryan, a guy from New Jersey with whom I had crossed paths with numerous times, had joined us for the week and he was feeling man enough to take the leap as well. Haukur and I decided to watch.

The cliff was 32 meters high, over 100 feet. We didn’t know this until afterwards.

It was all set. We had checked the water to make sure there was a good landing, Haukur was set up to get it all on film, and I was at the bottom of the cliff to serve as medic in case anything happened, all they had to do was jump.

Pétur, of course, was the first to go. I didn’t actually see him jump, but the gunshot like sound he made when hitting the water was hard to miss. The impact had knocked all of the air out of his lungs and when he came up to breathe the noise that came from him was similar to that of a death rattle. I was shaking, not having any idea if he was okay, but he swam to shore and brushed it off like nothing had happened. He just wanted a high-five.

Ryan was still building up the courage. Two or three times he signaled to us that he was ready, and two or three times he stepped back to think it over again. The fourth time he jumped.

“Oh my Goooooood!”
Boom.
“HELP!”
I looked back and screamed at Haukur and Pétur on the nearby cliff where they were filming, “FUCKING HELP!”
I stripped off my clothes and was in the water faster than David Hasselhoff. The impact had taken everything that Ryan had and he couldn’t swim. I dragged him to shore and laid him on the beach where Haukur and Pétur where waiting. He was alive, but hurting. You could see the worry on his face.

By late afternoon Ryan was still in pain. It was best that he sought medical attention. The team comes first, so we abandoned all plans and Haukur swam across the river to get help while we packed up camp. An hour later, sitting on the shore with all our gear, we saw Haukur get into a raft, using a shovel as an oar.
“Well, we’re in trouble,” he said as he floated towards us.
“What kind of trouble?”
“The police are waiting for us on the other side.”

Haukur had arrived at the opposite shore and went to the gas station in Confluencia. They told him they had no phone, nor raft and couldn't help him. He ran across the bridge to the hotel. They refused to help as well. They did call the police though. Of course, once the police were there the gas station was more than willing to help and offered Haukur the raft that they didn't have before.

After a brief interview with Neuquen's finest, Ryan and I got in the back of the squad car and we headed into town.

Everything, like always, worked out fine. The cops were hilarious. We listened to Manu Chao in the car and they just laughed when Ryan told them what happened. The Argentines think we're crazy. A quick X-Ray at the hospital showed that all of Ryan's bones were in the right place. We returned to Jorge and Ivan's place.

Haukur and Pétur were already there, Jorge and Ivan had come to rescue them. They thought we were crazy too.

Bariloche, The Beginning

2009-03-07T16:08:00.006-05:00

Go to Bariloche, get a good night sleep in a bed, and head to the lakes for a couple weeks of camping. That was the plan.

We found a hostel as we walked into town. Cheap, small, and cozy, the owners were two brothers from Bariloche, Jorge and Ivan. Over the next couple of weeks Jorge and Ivan's place became less of a hostel and more of a friend's house. The circumstances of our travels were ever changing, as I will soon relate, and we passed through their establishment quite a bit during our time in Bariloche.

It looked as if rain was to come. We couldn't cross the river where we intented to set up camp in bad weather, and a couple of nights in a proper bed was a tempting offer. We would have to wait until the weekend to head back into the wilderness.

Bariloche is the tourist trap that we had expected. With the exception of going into town for supplies, we spent the days in the hostel. There was a small backyard with a cabin where the four week old puppy, Coco, lived. Every night after dinner we retired to the cabin, us, the brothers, and the multitude of Israelis that came and went. Alcohol filled our bellies and music filled our ears until sleep called us to our beds.

El Bolsón

2009-03-07T01:24:00.003-05:00

El Bolsón is dangerous. You can be trapped there if you're not too careful. We thought we would pass through for a day or two. We stayed a week.

The story goes that back in the 70's El Bolsón became a haven for the hippies of Argentina and Chile. It still is today. Every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday there is a fair in the main plaza. Part farmer's market, part handicrafts, the fair packs the plaza with people the whole day, strolling through the stands, watching the preforming clowns, or listening to the various bands that play throughout the day. For our part we spent the week there in the plaza, laying in the grass and watching the people pass by. The mood was light and everybody was friends. People came and went, we would share a beer and talk about how wonderful life is.

El Camping de Mario was our home for the week. Essentially someone's large backyard in the poor part of town that had become a campground, our companions were many of the people who came for the summer to sell their wares. They came from all sides and for the summer they became a makeshift family. Every night was spent by the bonfire together, singing, passing around a jug of wine, or listening to Haukur explain what Iceland is like.

There was Mare, the Chilean girl who taught us how to make the delicious, and warm, Vino Navegado. There was Negro and Javiera, whom I spent a rainy afternoon with, cooking pasta for them in their tent so they could relax as the mushrooms kicked in. There was Lapa, the clown who had a presence in any room he was in. There was Flor from Bariloche who, with the assistance of others, spent endless hours one night doing my dreadlocks while we all sat in the community hut, avoiding the rain and telling riddles until dawn.

El Bolsón rejuvinated us.

Haukur Sigurðsson

2009-02-19T22:03:00.003-05:00

A quick interlude...

A lot of people have been sending me compliments about the photos I post on here. It should be known that I did not take these photos, I just do the writing. 99% of the pictures you see on this blog are taken by Haukur Sigurðsson, our little blonde photographer. Haukur is truly gifted with his lens and has the eye of a professional. If you want to check out more of his stuff go to his Flickr site. It´s amazing work.

-Chris

El Bolsón

2009-02-19T21:57:00.005-05:00

Pétur?

2009-02-19T21:52:00.003-05:00

Pétur didn´t arrive to El Bolsón until the next night.

He, like us, had no luck in Tecka, only he got tired of waiting and left the town on foot. By the time Haukur and I passed him he had already walked several kilometers.

Eight hours of walking and still nothing. Frustrated and exausted, he saw some Ostrich-like birds in the distance and gave up trying to get a ride to chase them down for a shot.

Night came. He had a tent, food, and a camp stove. Haukur had the pot. For Pétur this was only a minor problem. He found a rusty tin can on the side of the road and cooked his dinner in it. A hearty hobo meal and a day in the sun had left him wiped out. He slept like a baby amongst the desert brush.

It was another five hours of walking the next day. Finally, a Chilean traveling from Punta Arenas to Santiago stopped. There was already two hitchhikers, also from Chile, in the cab who played bongos and made bracelts for Pétur as they made their way down the road. They were obviously heading for El Bolsón as well.

Haukur and I, while Pétur was stuck in the desert, were laying in the grass in El Bolsón eating waffles, drinking artesenal beer, and talking to beautiful hippie girls. We had to arrainged to meet in the plaza and when the sun started to go down we began to worry. We were heading back to camp when a band preforming on the street caught our eye. We stopped to listen when, walking in front of the band, Pétur appeared. High-fives, stories, and bed. We did it.

The 40 Day Seven

2009-02-18T17:32:00.010-05:00

I hate Tecka. If there exists a Heaven and a Hell, Tecka would be Purgatory.

We were set up opposite of the gas station. It´s not like there wasn´t traffic, there was more than we had come across the whole trip, but no one would stop for us. We decided to split up to increase our chances. We sent Pétur, who knew about five and a half words in Spanish, to the edge of town on his own.

Haukur and I waited another two hours. Finally, I walked across the Route to the gas station, sat down, put the Ruta 40 Norte sign at my feet and pulled out my guitar. Still nothing.

At 4 p.m. another hitcher was dropped off, heading the same direction as us. Lucas was from La Plata and came to El Bolsón during the summer to sell hats he made in the fair. Haukur and I talked. No luck and now more people. We decided to check if we could get a bus. Thankfully, at that moment, a pickup stopped. Lucas hopped in the back with us and we left that god-forsaken town.

There was no sign of Pétur as we entered the open road so we assumed he had been picked up. We were relieved. Fifteen minutes later we flew past a figure on the Route. ¨Pétur!¨ By the time we realized it was him it was too late, he was gone. He would have to take care of himself.

The pickup dropped us off at an intersection. 10 kilometers to our west was Esquel and 151 kilometers north was our goal, El Bolsón. The sun was starting to go down. Lucas got tired of waiting, he had friends in Esquel and figured it best to walk into the city for the night. He invited us along but Haukur and I wanted to stay and stick out the evening, we were too close to backtrack.

I had started to gather wood to make a fire for the night when I heard a screeching and saw a little Toyota Yaris pull off the road. Before we knew it the trunk was popped open and a very exited European was throwing our packs into the back.

"Hold on man, are you going to El Bolsón?"

"Yes, yes," in heavily accented English, "El Bolsón, Bariloche, all of it! Let´s go, let´s go, let´s go!"

The driver, a Belgian, was accompanied by his lover, the erection inducing Suzanne from Switzerland. They had met the previous week on the road. The car they had rented from a Chilean police officer. In three days Suzanne had to catch a flight out of Santiago, Chile, and if they aren´t dead, then I guarentee she made her flight.

There were two empty beer cans in the cupholders up front. Suzanne turned around, "I´m sorry, we have a bottle of wine but no bottle opener."

"I have one," I blurted. Thinking before I speak is sometimes a foreign concept to me.

"Ah, bueno!" replied our driver, "it´s warm but it will do!"

Wait. Our driver wanted to drink it too? Thankfully as that realization came to me the cork broke. They would have to wait till later for the wine.

The Belgian flew down the road. 160, 180, 190, 200 kilometers an hour. He exceeded the spedometer. I looked at Haukur, "I´m seriously scared right now, dude." He didn´t even look at me, he simply wiped his palm on the back of my hand. It was soaked.

I now have scientific proof that hot girls love dangerous guys. Everytime the Belgian would weave in and out of traffic, barely missing the cars, Suzanne would squeeze his leg and smile. We stopped at a gas station. They got out of the car and ate each others faces. If they could´ve, the probably would have fucked right then and there. The gas station had no gas. It did have beer though. They bought two liters. Brilliant.

Our captain chugged the beer as we sped through the mountain pass. When the bottle came back to Haukur and I we pounded as much as possible. The more we drank, the less the Belgian could.

We made it to El Bolsón, 151 kilometers, in less than an hour. I kissed the ground at my feet. Hakur and I celebrated our survival with a dinner of salami sandwiches and beer that we ate on the ground next to the supermarket. We were exausted. We didn´t even bother looking for a campsite, behind the store would do. At the back of the building we we got in our sleeping bags and passed out.

7 days and 1500 kilometers. Mission complete.

Almost.

The 40 Day Six

2009-02-18T17:20:00.009-05:00

To our utter dismay, horses were completely our of our budget range. The dream was crushed, we had to move on.

All of the luck we had in the beginning of our trip was gone. We set up at the edge of town, taking turns between extending our thumbs and hiding from the Patagonian wind. Eight hours later, an old beat up sedan stopped in from of us. Horacio, 60, had spend the weekend drinking at the festival. His eyes were glazed over and there were empty bottles of Quilmes on the floor. He was hammered. At this point we didn´t care, we had to get out of that town.

We chugged along at 40 kilometers and hour, other cars honked as they blew by us. Horacio told us why Brazilian and Paraguayan women are better than ¨those Argentine bitches¨while he tried to keep his car on the road. He only took us 10 kilometers, but progress is progress.

Shortly thereafter we, as always, hopped in the back of a pickup and went onto the next town.

Tecka is essentially the gas station that everyone stops at on their way through. The sun went down without a ride. We unrolled our sleeping bags on the side of the Route and slept in the dirt under a clear sky.

The 40 Day Five

2009-02-18T16:50:00.022-05:00

Two gauchos in an old Ford pickup pulled over. There was a mattress in the truck bed which made for a perfect afternoon nap. They were headed for the small town of Gobernador Costa.

When Haukur and I started talking about our trip back in September we had one goal in mind, buy horses. We wanted to cross the desert on horseback. It was all we could talk about. Pulling into Gobernador Costa there was police directing traffic. The town was in the second day of the Festival Provincial del Caballo (The Provincial Horse Festival). Our dreams had come true. Every gaucho and his horse in the province of Chubut had come to participate.

We would inquire about the horses, but the smell of asado and the rumbling in our bellies took priority. Walking through the crowd, following our noses, the attention of the people left the horses and was fixed on the three dirty travelers. Gobernador Costa is the furthest thing from a tourist attraction.

Surrounding the horse ring were un montón of little stands where the locals prepared food. We found an establishment with a little squat Argentine woman roasting lamb on the parilla. The meat melted in our mouths. We devoured a whole leg each. Stuffed to the brim, we asked our proprietor if we could leave our backpacks in her stand while we explored the festival. She did us one better and offered it to us for the night.

The festival was an Argentine Rodeo. We watched on as the gauchos, in their elaborate outfits, rode the bucking broncos with the occasional interuption from an ambulance.

The gaucho, Argentina´s cowboy, lives in a man´s world. They ride horses, eat meat, and drink beer until they can´t walk straight. I don´t know who is tougher, the American cowboy or the Argentine gaucho, but the gauchos certainly have more style. In town that evening the three of us stopped into a local pool bar. There was not a woman in sight. It was filled with the participants of the festivities, in full attire, from the young gaucho to the old, for the sons and fathers do everything equally.

Returning later to our home for the evening we found the whole family gathered around the parilla. The father, a short man with a waddle and a warm smile, insisted on serving us choripan and beer to the displeasure of Haukur´s already irregular bowel movements.

The 40 Day Four

2009-02-15T14:49:00.010-05:00

The police at the edge of town took our information, ¨Por las dudas,¨ as if we were another car driving through. The Argentines think we are crazy. Hours passed. We decided to walk.

After some kilometers a worker from Comodoro Rivadavia, who liked to smoke cigarettes with the windows up, allowed us into his truck. He had been stationed in the Islas Malvinas, not the Falkland Islands, during the war. His bitterness had not yet faded for the Argentine government. He did have a kind heart though, and took a longer route home to assist us on our journey.

There was a river, Rio Senguer, that the locals liked to camp by in the summer. It flowed under the Route and our driver dropped us off on the bridge. We slept under it. We offered our neighbors, a Chilean family, a spot by the fire. The didn´t join us, but thanked us for the invitation with a bottle of wine.

The 40 Day Three

2009-02-15T14:41:00.005-05:00

My little tent couldn´t take it. The rain wouldn´t cease. Jonas left early to try his luck . We knew better than to waste our time in the storm. No one would pick up three dirty, soaking wet locos with backpacks. We found a cheap cabin to pass the day and dry our things.

The 40 Day Two

2009-02-15T14:26:00.009-05:00

Over breakfast we met Juan, the homeless singer who hails from Spain. He wanted nothing more than companionship and could still carry a tune.

The Route continued outside of town. We hiked past the run down homes and sheep as the people wondered what the gringos with huge backpacks were doing in their little community.

It only took ten minutes. A Chilean with a new Ford pickup stopped and we went with him 400 kilometers to the town of Perito Moreno. The Chilean was a man of few words. The day was spent watching the desert pass by.

The campground in town was fifteen pesos a person so we walked out to the desert where we could sleep for free. Jonas, a 22 year old German we had met in El Chaltén, was at the edge of town trying to hitch. It was getting late and we invited him to camp with us for the night. He willingly accepted. He had no more clothes that those that were on his body, no tent, nor sleeping bag. In fact all that he did have in his backpack was a box of wine, some bread, and a little cheese.

Pétur tried to interview him for the film.
¨Jonas, what are you doing on your travels?¨
¨... I don´t want to be on film because I´m going to kill you,¨ he said in a German accent, followed by a pause a little too long for my comfort, ¨no, I´m kidding I came to see the Andes.¨

Jonas prefered to sleep by the fire. Rain came. He had nothing to cover himself. Haukur and Pétur were already in Haukur´s tent, leaving the only option mine. Jonas squeezed into my one man temporary home. Between the two of us, and our packs, we were quite cozy. I spent the night spooning the German.

The 40 Day One

2009-02-13T18:12:00.014-05:00

We stocked up with enough food and water for a nuclear war, not having any idea of how long we would be stuck in the desert. Our thumbs were oustretched by 9 am. I read half of my book that day. At 5 pm we were listening to some French guys tell us how impossible it was to hitch on the 40 when, to their dismay, a car pulled over and we headed out of town. We were elated. Our driver said he would take us 90 kilometers to the first intersection. We even picked up two other kids from Buenos Aires on the way who had got fed up waiting and left El Chaltén on foot. Stuffed in the back of the van we compared road stories before splitting, them going South with the driver. We didn´t even get the chance to put our bags down when a small tour bus who had seen us in town stopped and took us the remaining 30 kilometers to the beginning of the dusty Route 40.

Hours passed. We read, juggled rocks, made up stupid games, and napped. Three cars drove by, one every hour. Finally, a bus stopped. Not to pick us up, no, it was dropping off three more Argentine hitchhikers. Two guys and a girl. Competition was not something we needed with such scarce traffic.

There was a small town a couple of kilometers away and, it already being late evening, the Argentines were going to walk in to get some wine for the night. Haukur, already resigned to the fact that we were gonna sleep on the side of the road, gave them 10 pesos so they could buy wine for us as well.

We never got the wine. As soon as our new companions were out of view a pickup stopped in front of us. They were going to Gobernador Gregores, 150 kilometers away, and we could sit in the back if we wanted.

We watched the sun go down over the Patagonian steppe from the truck bed. After it was gone the wind froze us to the bone and we huddled together to keep warm.

We hopped out in Gobernador Gregores around midnight. I thought my legs would never warm up. It took a jog down the block and back to get my teeth to stop chattering. But we made it, almost 300 kilometers in one day. We found the municipal campground was free and fell asleep as soon as the tents were up.

The 40

2009-02-13T17:09:00.004-05:00

Our next destination was El Bolsón, 1500 kilometers away along the unpaved Ruta Nacional 40. The 40 is a legend in Argentina, comparable to Route 66 in the States. It is hundreds of kilometers of dirt road from town to town, and the only thing one finds between them is beating wind and the occasional Guanaco. We had to hitch it. They said it was impossible due to the huge distances and the small number vehicles that pass through. We set out from El Chaltén on the 3rd of February and arrived in the hippie capital of Argentina a week later, dirty, exausted, and sucessful. Nothing is impossible.

El Chaltén

2009-02-13T16:44:00.007-05:00

Located inside the northern part of Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, El Chaltén is the ¨Trekking Capital of the Nation.¨ The town itself is only 24 years old, with a population of 600, and is dedicated to the swarm of people that come to spend their summer hiking and climbing in an adventurer´s paradise.

Haukur, Pétur, and myself are not what you would call ambitious travelers. We like to find nice spots and spend our days relaxing, doing stupid things, and have a good time with minimal effort. We were the only idiots in El Chaltén. Scarlett, however, was in heaven with all the extremely active people that devoured the trials by the day.

We did do some work. We hiked to Lago Torre, and spent two days there at a campsite at the base of a glacier. Above this glacier is the 3000 meter high spine of Cerro Torre, one of the most difficult climbs in the world. The campsite consisted of Scarlett, us, and 100 world class climers that spend whole summers there waiting for clear weather to conquer the peak. It´s a two day climb and they have to pass one night on the side of the rock face, thousands of feet in the air on a two foot ledge, to reach the top.

To the frustration of Scarlett´s ceaseless energy, we had no desire to hike to other sites and she left us on the second day. My Nordic teammates wanted to stay so they could jump off the glacier into the lake.

I watched on as they debated the safety of a 25 meter drop into shock-inducing water. To my relief, I was spared the work of having to hike back to town for a med-evac team. I will give them credit for the 15 second swim they took in the lake to make up for it. Though, the cold did make them scream like little girls.

Back in town there was an annual bouldering festival and the climbing junkies came out in multitudes. There was a slack line competition, reggae bands, and marijuana in the air. Somewhere along the line the climbing and hippie communities had melded into one. It was the first night on our trip that we got drunk and, stumbling back to our tents, we passed out while staring at the stars.

El Calafate

2009-02-13T16:02:00.009-05:00

El Calafate is a heavily visited town due to the tourism of Parque Nacional Los Glaciares and it´s monument of glory, the enormous Perito Moreno glacier. The only glacier that is, to this day, still advancing.

My Icelandic companions couldn´t have given a shit less. They have glaciers in their backyards. I, on the other hand, could not leave without seeing it, and Marina wanted to go as well. We decided to split up. Scarlett, who had already seen the park, and the boys would head on to El Chaltén and Marina and I would catch up with them later.

My companion, in accordance of all Argentine women, was petite, with dark hair and olive skin, so we decided to use her femininity to our advantage to hitch to the park, a mere 70 kilometers away. Easier said than done. The traffic was light, and most that passed were tour busses. After three hours I took over the thumb and with my dashing good looks we were picked up shortly. Our drivers were an English couple who told me about the future role of America and how global warming is a corporate scam.

They were kind enough to leave us at the enterance of the park. The glacier itself was still too far off to walk and we were fortunate to get a ride fairly quickly with Gustavo and his beautiful girlfriend from Cordoba, Eugenia.

The Perito Moreno Glacier is an immense living creature. Not only is it massive in size; for it requires the whole of your peripheral; but the sounds that come from the ever growing beast fill the cold air coming off the ice. A large piece would break off occasionally and, falling into the water, the sound was as if a demolition crew were tearing down a city block.

Gustavo and Eugenia were leaving at the same time as us and invited us back into their car. We drank maté, stopped by Punta Bandera for fotos and chatted the afternoon away by the water. We couldn´t have been picked up by more wonderful people.

They left us in town, but it was getting late and we would have to spend another night in El Calafate. Our friends were not at the campsite from the night before, so we assumed they had made it to El Chaltén. We weren´t going to pay for accomodations just to get a couple of hours of shut eye, so after a beer we decided to sleep in the bus station. Unfortunately, there was a little boy in an army outfit with a walkie-talkie who liked his power a little too much to let us sleep at the station. It was past midnight and we were exausted.

In the main square there was a church with open doors. We went in, curled up in a corner, and slept. They can´t kick you out of the house of the Lord, right?

The Border

2009-02-12T14:47:00.003-05:00

We thanked Eduardo for the advice by staying at his place upon our return. Fully rested, our next mission was to cross the border back into Argentina and get to El Calafate.

The border was only about 60 kilometers away, and we hitched a ride to Chilean customs without much trouble. The border itself, to cross into Argentina was another eight kilometers on, following a dirt road of no man´s land between the two countries. There was little traffic so we walked it. Only four cars passed the whole two hour trek and our optimisim was dropping as we crossed the desert plains. Getting to El Calafate proved to be a little more difficult than we had predicted.

We got stuck on the border.

No one would give us a ride. Every vehicle that came through was either full with a family or a tourist bus whose driver wouldn´t even consider letting us on. At ten P.M. the border closed.

Martin, one of the National Guard members posted on the border, had come outside a couple of times to hang out with us over the course of the hours that we spent there. He thought we were crazy and loved the company, being stuck in the middle of nowhere for a month at a time. When the border closed he offered us the abandoned building next door to sleep for the night.

There were old matresses, a fire pit to cook on, and best of all, beer given to us from the Argentine National Guard to help pass the night. We were warm, full bellied, and out of the neverending Patagonian wind.

We wrote Martin and the guys a recomendation for the thier hospitality and got a ride on the first bus in the morning, convincing the driver to take us for half the price. It just so happened that it was the same bus that Scarlett and her new Argentine friend, Marina, were on. We became five and went on to El Calafate.

Chilean Patagonia

2009-02-10T21:00:00.000-05:00

Puerto Natales sucks.

It is essentially the basecamp for those going to Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, which is the role it played for us as well. Parque Nacional Torres del Paine is considered by some the best park in all of South America. Because of this it is not only expensive, but full of tourists, especially during the high season of January and February. Things that are touristy and expensive are the antithesis of what we are looking for on our trip, so we decided to skip it and move on. Luckily, there was one person who wouldn´t let us give up on the Torres.

Eduardo was a tall, softspoken man with about 12 teeth. He owned a small, quiet hostel in the center of Puerto Natales and lived in the room behind the kitchen with his dog. When we told him that we were leaving without going to see the Torres, he would not have it. He took us downstairs to the map he had on his wall and showed us a trail that went along the border of the park, where we could see the Torres just as well, if not better, trek for free, and not run into anyone. We owe the adventure that we had the following couple of days to him.

Hitching out of Puerto Natales, Haukur forgot something back in town and we had to split up into two groups. It was then that Pétur and I were picked up by Cristian, the construction manager of the luxurious, and very expensive, new hotel right outside the park. He had been a guide in the area before and knew of the trail we were to take. If it wasn´t for him we would never have found the trail.

The trail started, to our dismay, on the other side of a river that was too deep to cross with our packs. Cristian left us on the riverfront at two abandoned police huts where we could sleep for the night and gave us some whiskey to keep us warm.

The river became a much smaller problem when we found an old, half flooded boat, though, after crossing things did not get any easier. Due to the previous week of rain the river had flooded and after a half-mile our trail was underwater. We checkd the map and found that in another mile the trail doubled towards the south and if we crossed over the mountains we could intercept it.

The mountains, we realized when we were halfway up, were covered in waist-high thorn bushes. Four hours later, atop a peak, with a full panoramic view of the magnificince of the Torres, our legs, our hope, and Pétur´s feet destroyed, we were about to give up when Haukur and I went to take a piss and realized that we were peeing on a trail. We picked up our packs and headed south into the forest.

To this day we have no idea if the trail we followed was the one on the map. As we walked we continued to lose it due to it´s infrequent use, and three hours into the woods it disappeared completely. To our right was a small lake, to our left a steep downgrade into a valley, and ahead nothing but thicket. We couldn´t even figure out where we were on the map. We were lost in the Chilean backcountry.

The icelanders wanted to go into the valley.
"If we just head south we have to end up somewhere, right?"
I was against this idea, knowing how easy it is to get lost in a forest. They don´t even have trees in Iceland and our navagating skills were obviously less than stellar. Much arguing ensued but we decided to set camp and stay by the lake for the night, and to return from whence we came in the morning.

The next day, we followed the trail back and found where it came out of the flooded area. There was a small refuge located twenty feet into the water. It was a dilapidated piece of shit. Upon inspection we found two small bedframes and an old wooden stove. The catch was the foot of freezing water that covered the floor. Discussion as to sleep in it or not turned into a nap next to the river. When I woke Haukur was gone. He returned, in his underwear, shoeless, his legs beat red. He had gone exploring, through the water, and found a house. Not the shanty that we had looked in earlier, but a legitamate house.

The house, we could see through the trees, was situated beyond 200 feet of glacier water. After twenty feet we couldn´t feel our legs. The door was shut, but we found it unlocked. Our one floor heaven was completely dry, having been built on stilts. It had an entrance roon, a full kitchen and a bedroom with two beds. Nothing worked but there were portable stoves and gas to spare. We cooked a proper dinner and passed the night in the warmth of candlelight.

The sky was cloudless. The stars came out, doubled by their reflection off the steel grey water. For one night we had our own private island.

Pétur

2009-02-02T13:28:00.000-05:00

For those of you who went to high school with me, I could skip a lot of description by simply saying that Pétur is the Icelandic version of Conor Bracken. They look the same, have they same goofy sense of humor, and are both just as reckless as the other.

We talked to Pétur online right before leaving Rio Grande. After spending two days in Argentina, a strong Patagonian wind had blown away his cash and his debit card, leaving him just enough to get to Punta Arenas and wait for us to arrive. He was sleeping outside in the park in his sleeping bag. He didn´t think it was that bad. It was a mission.

¨What are you doing about food?¨
¨I bought a bag of nuts yesterday.¨

We found him as we walked into the center of Punta Arenas, dirty and in sandals. In fact, Pétur doesn´t have shoes. He came prepared for some backcountry trekking in Patagonia with nothing but two pairs of sandals.

This dirty male model is a semi-professional snowboarder, and defines the snowboarding type. He wears tank tops, loves to high five, and acts before he thinks.

Our team had become complete.

Desde Rio Grande Hasta Punta Arenas

2009-01-25T18:04:00.001-05:00

The gods of hitchhiking smiled upon Haukur and I on the 19th of January.

We walked to the edge of town in Rio Grande and had a ride in less than 3 minutes. Some oilmen dropped us off by their plant about 16 kilometers from our destination in San Sebastian. From there we continued along the highway in the middle of Patagonian windswept fields for an hour an a half before we were picked up again, by more oilmen who took us to San Sebastian. There we had to go through Argentine customs, who didn´t have much faith in our hitchhiking skills so we lied and told them we would walk to the Chilean border. Their doubts were misplaced because within 5 minutes of finishing there Daniel, an Argentine telecom worker, pulled over and we joined him on the road. Turned out he was going along a quicker route than we had hoped so we stuck with him for most of the day.

Crossing into Chile was fairly painless and since we were Daniel we got a free ferry ride across the Straight of Magellan. The Straight is full of beauitul turquoise water and fierce winds. As we crossed we were followed by black and white dolphins and peguins that swam along the side of the boat.

We parted ways at an intersection and stuck our thumbs out once again hoping to make it to Punta Arenas. We had to wait a measly 10 minutes when a huge econoline van stopped for us. We were three people in a van that could fit twelve and we remained silent and enjoyed the landscape the rest of the way to Punta Arenas, arriving a day earlier than we had anticipated.

Rio Grande

2009-01-25T17:29:00.001-05:00

Before our trip had began I asked Haukur if we could tell people that I was from Iceland as well. The reason being that every time we encounter new people they are exited to meet someone from Iceland and generally disappointed to meet another American. He loved the idea and even gave me my own Icelandic name, Kristofer Bjorn Robertsson.

Upon arriving in Rio Grande we were waiting outside a supermarket, trying to stay out of the wind and the rain, when a Chilean gaucho started chatting with us. He asked us our nationalities and I figured this would be the perfect time to try out my new Icelandic heritage. He didn´t seem to even know where Iceland was but told us about all the European countries he knew about from watching soccer on TV. He liked all the European countries, but his favorite of all... The United States of America. Those Americans, he said, were a clever bunch. Not clever enough I guess.

We passed 5 days in the home of our friends in Rio Grande comfortably. We spent a majority of the time washed in the yellow light of the kitchen lamp. Our cozy base of operations was thourghly enjoyed as we avoided the wind and the cold, which are just about the only two things that Rio Grande has to offer.

Spent our days inside, waking at two in the afternoon and doing our own various activities without responsibilites until around midnight when we would cook dinner and bullshit over empty liters of Quilmes.

We did go out and experience the night life that Rio Grande had to offer, which is just like night life in all the rest of Argentina, only shittier. I don´t understand what Argentines love about clubs. We spent a couple of hours drinking at the house and headed out to a party a couple of blocks away. Started chatting with the people at the party and enjoying ourselves, when at 5 am, the sun already fully in the sky, everyone decided it was time to go. We were not going home, which would be the logical thing to do at this time of the morning after drinking for six hours. No, it was time to go to the club! It should be noted here for all of you who know Haukur and his character, that I was against going to the club, but it was he who was all for it. 10 mintues after arriving he was complaing about how lame it was.

Thanks to the wonderful hospitality of our friends we got some good rest before we were back on the road in search of more adventure.

January 13th - 14th, 2009

2009-01-25T17:08:00.000-05:00

We hitched a ride from Estancia Harberton with two tourists from England. One of them was the hottest 50 year old woman I have ever seen. Things got complicated with getting to Rio Grande and we had to spend another night in Ushuaia.

We didn´t want to spend the next couple days waiting for Helgi in Ushuaia, so we decided to go to the small town of Tolhuin the next day, which was halfway to Rio Grande. Tolhuin is a small town with nothing except a really great bakery, a bakery that has tucans and parrots. It´s in the middle of a tundran landscape, surrounded by dense green forests, but the bakery has tropical birds. Brilliant.

We were going to sleep by the lake but it was far and the weather was cold so we just walked around the town for a while looking for a place to pitch our tent. Tolhuin also has the largest collection of annoying stray dogs in the world that will not hesitate to bug the shit out of you if you walk through it´s gravel roads. Luckily we found an open field, walked into it where there was tree coverage and set up camp for the night. The grove we stayed in was full of moss that hung off the trees which we aptly named "tree beard" and made a great fire starter. We slept for free in our temporary homes and packed up the next morning to move on again.

January 12th, 2009

2009-01-17T21:51:00.004-05:00

Waking up to the sun rising over the lake was as beautiful as we expected.

We arrived back at the property and decided to move on to another destination. Tierra del Fuego, outside of the few cities it has is covered with Sheep Estancias and the Harberton Estancia is the most famous of them all. Scarlett had another family connection with the people there so we decided to try our luck and headed east to the ranch with a driver from Salta who loved his home and to Haukur´s displeasure wanted to tell him all about it. Sometimes riding shotgun doesn´t have it´s benefits.

Estancia Harberton looks like a little piece of Ireland at the end of the world. Spotted with wooden cottages and farms, I was only missing a pair of overalls and I would have been right at home with my Leprechaun-like beard. Fortuneately Tommy, the owner of the place, did have overalls on, and hated tourists. He also didn´t give a shit that Scarlett was there and treated us with the same akward politeness that he did all the other tourists that flooded the Estancia everyday.

We were, however, allowed to stay on the property free of charge and hiked the two kilometers to our site.

The weather was good and there was no one else on the property save the occasional fox that scampered by and the pack of wild horses that would run through our campsite. We made some stew and enjoyed the long day by the campfire.

January 11th, 2009

2009-01-17T21:34:00.000-05:00

The lake was beautiful. We wanted to sleep by it.

Haukur and I packed up our gear and headed slowly up to the lake again. We took our time and napped in the marsh.

Set up the tents in the woods around the lake.

The beavers had been creating dams and killing the trees in the area. There were small lakes turquoise lakes with dead trees growing out of them. Devastatingly beautiful.

Made a fire, music, and food. Stared at the coals until bed.

January 10th, 2009

2009-01-16T20:55:00.000-05:00

It was time to get the fuck out of Ushuaia.

We packed up our things and found a cheap ride up to Valle de Lobos. Gato, the owner was a pretty big name in these parts, being the first Argentine to finish the Alaskan Iditarod dog sled race. Valle de Lobos is where he trains his 84 Alaskan sled dogs year round. Gato is a man. He wears overalls, chops wood and eats meat. He will crush your hand with his handshake and grows a beard that makes Sam Beam look like a pre-pubescent boy.

He allowed us to stay on and around his property free of charge so we set up in a small wooden, dirt floored refuge with a giant iron oven in the center.

Close to the refuge was a trail that led to the Laguna Esmeralda. We hit the trail around 1 pm. It was a short hike and after going through a forest we came to a marshy tundra landscape covered in a red colored moss that gave way under your feet like a memory foam mattress. Reaching a crest in the landscape we came upon the turquoise colored lake that seemed more fitting for a Caribbean landscape than the southern pole. The lake is made from fresh water runoff from the glacier in the surrounding mountains. Needless to say the water is frigid. That didn´t stop my little blonde icelander from swimming in it to the amusement of all the Argentines.

We cooked over fires and slept in the dirt. We passed the hours playing guitars, harmonicas, melodicas and mouth harps huddled over the flames. We did little and talked even less. The life is simple and and sweet.

Did you know you can clean pots with dirt?

January 9th, 2009

2009-01-16T20:18:00.001-05:00

Woke up after the first night in my new tent to realize that I was not prepared for the cold here in the South. My feet were two enormous ice cubes. Scarlett and I had squeezed into my one person tent. We had enough space, but realized with the condensation from two people in a one person tent we woke up a bit wet, and would have to figure something out for the coming days. Breakfast was yogurt, and we headed to meet Haukur in town and figure out what to do in the coming days.

Finding a place for lunch that was somewhat affordable was a futile effort so we settled on a cafe on the main strip after 45 minutes of searching. Scarlett, having her father´s side of the family coming from Argentina, has friends all over the country and so the next day we were to take advantage of these connections and head to a new locale but first we had to stock up for some nights in the mountains.

Before the supermarket we checked out the one cool museum in Ushuaia, dedicated to the indigenous people of Tierra del Fuego, who are all but wiped out today. In the theory of the great human migration from Africa, over the Siberian land bridge, Tierra del Fuego was the absolute last place on earth to be populated. The province gets it´s name from Magellan when he traveled through here and saw the smoke rising from all the fires the indegenous people always kept burning. They lived naked in this brutal atmosphere and kept fires burning at all times, even in their canoes as they fished. They were an incredible people who had adapted to their environment here but were unfortunately killed off by the white man´s diseases when they came storming in, bringing Jesus with them.

Eating dinner on the street on the side of a supermarket was a new one for me, but we are living cheap. Cheap and happy.

La Adventura del Sur

2009-01-16T13:00:00.000-05:00

I have been blessed this year with a 4 month summer vacation, the longest I´ve ever had, and I get to spend it completely free and homeless in South America. For me, the vacation has been split into two very different time periods. I spent the first two months boldueando around the north of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay with some beautiful ladies. It was me and four other girls, two Americans and two Dutch. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with 4 women is quite an experience, but one I was fortunate to have.

Now begins part two. The Southern Adventure, or what one could call the Southern Manventure. I am traveling with two crazy asshole from Iceland and our plan is to have no plan and do all of the wildest things that one can do with two free months in Patagonia.

On January 8th of the year two-thousand-and-nine I got on a plane in Buenos Aires headed for Ushuaia, the city at 'the end of the world.' Ushuaia is in fact the southernmost city in the world and they take full advantage of this fact to bring in tourists, and they do a good job of that. Walking through the city you see more adventure hungry youngsters and camera wielding tourists than locals. I arrived with Scarlett, for it just so happened that our paths coincided for the time being and we left Buenos Aires at 98 degrees and arrived in Ushuaia at a hearty summer´s day of 43 degrees. We arrived with tents and plans to sleep where ever we could. We hiked up above the town and pitched our tent at the only local campsite, which was at the local ski club, and set up for the night. For dinner we took our remaining peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (a delicacy an American can only appreciate after living in a country that hates peanut butter) and hiked to the top of the ski slope for a view of the town. Ushuaia is not the picturesque winter town that I had invisioned. It´s actually kind of a blight upon the beautiful landscape that surrounds it. It´s a small Argentine town, broken up in two parts, the center where everything is overpriced and full of gift shops, and the more run down residential part surrounding it. All of this is located on the Beagle Canal surrounded by snow covered peaks. A natural wonderland with a distinct landscape I have never seen before.

The temperature was dropping so we headed down to the tent, caught up with Haukur for a bit and decided to hit the sack early that night and be fresh for the next day. At 11:30 we packed up and got ready to get in our sleeping bags, the sun still going down over the horizon. The nights here don´t really get dark, there always seems to be a glow over the horizon and by the time 4 am comes around, the sun shows it´s face for the coming day.

Año Nuevo en Buenos Aires

2009-01-02T17:14:00.000-05:00

This year New Year's Eve was spent in Buenos Aires. For the last two months I have been traveling around South America. I spent a month traveling through various locations in Brazil including Rio de Janeiro, Florianopolis, and Isla Grande. I returned through Uruguay and have spent the last couple of weeks moving through parts of Argentina, the wine country in Mendoza and a couple of days in the capital of Córdoba. Christmas was spent in Concordia in the province of Entre Rios with Horacio and his family. All of this has been an incredible experience and I will blog about them all, but getting time on a computer that I don't have to pay for is hard to come by, and honestly I don't want to spend my time sitting on the computer when I'm traveling. I will however get some stories up when time allows, and, having it all already written in my journal, I don't have to worry about forgetting the details.

On the 31st of December I woke slowly, it being nice being able to relax a bit on our return to Buenos Aires. My birthday present was a trip to the exclusive Aqua Vita Medical Spa where I was to have my first professional massage. Aqua Vita had the feel of the place in the end of Vanilla Sky where Tom Cruise finds out about LE, except with a blue hue. It was like a spaceship. All the furniture was white, with little blue ponds and aquariums everywhere and that silly ambiance music that only spas and New Age douchebags play. I was led into the back to my respective bathroom where I was to change out of my clothes and put on my robe. I stood there for a second and debated weather or not I was to wear underwear. Nobody gave me any guidelines, I was a scared fledgeling in a dangerous world of creams and women in white. I decided to just bear all and go naked under my robe. Turns out they gave us a little temporary underwear, which I thought was a shower cap, and we were not supposed to be naked. Well, the deed is done.

The first part was the steam room. I sat and sweat in the nude for about 10 minutes and let all of my pores cleanse themselves. I rinsed off afterwards and headed into my massage room. I was told to lay face down, and followed suit , my white cheeks exposed to the world. My masseuse was a four foot tall asian man. I remember one thought crossing my mind when I realized it would be a man who would be rubing his hands all over me. If I'm in a relaxed state, and someone is rubbing my body, who I cannot see because I'm facing down and my eyes are closed, but I know in my head is a man, and I get an erection, is that weird? I wondered, had that little asian man made other straight men hard with his hands? It's quite possible. I had a choice between the deep tissue or the relaxing massage and I'm glad I chose the relaxing one because it was vigourous nonetheless. There was a point were the little man got up on the bench, sat over my head and massaged my back. He was quite the professional. After about half an hour my turn was over, and it had passed without any penile incidents.

The body exfoliating scrub was next and afterwards I got a complete lotioning to top it all off. All in all this little asain man saw me naked on three separate occasions as I switched from room to room for each different part. The day was finished with a bowl of fruit and a glass of water with cucumber in it. One can never be too healthy.

After the massage I was like a big piece of Jello and all I could think about was sleep so I picked up some provisions from the supermarket and went back to the hostel to rest before the evenings activities. Having all of our friends either at home in their respective countries, or traveling around various others, the Dutch and I decided to head to Club Museum in San Telmo with our hostel. There was a deal where we got a dinner, drinks, entrance to the club, and a show for a pretty good price. The girls got dolled up, and of course looked ravishing, and we headed out as a big group of foreigners to the club, having to walk there because cabs and busses weren't running. Club Museum is a huge open club with a grand dance floor, about 30 disco balls hanging in the center, and three levels of couches and areas you could head to to get off the dance floor. There was a lot of potential, but unfortunately it was one of the weakest New Years I have had. The dinner was mediocre, they had a shitty band, and they didn't even fucking count down when 12 came around. I just didn't have the New Years feel. The one redeeming quality of the night was the Transvestite MC. There was a part after midnight when he went from table to table picking volunteers. He ended up at our huge table of foreigners talking to the Austrailian girl sitting to my right who did not know one word of Spanish. I tried to help her translate which drew attention to me and the Tranny picked me to go on stage. I arrived onstage with three others, a woman in here late 20's, a woman in her 50's who had had way to much surgery and still had the body of a 25 year old, and another American guy. After a series of questions we were broken up into pairs and I got stuck with the 50 year old, not knowing what we had to do. The other couple went up first and the Tranny told them that they were to preform a strip tease. Oh dear God. I think you know where this is going. Yes, our pair was next and I did a strip tease for a 50 year old woman in front of 300 people while the Tranny with a microphone was cheering me on. There is a video on Facebook for your viewing pleasure. Happy New Year.

Oktoberfest The Finale

2008-12-10T16:51:00.000-05:00

Our final day in Villa General Belgrano was the biggest fiasco of all. We all woke around 10, everyone except for me so hungover that they wanted to die. Horacio and Finn had just gotten back an hour or so before we all woke up and couldn't even function. Having a hunger in our bellies we found that all we had left to eat was canned corn and rice. It was breakfast. Well, we tried to have it for breakfast, but Finn put half a bag of salt into it. It was almost heart attack inducing but we were just hungry enough to swallow it down.

We packed up our things and were sitting around on the porch trying to produce thoughts and drinking the last of the beer we had in the fridge because according to Haukur, "You never waste beer." when Javier comes over to hang out. He talked with us a bit, and couldn't wait to brag about how he cheated on his fiancee with the fat girl in the cabin next door. Way to go Javi, your fiancee was pretty hot too. Affter a couple of minutes Javier decided that he wanted to share his taste in music with us and ran over to his cabin to bring over a stero. None of us were enthused, considering a majority of our group had splitting headaches, but we were even less exited when we found out what he liked to listen to. The first selection, ZZ Top. Ok not horrible, but I happened to like the peace and quiet of the country and the music was killing the vibe. It got worse though when he took out his ZZ Top cd and replaced it with none other than Shania Twain. When 'Man I Feel Like A Woman' came on Horacio, Haukur and I couldn't take any more so we hopped the fence to play with the horses in the pasture.

An hour later, Javier was to drive us the 2 kilometers to where the bus was to pick us up, which was great becasue he had been drinking till 9 am and was drinking again on our front porch. But it wasn't far so we figured it was safe enough and we hopped in the back of his pickup truck and headed to our stop. After about 20 minutes a little white bus drove by, the same company we were to take, at exactly the time when we were to take it. The bus came by and continued on it's path without stopping. Nobody even thought twice about it. We continued to sit on our respective stumps, throwing bits of wood into puddles because our brains were too clouded for higher motor functions. 30 minutes passed without event when a thought suddenly occured to me.
"Do you guys think that was our bus?" I asked our team.
Everyone kinda stared at eachother for a good 15 seconds. "Yeaaaaa," responded everyone.
We sat for another 30 seconds pondering what it was we were to do. If nothing happened quickly we would miss our connecting bus in Córdoba and be stuck in the woods with Javier for another night. We had only one option, Javier had to drive us into town to the bus station and get everything sorted out. The only problem was that as we were sitting around waiting for our bus, Javier had been off to the side drinking Fernet and Coke with some friends that he ran into. We had no other options. We got into the back of his pickup truck and started our 10 km ride into town along a slick, freshly rained highway. Haukur had the good sense to get into the front where there was a seatbelt, while Finn, T Bone, Horacito and myself got stuck in the bed hanging on for dear life. As if it wasn't bad enough, right before we hit the highway, Javier's friend pulls up beside the truck and hands Javier the Fernet and Coke, in case he gets thirsty on the ride home. We flew down the highway at 120 kmphr (kilometers per hour? Fucking metric system). We made it to the bus station in one piece, but my knuckles were white from hanging onto the truck.

We got our tickets sorted out and ended up getting a better, more direct ride back to Buenos Aires. We had an hour to kill so we sat down in the cafeteria and got some pizza and water while Javier and his friends continued to drink standing over us. It was there that we met Carlos, the 7 foot tall, at least 300 pound drunk blind man who decided to top off the Oktoberfest celebration for us. Javier invited Carlos to come sit with the four of us and then subsequently left him with us as he headed back to his cabin. Carlos was, as described before, enormous, and wore a complete set of navy blue sweats with matching T-shirt, which he was constantly using to wipe the sweat off of his mustache. He was probably one of the most digusting human beings I've ever seen, but God dammit he was entertaining. He would try and tell us everything he knew in English, which included singing Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen song, and famous quotes like "I'm sorry I am FAAAT!" or, "I like marajuana and women of the night." or my personal favorite, "My girlfriend is a fat prostitute." He asked us where we were from and when we told him we study in Buenos Aires he responded with, "I jerk off in Buenos Aires," which he followed by hawking a lougie and spitting it right on the floor. Oh Carlos, you made Córdoba wonderful. Fortunately our bus was ontime because after an hour with him it had gone past entertaining and was then annoying. We hopped on our bus and 12 hours later we were back in our wonderful beds in the Capital Federal. Epic.

Oktoberfest Day Three

2008-11-15T14:22:00.000-05:00

Day Three. Waking up was a little rough to say the least, although considering how much we drank it wasn't so bad. We needed some breakfast, and what do men eat for breakfast? Meat. Some of the guys headed into the grocery store to stock up on some dead cow while the rest of us sat and nursed our hangovers. We made a royal feast with chorizo, a ton of steak, and Finn made us some chocolate banana boats. We met our neighbors while we were cooking, they asked us to make some chicken patties for them, and we were glad we had kept our expectations low. Argentina is full of the sexiest women in the world, but unfortunately the cabin next to ours wasn't.

Finn, being old, needed a nap after that and Travis and I followed suit. Horacio and Haukur decided it was adventure time. Hopping over the fence into the field next to our cabin they headed into the wild. Horacio, who is more man than you even know, caught a horse with his belt and Haukur hopped on to get some good training in for this summer. He is now an official cowboy.

At around 5 in the afternoon the general consensus was to head back to the festival. I had to start my antibiotics, so drinking was not in the cards for me and was probably the only sober person in 100 kilometers that night. We crammed into a taxi the size of a old Honda Civic hatchback and made our way into town. We decided to wait to head into the main area and went to this little garden off to the side where Argentine biker guys with big beards were selling beer. The cool thing about this place is that it had a urinal that started at waist level. You had to be at least 6'3" to pee in this thing, that is if you could pee with your dick pointing upwards while everyone was watching you. Finnur, the tallest of us succeeded in using it amidst the cheers and amazement of the spectators.

Once everyone was good and warmed up we headed into the main garden and immediately found our ladies where they had been the night before. The next few hours proceeded as the day before, drinking, watching Argentines try to pick up our blonde friends, and altogether madness. It was a lot different watching this whole spectacle from a sober perspective. Drunk people are silly. Especially Christina.

It was only when the night was dying down when the fun began. Around 1 am:
Haukur - "I'm drunk and I hate this and I want to be in my bed."
Travis - "I can't do it anymore, I will fall over if I drink more beer."
Horacio and Finn - "RAGE!"
I was sober and tired and decided it was time to head home as well so Haukur, Travis and myself made our way for the exit. They have a rule in Oktoberfest that you can't take the beer out of the designated area, and Haukur had a full beer. But rules don't apply to Haukur. An ambulance came through the gate and Haukur used it as his opportunity to get out. A cop tried to stop him and grabbed him by the arm but Haukur kept walking and simply told him to 'fuck off'. When we made our way out it was around 1:30 in the morning. The next 3 and a half hours proceeded like this:
- There are about 5 cabs in that little town so we walk to the end and try to hitchhike.
- One guy stops in the first 20 min but is heading in the other direction. No luck.
- Haukur is yelling what I assume are obsenities in Icelandic.
- We walk back into town to try and find a cab.
- Haukur passes out on the street.
- We give up on the cabs, not gonna happen, and head back out once again.
- Haukur loses his mug, there is anger in his eyes, he is cursing even more.
- I chase after Haukur who goes to look for his mug and come back to find Travis asleep holding on to a tree.
- We continue to try and hitchhike, Travis passes out with his thumb extended in the street.
- Run into Gavin, our Irish friend, and discover that Irish people are the greatest people in the world. Muy buena onda.
- I finally drag them up to the bus station to try one last time for a cab.
- Haukur "This is never going to work."
- 2 minutes later I had a cab.
- Haukur "Chris, I can't believe you did it."
- I save the day.

We arrive home around 5 am take 15 steps out of the cab and Travis starts to vomit all over the side of the cabin. I'd say it was a sucessful day.

Oktoberfest Day Two

2008-10-30T23:04:00.000-04:00

Saturday morning we rose early on our own around 10. We had had our fair share of tranquility and we were ready to drink. Only problem was that we were missing the other two members of the team. A taxi pulled up around 11 with the big cat from Iceland inside. Finnur, our faithful companion had arrived, ready to drink and toting a... hacky sac? Yes, a hacky sac. My stoner days had come full circle. I threw on Travis' Birkenstocks and got some good hackin' action in as we waited for our final teammate. Horacio arrived around noon, walking down the path, gear in hand. Apparently the Argentines don't get the full service because he had been dropped off 2 km back at the grocery store and had to walk his way in.

At this point Javier comes by and does his jive talk with Horacio and tells us that there are 4 girls that are arriving that day from Buenos Aires to stay in the cabin next to us. We didn't end up meeting them that day, we tried to keep our expectations low, but the girls being next door is an important fact to keep in mind for later on in the story.

It was time for some beer. Of course, we are too cool to be taking taxi's back and forth from town all the time, so we decided to get down with the people and take the colectivo into town. This was no colectivo like us city dwellers were used to. We crossed the river (literally had to walk across it) and walked down a series of dirt roads looking for where to take the bus. Passing by a number of half-built and delapidated houses we finally asked some locals where to catch it. They told us it comes down the 'avenue' every thirty minutes and all we had to do was wait on the corner of any of the streets. The 'avenue' was just the widest dirt road they had. At this point it was around noon and close to 90 degrees outside. We ended up waiting at the bus stop, which was next to the chicken coup, for about half an hour until we finally caught what would be the slowest bus of all time into town.

Now, I should mention that I had had an eye infection brewing for the previous two days. Thursday night the annoyance in my eye had turned into a stye, and by Saturday morning it was infected and looked like I had eaten a knuckle sandwich. Before the drinking was to begin I had to see a doctor. Problem was, I had forgotten my insurance in Buenos Aires. But wait, we are in Argentina where anything is possible. So of course when I arrived at a private clinic with Horacio, he simply used his insurance for me, and I got everything for free.

So the doctor told me that I had an infected stye and that it was time for some antibiotics to fix it up. The problem was, I couldn't drink. I had come all this way, 12 hours on a bus for a BEER festival, and this asshole thinks I'm not gonna drink any beer. No, no, no. My eye could wait. I put the medicine in my bag and went bought a beer. The cool thing was that you had to buy your own Stein to drink the beer out of so we each had our one liter mugs with us and a belt so we could wear them over our shoulders. We were strapped and ready to drink.

Entering the gates of the festival we come upon a huge open field with people everywhere, surrounded by a large stage with performances by every European dancing troupe in South America, and a beer tent from all the companies in the area. We did our initial scouting and headed for a tent. I had decided that I was gonna try all the weirdest beers I could find that day so I started with Strawberry. I bought a full liter. The first half was delicious. The second half was disgusting. One can only drink so much syrupy fruity beer. We all found a spot in the center of the beer garden and set up for the day. We had the stage on one side, and all the craziest assholes dancing on the other. It was the best day ever, everyone was friends and everyone wanted to celebrate the gift of beer.

Throughout the day I drank a great red beer, a green beer, a honey flavored beer, and more beer, but after that I forgot what kinds and was just drinking whatever was in my glass. At around 6 in the evening, after a good 5 hours of hard drinking, rain drops started falling and in 2 minutes it was full blown pouring. We tried to get under a tarp with a bunch of people, but that just turned into a dance party so we figured it was better to just start taking off our clothes and dance in the rain. Problem was after about 20 minutes of being soaked to the bone, it got cold. Everyone headed into town to take refuge from the rain. In town Travis and I were reunited with some of our lovely ladies from school. The rain stopped and everyone headed back in where we found everyone else and the celebration continued. We were wet and cold but happy and together again. By this time in the evening my drunken state was beyond describing, and in between kissing every girl that I knew I was dancing like a madman in the rain. Unfortunately after another hour and a half the rain came back with a vengeance and they had to shut down the tents. We tried taking refuge by holding tables and chairs over our heads but it was futile and we decided it best to head back to the cabin.

But before that we of course needed more beer. How much? Well as much as we could buy of course. We ended up buying another 10 liters and switched of struggling to carry our boxes full of goodies as we made our way through town. We walked to the edge of town where we met two guys that said they would drive us home. We figured this was a great idea in our state. Just get in a car with two strangers and let them drive you to your cabin in the middle of nowhere on wet country roads after drinking all day. Who needs good judgment when you have beer? We ended up getting home fine and the guys were really nice and we gave them cab fare. It was an early night, getting back around 11, had more beer and a smoke and we all slept soundly like little babies in our beds. Well that is until about 5 in the morning that is when the rain turned into hail. Hitting the tin roof over the cabin it sounded like bombs dropping, and it was at this point we all woke up and agreed that we were glad that we had decided to rent the cabin instead of camping in our tents.

Oktoberfest Day One

2008-10-24T21:31:00.000-04:00

Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest is what happens when you put 5 guys in a cabin for 4 days in the middle of nowhere, give them lots of beer and let them run free as nature intended. But what really happened? Everything that could have happened, did. Everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong. We were stranded in the dim world of drinking, debauchery, Javier, and Carlos.

The Characters:

Christopher Brendan - The moderately sexy one, there's more to this guy than his dashing good looks. Some say he has a way with words, others call him a bullshitter. Chris tends to get into trouble by running his mouth to much, usually to the benefit of the other members of the group.

Haukur - The silent, mysterious one. Haukur plays it cool, well at least until he has 6 beers in him. Everyone knows that he is the true brains behind the whole operation. His underwear also says "Mr. Big" on it.

Travis - This big guy is all about fun. Never a care in the world, he can snap better than your mother could 30 years ago. He's a dancing queen and has no qualms about breaking it out anywhere, anytime.

Horacio - The Argentine member of our group. He keeps us in check with the Argentine culture, and he can catch horses with his bare hands. Watch out ladies, if he can do that, you better believe he could lasso you into bed.

Finnur - One guy from Iceland is a party, but two is a God Damn celebration. The big daddy of our group. Finnur, 31, can drink like a 25 year old, but unfortunately the effects of the hangover hit his old bones a little harder. He also cooks a mean breakfast of the saltiest rice and corn you will ever sink your teeth into.

On Thursday, October 9th the first part of the group which included Travis, Haukur, and myself, hopped on a bus for Villa General Belgrano, the home of the German beer festival in Argentina. We hopped on the semi-cama bus (we are, after all, men) close to ten o'clock that evening prepared for a 11 hour bus ride. Every country outside of the US has a fantastic bus system. If you have ever ridden on our Greyhound then you would understand that it just doesn't compare. Haukur was asleep in literally 10 minutes, and was out the entire ride. I settled in a watched out the window, the first time I had had a chance to see any countryside in 3 months. Dozing in and out throughout the night, we eventually arrived at around 9:30 in the morning.

After a good stretch we strolled through the town, not a soul in sight. Everyone was still sleeping off the drinking from the day before. The town looked so clean and quiet, not like we would come to know it in the next couple of days. After 10 minutes in the town one could tell that it has built it's entire economy off of this festival. The place is made for tourists, full of stores with little trinkets that you should be finding in Germany. Walking in the tourism office we come upon 2 Argentine women dressed up in little German outfits, like every sterotype you have ever seen of German girls. This is the formula...
1) Argentine women, probably the sexiest in the world.
+
2) Sexy little German fantasy outfit.
=
3) Erection.

We stocked up on the necessary supplies. Meat, bread, cheese (with holes), beer, and headed to our cabin. Our team did not actually stay in Villa General Belgrano, we had a cabin situated 10 km outside in a little place called Villa Ciudad Parque. We drove down a bumpy dirt road until we came upon our home for the next couple of days. Our cabin, one of three in the area consisted of a front porch with a table, a living area/kitchen in the main room, a bathroom, and a bedroom with 3 beds.

Now would be a good time to describe Javier, the manager of our delightful cabin. Javier, from Cordoba, came up and introduced himself when we arrived and seemed like a really awesome guy. He showed us our cabin, gave us a run down of how everything worked, and told us that if we needed anything, all we had to do was ask. Throughout the day he was nice enough to tell us where the 'grocery store' was, where we could swim in the river, and even brought us some stuff to help us with our asado. What a nice guy Javier is. But wait, is he? No. Throughout the weekend we discovered that living out in the middle of nowhere too long makes you fucking weird. He also almost killed us. I'll get to that later.

We threw our packs down on the floor, stepped outside and listened. We heard nothing. Absolutely nothing. After three months in Buenos Aires where the noise of colectivos, people, and dogs never ceases, we were in Heaven. We had a breakfast that consisted of salami and cheese sandwiches, bananas, and beer. For the next hour we sat on the front porch staring at each other. I think we said less than 50 words. We were full of bliss. Slowly, somehow we all shifted into the living room, Haukur and myself on the daybed and Travis on the floor. In 10 minutes we were all asleep. Eventually Travis and I moved to our respective bunks, and we took the nap of all naps. The Cordoba nap. There was no alarm clocks, nothing to wake up too, we slept in the pure happiness of not having any responsibilities.

We woke with a hunger in our bellies and headed to the shop for some meat. Along the way we met Frank. He was a real swell guy. Never said too much and was always down for hanging out. Frank would keep us company whenever we needed some supplies. Back at the cabin a couple of beer bottles and 3 pounds of meat later, we had some time to kill before we started cooking so Haukur decided it would be a good idea to climb the water tower. Haukur, when it comes to climbing shit is basically an albino monkey. Making up to the top, it was Travis and I's turn to try. This is the point where I learned that limberness is not one of my foremost qualities, being blessed with more of a stocky build. I stayed at the bottom while the other two talked about the awesome view, or whatever.

Travis, our good southern boy, took over the cooking and made us some of the best chori and steak that has graced my taste buds. We drank, ate, and told embarrassing stories. Suddenly, Haukur looks up, and in the most nonchalant manner one can say it, he says, "Hey, there's a wolf." Turning around Travis and I discover there is indeed a wolf behind us. Well, it was a dog, but in our drunken state we thought for about a minute that he was a wolf. Wolf dog was cool, we gave him some meat bones and he went on his way. We finished a couple more liters of beer and hit the sack around 10 o'clock, concluding one the most peaceful days of our lives.

Thank You San Martin

2008-08-19T18:12:00.001-04:00

Photos courtesy of Haukur Sigurðsson. http://www.flickr.com/photos/haukurr

La Boca and Palermo

2008-07-31T18:53:00.000-04:00

Recoleta

2008-07-28T10:20:00.000-04:00

3 Weeks

2008-07-20T01:10:00.000-04:00

I love the people here.

Buenos Aires

2008-07-11T21:17:00.002-04:00

I live here.