The Finale

I just got back to Venezuela. I think I left off right before New Year's on the blog. Essentially what happened is for New Year's many of my friend took off to Valparaiso, Chile. Supposedly it's an amazing place to be, with thousands of people from around the world coming to celebrate. Me being the worst decision maker in the world, decided to go the day of, and try to buy a bus ticket. Every bus was booked full, I even checked to Santiago, but to no avail. I ran into a french guy who was in the same boat as I was, going to the same place, so we walked for a few hours, and got dropped off on the freeway to try to hitchhike.

One car pulled over, and we thought we had some luck, but it was just a dude making a cellphone call. Two hours later it started pouring rain, so we headed back to town.

Ooh, the day before Claudia's brother was in town and he and his wife took Claudia and I around Mendoza for a little bit. The language barrier was slightly awkward, but other than that it was a really nice gesture. They took us up to a lookout point of the city, which had some historical significance, but not quite sure what it was. Probably had to do with pizza or something.






For New Year's Eve, I was supposed to meet up with Claudia, but by midnight I had no word for her. I hung out with some dudes from Buenos Aires in the hostel waiting, by about 1 O'clock I figured it was a lost cause, and we went on the roof to pass the time. Ends up about 1:30 Claudia showed up, and due to the rain, she wasn't able to get a taxi over to the hotel, so she had to wait for her brother to take her. We went out that night and had an enjoyable time.






The rest of the following days I met a few more people, hung around Mendoza, and stayed up way too late. I changed hostels a couple of times to get a different change of pace. The day before I left I wanted to do something touristy again, so I invited Claudia to come paragliding with me. It wasn't the top choice on my list, but it was the only thing going that day besides another wine tour(which I wouldn't have minded). It was actually quite incredible being up in the air all that time, and if it wasn't for the male guide straddling me hardcore from behind, it would have been the closest thing to flying.






The following day I took the night bus to Buenos Aires, spent the day there. I met up with a friend of whom I'd met before, and he showed me around the city. I got to see a couple of new things, BA is really incredible. We hit a couple of bars and had a few drinks, then we headed to a party at a hostel. The one thing I miss most about Argentina, besides the amazing food, security, beautiful women, great people, outdoors activities, wine, late nights, and everything, is the fact that they have bars. Who would've thought that something like that would make a difference? Well after living in Venezuela for a year and a half, it does.






I've come to many conclusions on this trip, mainly about my own personal life, and what I'm looking for at the moment, and unfortunately it isn't here in Venezuela. I made amazing friends, and great connections for future travel. I met so many people who just up and quit their jobs, to travel and experience the world. Many of the people were couples, many weren't. Surprisingly most of them were from Australia or New Zealand, none of them were from the USA. Some had plans to work in other countries to get by when they were done, others had jobs awaiting them, and some had nothing. I understand much more of what is going on in my life right now, and I felt super trapped for awhile. I'm very happy to have had this experience to point me in the right direction, and not get caught up solely in financial or work issues. Until next time Argentina!

Mendoza, Vineyards, Horses, Lack of Sleep, and Skatespots

Mendoza is wine country essentially. I got in on the morning of the 24th, hoping I´d meet some people to pass Christmas time with. It looked doubtful when I arrived, but people filled into the hostel as the day passed. The night of Christmas Eve I was hoping to go out to dinner with some people, but we ended up having a big parrilla at the hostel.



For some reason I was really sick that day, so I was unable to eat, and went to sleep. I work up about 3:00 am and everybody was still out, so I joined them for a drink. We kept talking about how late Argentinans stay out at night, and when about 5:45 am rolled around, we decided to take a walk outside. All the bars were still open, and not just open, but completely packed! George(a British guy staying in the same dorm) went out and had an incredibly interesting time. Needless to say, I found the girl of my dreams, found out she was a lesbian, and we met a racist Argentinean trying to pass his cousin off to us because he wanted to go to a brothel.

I couldn´t fall back asleep that morning because of the heat, and a new German ended up in our hostel. We walked downtown to try to find something to do on Christmas day. Everything that I had wanted to do was closed, so we ended up doing horseback riding.







It was overpriced and super touristy, and only lasted for about 30 minutes. The good thing about it was there was a parilla after with wine, and I got to meet some interesting people from Copenhagen. They finished college and were taking a year off to travel before going back to school. I still haven´t met a single person from the states doing something like this on this trip.

That Christmas night George and I went out again with people from the hostel, and once again we didn´t return to the hostel until past 6 am.

The following day we took a bus out to Maipu, which is the place where most of the vineyards are. We rented bikes to ride around the town, and tour each bodega.



We got to one bodega, and did a tour before the rest closed. Lesson learned to leave early.





Later that night a girl I met the previous night before showed me around town, and once again we ended up staying up until about 7 am this morning. Now I have the predicament of going to Valparaiso, Chile, with some people I met, or stay in Mendoza to spend the new year.

I left quite a bit out of what happened these last few days, but they have been quite important to me, and some of the best times I´ve had on this trip so far. I really developed strong relationships with those people in my dorm, and today they all left, so a part of me is feeling a little empty at this moment. Needless to say I should be getting to sleep, since 4 days in a row without more than 4 hours is not healthy by any means. Here I´ll leave some skatespots in Mendoza!

Bariloche, Hippy Woman, and Me vs the Babies

Oh man, just arrived to my hostel in Mendoza from a 19 hour battle against rabid babies. It´s true. Well maybe not the rapid part, or the battle part, but I definitely considered summoning the might of the forces of old to defeat my enemies. I´ll get to that later.

When I got to Bariloche from El Chalten, I was pretty damn tired. Woke up the next day and sampled some öf the world renowned chocolates and ice cream that lied within the city limits. Bariloche is in Argentina´s lake district, on a lake, and is a very touristy place. Reminds me a little bit of Traverse City, Michigan, but with mountains. Very beautiful, and prices are hiked up due to, well, tourists. Apparently it´s a place for snowboarding in the winter as well, as I saw Milosport and Alta stickers on the window in my hostel.




After walking the town, I met up with an Italian friend of mine who I met in El Calafate. We walked around and grabbed a drink, and enjoyed a pleasant night. She spoke English, Italian, and Spanish all pretty well, and coming in contact with so many Europeans makes me infinitely jealous of their culture and language advantages.

The following day, I woke up and bought my bus ticket at the station. Headed for Mendoza the next day at 1:30. A 19 hour night bus? Not too bad, or so I thought.

After I bought the ticket, I started to get ancy, so decided to try to hike to Cerro Otto, which people normally take a bus to, and take the teleferico up to the top. I saw a dirt road and a worn down sign that said Cerro Otto, so I decided I´d take it. After walking about an hour and a half in the scorching sun on an endless path, I decided maybe it was time to stop.

This is when something super bizarre happened. A little grey car pulled up, and out of it a women shouted at me, asking if I needed a ride in Spanish. I saw two more women in the car, and figured this couldn´t be a bad idea, so I hopped on in. We drove what seemed like forever to the top of the hill. I´m glad I took the ride because I don´t think I would have made it without another water bottle. There were 3 girls, and although I can´t remember any of their names, this turned out to be my most interesting experience of the trip.




They invited me to hike with them, so we hopped a do not enter sign, and walked through some shaded paths. From here we walked maybe 30 minutes to a rock viewpoint covering many of the lakes and mountains in the surrounding area. The girls then showed me how to make mate, and shared some. If you haven´t had mate, I would recommend this argentinean tea.







Then we hiked down to some hidden shack the called the refuge, which happened to be a super upper class restaurant in which you have to take a 4 wheeler to get up there. One of the girls knew the chef, and he brought us all out fondue, which was the first time I tried it, for free. Needless to say, it was delicious. Then said chef, needed to drop off some 4 wheelers for some clients, so he let us drive them down the hill to the drop off point, and drove us back up.











After that, we hiked a little more, and the girls dropped me off back at the main road to go to my hostel. These were probably the 3 coolest girls that I´d met on this trip so far, reflecting on it, I should have got their contact information for future adventures. The girls were super friendly, and a normal hike turned into something completely different.






Hopped on the bus the following morning, and that´s when the battle with the babies occurred. A day I´d like to forget, but is forever ingrained into my memory, like a horrible event that happens on a bus and is forever ingrained into your memory, usually involving babies. I´ll have to save that for later. Too much typing and too much to do.

Sleepy...

So I stayed in El Calafate for a night, then promptly headed out to El Chalten. I´d been looking forward to seeing the Fitz Roy mountain range. El Chalten is a town of about 600 people, a real frontier town. There were more tourists than people there. That´s where I´m getting a little frustrated, is that everywhere you go, there are more tourists than Argentineans, and prices are hiked up, as well as it makes it difficult to get the actual feel for travel.

When I arrived in El Chalten, there were two busloads of people coming in. I figure the accomodations were going to be super tight, didn´t really want to fight for it, so I asked the people at the bus station if I could get a ticket to Bariloche. Ends up there was one that very same night, leaving at 10:00 pm, so I devised a horribly tiring plan. Here essentially is what i´ve been doing for the last few days.

8:00 am the 19th-4 hour bus ride to El Chalten from El Calafate

12:00-Arrived in El Chalten, decided to hike Laguna Torre, 4 hour trek there, and 4 hours back.






6:00-Did the hike in 6 hours(with my bags), incredibly beautiful, couldn´t find a quite spot though, too many people. Didn´t want to rent camping equipment since i was alone, so made it back to town. Met an 11 year old who skated, in EVERY city here, I´ve seen skateboarders, even Ushuaia. Crazy. I love it, he asked me all the 11 year old questions, and apparently Rodney Mullen is still around. I did a nosemanual for about 15 feet and a varial flip and they thought I was god. Maybe they´re on to something...








10:00 pm the 20th-28 hour bus ride to Bariloche. On the famous highway 40, I heard quite a bit of hype about this road, so I figured it might be worth it. According to the Lonely Planet guide, it is ¨The ultimate roadtrip.¨ It wasnt, at all. It was a dirt road for about 75% of the trip, and we had great views of amazing flat desert sand. Everyone on the bus was coughing up a storm. Ever sat through a cough storm on bus? Not fun. Not to mention I had the best seat in the house right by the wonderfully smelly bathrooms. Everytime the door opened the entire bus filled with the rotten stench of stewing insides...nice. Two highlights of the trip, the bus driver stopped in the middle of the desert to pick up a pooping armadillo, and I met two amazing New Zealanders, who invited me to spend Christmas with them in El Bolson.



1:30 am the 21st-27 1/2 hours later from El Chalten. Got in to Bariloche and shared a cab with a couple of Frenchies to a hostel. 45 pesos a night, slept very well. Ive essentially been going nonstop for far too long, yet I still feel that I need to keep running. Probably stay here a couple of nights, just need to figure out what I want to do for Christmas.

Much love, shout out to Kandice for a happy birthday, sorry I couldn´t call but I was on the stench mobile.

Tierra Del Fuego, Getting Lost, Stopped at Customs, Etc...

Well hey ya´llz, it´s bright and early Saturday morning and I´m sitting in the beautiful little town of El Calafate, Argentina.

I left off in Tierra Del Fuego, in the world´s southernmost city, Ushuaia. The town was absolutely gorgeous, sitting on the bay with jagged snow capped peaks hanging all around. The downsides were that A: it was freezing, and B: it was very very expensive.



I grabbed a bus first thing in the morning to go to the national park, and the driver left me off supposedly near a trail head. After about 40 minutes in, I realized I was actually on no trail head at all, but just casually walking through the woods, with no sense of direction. A turned around and started back in the direction I thought I came. Luckily I came across a big slop of mud I got stuck in earlier, and found my way out to the main road.

I headed back to the main road to find some trails, luckily I found a nice little 20 minute hike which led to the 8km, 3 hour, Senda Costera trail. What it lacked by the number of people on it, it made up for it by it´s scenic views. It was really incredible.








Upon finishing the day I was exhausted, but decided to check out the bus tickets to El Calafate. I was planning on staying another day in Ushuaia, hiking to the Martial Glaciar, then heading out. To my surprise all the bus tickets on Saturday were booked, so I had no other option but to leave the following morning at 4:40 am. Bummer.

Normally I dont have too much trouble with bus rides, it was hours in time, not too bad. Here the problem was customs. First we had to exit Argentina and go through their customs. Took an hour and a half of just sitting there. Then drove 5 minutes to enter the border of Chile. Another hour and a half of lines. Then we had to hop on a boat to cross the border to the mainland of South America.



Then back to exit through customs again, but got held up at Chile. Apparently the customs officers were looking for drugs, so they pulled a few fine young chaps aside, including me. Here we sat in a room, listening to their drug babble, and telling us how severe the penalties for bringing drugs through the country were. After a wait of over an hour in a small room stuck with young people who look like drug addicts, the guys told me to lift up my shirt and go. Didnt even check my bags. Not sure what their scheme was, but it was boring and a little frightening. Then another hour to enter Argentina again.

Arrived in El Calafate at around 12:30 am. Bus loads of proper Europeans got of their buses with their premade reservations from hostelworld, where as I, who still isnt quite smart enough to make a reservation in advance, got stuck in the black of night trying to find a place to stay. After the first 5 places were closed, I hiked a decent ways uphill to find a nice little place that only charged 30 pesos a night.

It is the evening of the 18th, and I did a day trek to the Glaciar Perito Moreno. I haven´t seen anything quite like the thunderous crash of the glaciar as it wedged and broke through the valley. The colors of the glaciar varied from solid white, to a deep glowing blue. I have finally found superman´s secret lair. It was quite incredible, going to go to El Chalten tomorrow, not sure why, then Bariloche after, here are some pics!

Buenos Aires and Ushaia

I left the middle of the day from Caracas on Saturday the 11th to Buenos Aires. I´d been once as a child, but really I had no recollection of the city. I arrived super early in the morning and hopped on a bus to downtown. Everything was shutdown but I was impressed by the massive size, and how modern the city was. Huge buildings, clean streets, and just threw out a great feel. I hailed a cab, and went straight to the first hostel on my list, Palermo House Hostel.




Here I met quite a few cool people, all interesting in their own ways, and all liked to drink...a lot. No problem there. The first day I just became accostumed to the city, and walked around the area of Palermo, in which I was staying. I oggled the great restaraunts and had my first microbrew since I´d left the states.

The following day was spent waiting for an old coworker of mine, who lives in Argentina. She was supposed to meet up with me, but got stuck in traffic, and somehow we missed each other. Pretty much that whole day was wasted sitting around, but I can´t complain about any day in Buenos Aires. Later I went to a overpriced steak house with the Australians, and had an enjoyable evening hearing their banter. One of the great things about travel is the people you meet. Sometimes you run into a bunch of people who are there only to party and spray cologne all over the place while stumbling in to the hostel room at every hour of the morning, but sometimes you make some good connections.





The following day I awoke bright and early, and was determined to see as much of the city as possible. I walked ALL over the city, at least a 5 or 6 mile hike, my end goal was to go to Heladeria Cadore, an ice cream shop that I ate at when I was 12 years old. To this day the chocolate amargo was the best ice cream I´ve eaten to date. It was quite splendid. I ended up getting lost in one of the sketchier areas of Buenos Aires, but it ended up to be alright since I was able to see the more rugged side of the city.

A couple of good people that I really liked were heading out, and I found a cheap one way flight to Ushaia that was only that good price for the next day. It was that or choose a 46 hour bus ride, for a pretty expensive price. Ushaia is in Tierra Del Fuego, further south than I´d ever expect to go. Essentially it´s the end of the world on the southern end, and man is it impressive. I´m further away from home than I´ve ever been, and I feel closer to home since I´ve left the states.




Although I´m absolutely freezing, and spending wayyyyyy to much money, really this place isn´t cheap, I´m super happy to be able to have this opportunity. Next stop will be an almost 24 hour bus ride to El Calafate, from where I´m going to see Parque Nacional Perito Moreno, and check out some glaciars. And my conclusion so far in my first few days is that I´m going to marry an Argentinean, and find a way to live here someday.