Parque Nacional Naguel Huapi II

bueno,

well, i was kicking around a few ideas last week in bariloche. wasn´t sure where i wanted to go or what i wanted to do. i tossed around the idea of catching a ferry south to puerto natales, chile through the chilean fjords. tossed around the idea of sliding north a few hours to try to catch a glimpse of acongagua, the tallest peak in south america. but i decided to head south, despite the weather warnings of everyone i´ve met in bariloche, to ushuaia. the ambigiously southernmost town in the world. so here i am, in tierra del fuego overlooking the harbor lights on the beagle channel...

i read in my guidebook that ushuaia still had the feel of a ´pioneer´ town on the edge of civilization. so i kind of expected to arrive to a sleepy little fishing town with an adequate tourist infrastructure, pubs and seafood restaurants on every street, and a girl to guy ratio comparable to alaska. i kind of got knocked off my feet in my first few hours! ushuaia´s actually a boppin´ little coastal town. salty sea mariners with red beards, gorgeous women everywhere, as many blonde haired argentines as i´ve seen anywhere in the country, teenage skaters and snowboarders cruising the streets in packs of 10 or 15. comparable to seward, alaska but bigger, with much more boogie. don´t have much to write about regarding tierra del fuego itself, since i´ve only been here a few hours. perhaps in the coming days... what i can say is that there´s a fair amount of snow here, it´s situated south of the straight of magellan, and it´s on the beagle channel. a few famous gentlemen have perused these waters in centuries past, including mr. charles darwin himself. pretty cool..

as for my last week in bariloche.. i decided to poke around cerro tronador (the thunderer), which is the tallest peak in the region. i talked to a few locals about tronador, and they told me that it´s called tronador not for the thunderstorms that pass through regularly in the summer, but because of its geothermal/tectonic activity that produces a rumble or two every now and then. the thunderer. anyway, it´s a pretty serious volcanic peak covered in glaciers. sounded like a good place to pitch a tent and spend a few nights outside. the first day started a bit damp and drippy with a steady drizzle. i met two hilarious folks at the trail head... a country girl from ireland and a party boy from amsterdam, and we headed up in the rain. we climbed and climbed, and the weather got worse. we eventually found ourselves above the treeline in perhaps the nastiest storm i´ve ever been exposed to. steady winds of at least 40 miles an hour with gusts at least double that. strong enough to knock all of us off our feet a couple times. the rain was intense as well, which felt as though we were literally getting sprayed with a fire hose from about 30 feet away. my rain gear and rain fly thoroughly failed, as did everyone else´s. luckily there was refugio about 2 hours ahead of us, which meant we progressed through the brutal storm above treeling for two more hours. we got to the refugio to find that all of our tents, sleeping bags, etc. were soaked through and through, so we forked out the extra $20 for a hot steak and potato dinner complete with a warm bed and a cold beer. like i said in the last email... i don´t think i could describe anything better than these refugios. this one was situated about 50 yards from an enormous tongue of one of the various tronador glaciers. literally 15-20 waterfalls surging from various crevasses into the valley below the refugio. pretty rediculous indeed.

so i guess that´s it for now.. i´ll be in ushuaia for a few days or more, after which time i´ll be meeting my pal allan in a town about 13 hours north of here by bus... should be good to run into a friendly face after more than a month of solo travels down yonder. hope everyone´s getting a taste of spring in the northern hemi...

word up,

daven