Pétur

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.