A Comedy of Errors

Sometimes I think that it's the travel experiences that go awry that give you the best stories and memories later.  When things go smoothly, what's there to tell?  "Oh, I had a great hike to Machu Picchu, beautiful scenery, loved the ruins, had a great time"?  It's the times that things don't go like clockwork that you end up with a story or two.

I had that kind of experience getting to Machu Picchu.  It definitely didn`t all go according to plan ... but fortunately Machu Picchu is worth any amount of trial and tribulation getting there, and in hindsight, some of it was pretty funny.  It started in the travel agency office when I was booking my 4-day trip on the Inca Jungle Trail.

The Jungle Trail includes 1 day of mountain biking and 2 days of hiking.  I ask the woman at the agency how hard the hiking part is, as I`m a little worried about my level of fitness (I`m a lot fitter than I was in March, but still have a long way to go).  She tells me, don`t worry, it`s flat and very easy (famous last words).  I ask about the biking portion; she tells me it`s 5 hours, all downhill from 4315 metres to 1300 metres in altitude.  This sounds pretty fun so I decide to sign up.

I go to pay ($180 USD), and the woman at the agency tells me there a 7% surcharge if I pay by credit card.  Fine, I say, how much is it in Peruvian soles to pay cash?  She looks at me like I have two heads and tries to convince me I want to pay in US dollars; I tell her I don`t have enough so it`s impossible.  She sighs and pulls out a calculator, figures out a generous (for them) exchange rate and tells me it`ll be 514 nuevo soles.  I tell her I don`t have that kind of cash on me; I`ll just pay the 7% charge and use a credit card.  She tells me that, er, actually it`s impossible to use a credit card, it has to be cash.  I sigh, ask where the nearest bank machine is and come back with a thick wad of soles to pay the tab.

So I`m booked.  I ask if the strikes will affect the trip; she says no, it will definitely go as scheduled.

The night before I`m supposed to leave, I get a call at the hostel from someone speaking in very rapid Spanish; when I can get a word in edgewise, I tell him I can`t speak Spanish well and could he repeat in English?  He does; it`s someone from the tour operator (a different company than the one I made the booking with) and he tells me that the strikes are expected to continue tomorrow and they`re not sure it will be safe to go.  They`re still deciding what to do, so someone will come tomorrow morning either to pick me up or to tell me what the new plan is.  Either way, I still have to be up and ready by 6:30 a.m.

Next day, I`m up well before 6:30.  By about 7:15, someone finally shows up; it`s my guide-to-be Carlos to tell me that the trip is delayed by a day and we`ll leave tomorrow morning instead.  I flop back in bed, wishing that they had decided this the day before instead of making me get up early for no reason.

Finally, on Saturday, the trip leaves.  I`m up and ready at 6:30 a.m., but Carlos shows up an hour late to pick me up; from there we walk first to the Plaza de Armas where the bus is supposed to be waiting.  It`s not there, so Carlos makes a call and we walk about 10 minutes more to another plaza.  There are two buses waiting; Carlos tells me and an American guy named Evan to get in one, while the rest of the group gets in the other.  We sit and wait for half an hour; Carlos comes back and tells me to get in the other bus.  Then we finally leave; by this time it`s nearly 9 a.m.

We get to Abra Malaga pass (4315m in altitude) about 12 pm, where we`re starting the mountain biking part of the trip.  It`s cold and decidedly unpleasant out; the view would probably be spectacular except that a thick blanket of fog obscures it.  We can't see much more than 30 metres ahead of us on the road -- this should make for an interesting ride down a mountain highway with traffic!

Carlos tells us that the bike trip will be about two and a half hours; immediate vociferous protests from the group, as we were all told it would be 4-5 hours.  He shrugs, tells us there's construction that would make going the whole way dangerous so we have to cut it short.  None of us are pleased; you'd think our various travel agencies could've told us about this.

We set off and it's pretty enjoyable, despite the cold and fog.  I have one near-miss with a car coming around a corner at high speed and veering over into my lane; I swerve abruptly and nearly plow insto the sheer rock wall to my right.

After an hour and a half -- an hour less than promised -- we pull over and Carlos tells us we have to get a van the rest of the way to Santa Maria.  There's one van waiting, which seats 10 people (plus the driver); there are 12 in our group including Carlos the guide.  The second van that carried Evan and Carlos in the morning has carried on without us (and with Evan's backpack inside); Carlos tells us that it was another agency's van, not his, and they lent him a couple of seats since his van wasn't big enough.  He shrugs and says his cell phone doesn't work here so he can't call the driver and tell him to come back.  Evan doesn't look reassured about his backpack, even though Carlos says it will be waiting at our destination.

So 12 of us squish into 10 seats, with Carlos half sitting on me in the front seat and half hanging out the window.  We ride like this for a couple of hours to Santa Maria; no one is comfortable and everyone is cranky.  We finally get there about 4 pm and have a very late lunch; dinner is at 7:30 but no one is really hungry again by then.

Hiking starts the next day.  The morning is about 3 hours steeply uphill and up stairs; so much for the ''flat and easy'' I was promised by the travel agency!  I discover that my fitness level -- at least for uphill climbs -- is nowhere near I'd like it to be.  I lag behind the rest of the group with an Israeli girl; at least I'm not the only one!  Carlos the guide plows on ahead at a fast pace, heedless of the stragglers.

Crossing paths with the 'real' Inca Trail

We both get very annoyed by a know-it-all Swiss guy who tells us that we have to pick up the pace or we're not going to get to our destination before dark; he gives us lots of unwanted advice about how to breathe properly and pace ourselves (I tell him, thanks, I already know how to do this, I'm just not as fit as I'd like to be!)  He seems to think that we're slower because we're not trying that hard; I feel like smacking him upside the head.  Would I be red-faced, sweating and gasping for air if I wasn't working hard??

At the lunch stop (where, incidentally, we arrived 20 minutes early, despite how ''slow'' two of us were), the Israeli girl and I decide we're going to get a cab from there to Santa Teresa, that night's stop, as the afternoon is all uphill as well.  Carlos tries to convince us otherwise but we're adamant, and eventually he sorts out a taxi for us.  We climb in the taxi (really just some guy's car) with 4 people from another group:  a hilarious English girl, a couple of American guys who speak fluent Spanish, and an Irish guy.  None of them wanted to hike uphill anymore either; they'd also all been misled about the difficulty.

We make a deal with the driver for 8 soles (about $3) per person (48 soles altogether); we set off and drive for about 10 minutes in a circuitous route that gets us all quite lost.  The driver pulls over and stops the car; he begins haranguing us in loud, rapid Spanish.  The American guys translate:  he's demanding more money.  He wants 70 soles or we have to get out of his car right now, in the middle of the jungle with no idea of where we are or even how to get back to the lunch place.  We confer amonst ourselves and finally decide we don't really have a choice; we'll agree -- for now -- and argue the point when we get to our destination.

We tell the driver, fine, we'll pay; he then demands the money on the spot.  We refuse; he gets very agitated and says he'll call the cops if we don't pay him.  We finally convince him we're going to pay him when we get to our destination and he starts up the car again.

We get to Santa Teresa without further incident, and get out of the car.  After an unsuccessful argument, we give up and pay the higher amount; the difference is only about $5 total.  But it rankles; we know he'll try it again with other tourists.  We all agree that we hate walking around feeling like walking dollar signs; everyone thinks foreigners have lots of money and act as if we are obliged to share it with them.

We find out there's some natural hot springs near the town and hire a different taxi driver to take us there for 2 soles each.  The road there barely qualifies as such; it's really just a rough path cleared through a field of rocks, bumpy and rutted and winding.  But we get there and the hot springs are great, just what our sore muscles needed; we reluctantly get ready to leave at 6 pm when the taxi driver is supposed to return.

We wait, and wait, and wait, in the growing darkness -- there are no lights and the sun sets early here -- and the taxi driver still hasn't returned.  Another van shows up and the American guys ask him if he can take us back to town instead; he agrees, for a tourist-gouging price of 5 soles each.  We decide to start walking instead; it's dark but it's just one road back to town so we think we can't get lost.

We're about halfway back to town when the original taxi driver finally shows up.  We argue for a reduced rate -- 1 sole each intsead of the original 2 we agreed to -- since he was nearly 45 minutes late and we had to walk a long way in the dark.  He shrugs, rattles off a lot of excuses about why it's not his fault, and insists on the original deal.  We weigh the options of continuing to walk in the dark (it hasn't been particularly fun) or paying the higher amount; in the end we pile in the taxi and carry on to town.

Partway there, the taxi gets stuck in the sand and dirt.  After a few minutes of fruitlessly rocking back and forth, we all get out of the car and help push.  Eventually, after much grunting and heaving, the car is unstuck and we climb back in to carry on to town, where we go out for a big dinner and then to the local discoteca, playing old 1970's disco and pop.  One of the American guys in our group wakes up the next morning to discover that his dream about a rat on his chest was real; there's a big hole gnawed in his blanket.

The third day's hiking is much easier than the first.  It gets dull, actually, just following a river and then some railroad tracks the whole way to Aguas Calientes.  The Israeli girl is still struggling a bit; I think that I would be able to keep up with the group but I opt instead to stay with her.  No one -- least of all a small, slight foreign woman -- should have to hike alone down a deserted Peruvian road, and the guide Carlos once again doesn't seem to notice or care.

We get to the very unattractive town of Aguas Calientes by about 4 pm and check in to our hotel.  Carlos comes to find me about an hour later, tells me we have to go to the train station immediately.  My travel agency had booked my train ticket back for tonight, instead of tomorrow; when the trip was delayed by a day they hadn't changed the ticket.  We get to the station and join the line; after a hour's wait (which the ticket clerks appeared to spend on Facebook, judging by what was on their computer screens), I learn that there's a $3 US charge to change my ticket. 

Carlos shrugs -- I'm getting tired of his shrugs -- and says there's no other option.  I notice that he doesn't offer to pay it, even though he's the one in charge of this trip and should be sorting it out.  I dig out a 100-soles note (the only bill I have, I've spent everything smaller) and the ticket guy shakes his head; he can't make change.  I try to tell him that if he wants me to pay, he has to because I have nothing else, but he affects not to understand my Spanish.  I dig through all my pockets and finally come up with the equivalent 9 soles in small change.  The ticket clerk looks disgusted by the mountainous pile of coins and makes an elaborate show of counting them slowly.  Finally, I have a new ticket in hand for the correct day.

Dinner is good, and by about 8:30 we're all finished and ready to go back to our rooms, as we have a 4 a.m. start for Machu Picchu the next day.  But we don't have our entrance tickets yet and Carlos has disappeared; finally, about 10 pm, he returns and hands them out.  We're all nearly asleep by this point and stumble off to bed in a stupor.  The news that Carlos wouldn't actually be leading the hike up to Machu Picchu in the morning -- he says his job is finished now -- was news to all of us, but everyone's too tired to protest.  He gives us vague directions about how to find the trail and disappears again.

But the next day, we see Machu Picchu, and despite all the aggravation it is worth it.  It is a mystical, magical, marvelous place and we spent the entire day roaming around -- I'll tell you all about it in the next post.  But right now, I have to continue the saga of our misadventures.

We hang around Aguas Calientes till 9 pm (it's not that exciting a town, and prices are very inflated), and head to the train station.  We got on the so-called ''backpacker'' train (slightly less expensive and less comfortable than the ''regular'' train) without difficulty, but after about half an hour the train stops dead; it's broken down.  We wait for about 3 hours and eventually get underway again, but instead of getting all the way to Ollantaytambo (the intended final stop), we have to get off one stop earlier.  A bridge has washed out further down the line and we can't carry on.  So we pile on the waiting minibuses and head off again down rough mountain roads; by this time it's about 2 a.m. (we were originally supposed to be back in Cusco by 12:30).

In Ollantaytambo, there's a bus waiting for all of us, so the tour operator at least got that part of it right.  It's another two hours to Cusco, and we finally roll back into the city at 4:45 a.m.  I stumble to the hostal on the Plaza de Armas where I've booked my room (I didn't want to climb all those stairs up to my original hostel in the middle of the night), and they can't seem to find any record of my reservation.  I finally take the reservation book from the guy at the desk and flip through it till I find my name; I point it out and he seems very surprised.  He waffles another 20 minutes or so, going off to consult with someone else at one point, before he figures out what room I'm supposed to be in.  (I could have told him in one glance -- there was only one key still hanging on their pegboard.)

I ask him what time breakfast is served and he says 6:30.  Obviously I don't want to get up again in less than two hours, so I ask how late it is served till -- I can say this much in Spanish so I'm pretty sure I get it right!  But he doesn't seem to understand me and starts flipping through his reservation book again.  I attempt to explain a couple more times what I want to know, but he still doesn't get it; I eventually give up and go off to bed, figuring I'll take my chances in the morning.

The next morning, I'm up about 9:30 and surprisingly wide awake, considering I was awake for 25 hours straight the previous day.  I go to the breakfast room and help myself to coffee; hotel staff keep going past me so I know they've seen me sitting there.  After waiting about 20 minutes, I finally stop one of them and ask if there is food for breakfast too; she looks very surprised and hustles off to find someone else, who eventually brings me a couple of rolls and some jam.  I'm starving so I wolf it down.

I get back to my original hostel later that morning, and sit down to sort through my pictures of Machu Picchu.  They just make me smile; I realize that it was all worth it, after all.

It's Not Paranoia if They Really Are After You

I was thinking about this yesterday -- well, not "paranoia" exactly, but where exactly the line is drawn between good sense in trusting your instincts, and being overly cautious, seeing potential danger where none might exist.  I pretty much go with my gut; if something feels "off" or makes me uncomfortable, I don't do it or I get the hell out of wherever it is.  I like to think that, after 20 years of looking after myself and navigating big-city life, that my instincts are pretty reliable.

I'm fine with things that make other women I know nervous -- walking around downtown Toronto late at night, for example -- because I have enough experience to tell me that it'll be fine.  Hey, I used to live at the corner of Jarvis and Gerrard, right near the "hooker Harvey's", when I first moved to Toronto, and walked home many a night by myself with no incidents.  (Except for one night I was mistaken for a hooker myself and almost arrested, but it was the fault of my Hallowe'en costume and some unfortunate coincidences.  But that's another story.)   I can travel other strange cities with ease and without worrying; I remember going to Washington with my Jeansmarines women for the marathon and realizing just how much more seasoned a traveller I was than many of them.  Some of them were overwhelmed just by the task of getting on the Metro and I had to shepherd them through it.

I`m conscious when I'm travelling that a women alone is more vulnerable -- I hate it, but it's a reality any female backpacker has to live with -- so there are things I choose not to do by myself.  Sometimes this means passing up things that I want to do, and I wonder if I play it too safe sometimes -- am I missing out on experiences that could have been rewarding, am I worrying for no reason?  I was thinking about this yesterday, after I came back from my hike. 

I went southwest of Cafayate heading for the Rio Colorado, and from there I was going to carry on up the river to a waterfall about an hour and half upstream.  While I was still about two kilometres from the river, though, a man appeared out of a side trail and started walking along with me, on the other side of the road.  At first, it was fine -- he seemed nice enough, we chatted amiably and I enjoyed the chance to practice my Spanish.  I held up my end of the conversation pretty well, although once in a while what I had to say was dictated more by what words I know than what I actually wanted to say!

By the time we got to the river, though, it started to feel ... off.  I don't mean threatening, exactly, just that something didn't quite feel right.  His questions were getting much more personal -- how many boyfriends did I have in Canada?  Did I have any boyfriends in Argentina?  Where was I staying?  Was I staying alone?  Did I know anybody here?  Why didn`t my friends come hiking with me?

He urged me to carry on with him on the path to the waterfall.  "It's a short walk, just up ahead -- it will only take 10 minutes -- and it's very beautiful, you will love it," he insisted. 

I took a look at the narrow, overgrown path leading off into the woods.  I looked around and realized there was no one else for miles around.  I remembered that my guidebook had said it was at least an hour and a half to walk to the waterfall ... not ten minutes.

So I "suddenly" noticed how late it was getting and exclaimed that I had to get back to town to meet my husband.  (Fake husbands or boyfriends are very useful things to bring travelling.)  I was already going to be late and he would be worried if I was any later.  With a hasty good-bye, I started back down the road towards Cafayate, and I never did get to see the waterfall.

He didn't follow me.  So if he was really just a nice guy who only wanted to help out a tourist or who was only looking for conversation with an interesting foreigner, then I'm sorry for thinking ill of him.   (But, really, I couldn't stand up my imaginary husband, could I?)  However, if he wasn't actually a nice guy ... then it could've gone very, very wrong had I not turned around and walked away.

But that's the thing about trusting your instincts.  You won't ever know what would have happened if you hadn't listened to them, if you'd made a different choice.  You can't tell whether anything bad would've happened, or not, so you can't judge whether you're being sensible or overly paranoid.  But I figure that, if I do something contrary to what my instincts tell me, then I'm going to be uncomfortable and worried the whole time anyway -- so even if it turns out to have been perfectly safe, I won't really have enjoyed it.

I have a pretty good idea, now, of what's a good idea for me and what isn't, but I'm sure everyone's comfort level or sense of security is different.  Where do you draw that line?

Where the Viento Zonda Blows

Cafayate, Argentina is one of my new favourite cities. Well, towns ... it`s perhaps about six blocks square so it doesn`t quite rank as a city. There is one main square, and one main street, and a scattering of parillas, cafes and hotels to take care of the tourists who come in droves to drink some fine torrontes wine and explore the weird and wonderful countryside around the town.  How grapes can grow in what is essentially a desert (complete with cacti and tumbleweed), I still haven`t figured out.   Today, on Sunday, the entire population of the town appears to have congregated in the square, and I could hear the church bells ringing all morning

The viento zonda has quieted today. It`s a warm, dry wind that travels down off the Andes -- northern Argentina`s equivalent to Alberta`s chinook -- and it blew fiercely for the past two days. It made for hot, dusty travel as I went south on Friday to just over the border in Tucumán province and the ruins of Quilmes, and yesterday as I went north through the Quebrada de las Conchas in the Valle Calchaquies. But it’s astonishing countryside around Cafayate, and well worth the heat and the dust; I do have some clothes that will never quite be clean again, though. The red dirt here is like the Australian Outback’s that way: once it’s there, the colour is there to stay.

This afternoon I am lazing on my balcony after a late start to the morning and a wander around the town. I am much happier, right now, than I have been for quite a while; time and space and permission to stop and recharge for a few days seems to have been just what I needed. The hotel is lovely, and the owner very charming; she seemed to realize immediately that I knew some Spanish but am not yet fluent, so she speaks to me in clearly enunciated and slowed-down Spanish that I can (mostly) grasp. She does speak perfect English as well, but she seems to have guessed that I like the chance to practice! And she doesn`t react to my attempts at Spanish as some people do, when they coo condescendingly “Oh, isn’t she cute trying to speak our language”.

Quilmes ruins, near Cafayate

Friday I decided on a whim to go to the Quilmes ruins about 60 km south of town along Ruta 40 (the same Ruta 40 that starts thousands of miles away in El Calafate, one of my first stops on this trip). It’s a bumpy, rutted road through wide-open country, ringed by mountains and dotted by towering cardón cacti 4 or 5 times my height. I travelled with a French couple that I’d been chatting to in the square, neither of whom spoke much English; fortunately some French knowledge does exist, buried in the recesses of my brain, and I could dig it out well enough to get by!

It got interesting when we got to Quilmes, though. Quilmes is Argentina’s oldest surviving ruin, dating back to about 1200 A.D., and it made it mostly unscathed through the Inca invasion and conquest.. It eventually fell to the Spanish in the 17th century, and the population was forcibly relocated to Buenos Aires (which still has a suburb named Quilmes, although few descendants remain). It’s a huge open ruin built up the side of a mountain; how far up you lived reflected your family’s social status, with the chief living at the top.

You can wander around on your own, and there are also guides on site to give you a history of the site. This is where it got interesting: our guide didn’t speak any English, but spoke deliberately slowly and carefully so we could grasp most of what he was saying. So if I understood him, I did my best to translate into French for the other two, and if they understood more, they`d translate for me (also into French). Or they`d ask me questions in French, for me to translate into Spanish and ask the guide. My brain physically hurt by the end of the afternoon, as I attempted to keep three languages straight in my head! And I was quite muddled for the rest of the day, throwing in French accidentally when I was trying to say something in Spanish. Fortunately, it`s often quite similar, so I can still usually make myself understood.

The French couple understood me well enough but were quite confused by my accent, though, till they learned I was from Canada; then they decided it was a `Canadian` French accent they were hearing. I didn`t tell them that my French accent is pretty muddled, too; after high school French taught by an Acadian and an Argentine (whose unique Spanish accent may have carried over into her French), I don`t actually know what kind of accent I have! Except that I don`t apparently sound TOO much like an Anglo, which makes me happy.

And in English, my accent confuses people sometimes too – I travelled north to the Quebrada in the company of some Brits yesterday, and they were all convinced (till I told them otherwise) that I was Irish. (Not sure if that`s the Phelpston or the Newfy side coming out ... ) Maybe next time I`ll just go along with it, and make up a whole new history for myself. Part of the fun of travel is that you get to re-invent yourself, after all!

The Quebrada (gorge, in Spanish) is a stretch of mountains and rock formations, that stretches for about 80 km north of Cafayate. The rocks don`t look like they`ve just eroded gradually over time; they look tortured and twisted by a giant unseen hand into fantastic and other-worldly shapes. And they are all the colours of the rainbow, just about, from the various minerals present that have oxidized – red and green and blue and yellow, layered on top of each other and shining brilliantly in the afternoon sun.

Garganta del Diablo

The most spectacular formation is probably the Garganta del Diablo, or Devil`s Throat; walking into this canyon did feel like walking into the maw of the earth, with it poised to swallow us whole. Those of us in adequate footwear (I am so glad I brought hiking boots after all!) scrambled over rocks and up sheer rock walls nearly to the end, walls of stone looming ominously around us.

The rest of the group waited near the entrance; what they were thinking in the outfits they chose that day, I`m really not sure. There was an English girl dressed as if she was off to a club, with cute little impractical slip-on shoes; one German girl in a denim skirt, purple shiny tights and a thick wool sweater and socks (on a very hot day); and a second German girl who was wearing what looked like pajama bottoms with flip-flops. Not exactly the best choices for hiking or climbing up rocks ...

We made it back to Cafayate as the sun set, and it got significantly colder after dark. But, as I have a fantastically large tub for my own exclusive use, it was easy to warm up again in a hot bath, as I sipped a glass of torrontes. I might stay another couple of days here -- I was supposed to leave tomorrow – as I`m enjoying this too much to rush away too soon. I`ll make some other budget trade-offs (maybe I`ll skip the $120 US Tren de las Nubes in Salta), and it`ll all be fine. And I`ll have a glass of torrontes tonight for you, too (but only one, since I`m going hiking tomorrow). Salud!

A Very Specific Fear

(I meant to add some of this entry to my previous blog post, but I see now that was a little long anyway, so probably better that I forgot!)

I don’t have any phobias, really, unless you count anxiety at having to walk into a room full of complete strangers and make small talk for five hours over cocktails. Or I didn’t think I did, anyway. But I discovered that I have a fear of heights ... sometimes.

High balconies don’t faze me. I can jump up and down on the glass floor at the CN Tower without batting an eyelash. I went happily ziplining in Costa Rica, hundreds of feet in the air, without so much as a twinge of fear.

Put me on a Mayan temple, though – one of those that have very narrow, very steep stone steps from a high top platform – and I’m petrified. I discovered this about 3 years ago when I went gallivanting around Mexico, Belize and Guatemala with Shelley. Going up the Jaguar Temple at Tikal was fine; getting down again was an exercise in sheer terror. (And there are no elevators in Mayan tempIes; advanced as they were, they didn’t think of that.) I think Shelley just laughed at me inching my way down the steps with quivering knees; she’s heartless that way.

The other time that a fear of heights rears its ugly head, for me, is riding down chairlifts. I’m used to going up, having had lots of practice on ski hills over the years, so that didn’t faze me at Cerro Catedral (where I went Wednesday) or Cerro Campanario (where I went yesterday). But put me in a chairlift going DOWN the hill, with distressingly hard rock and barren earth below instead of nice soft cushy snow, and I’m terrified. It didn’t help that the chairlift at Cerro Campanario rattled so hard that I was convinced that bolts were working themselves loose, or that it kept stopping for no apparent reason and left my chair swinging wildly in the fierce wind. I gripped that chairlift bar so tightly I nearly cut off circulation in my fingers.

I decided at first to walk down Cerro Campanario instead of take the chairlift, to avoid just that situation. That was fine, even though it was windy and rainy and the path was turning to mud ... until I realized that the trail had taken a sharp turn AWAY from the direction of the road. And that I wasn’t actually sure it went to the road at all; it could’ve been going to some remote mountain refuge 14 miles away for all I knew. So I sighed heavily and hiked back up, rationalizing that it was good exercise for my legs anyway.

I survived the harrowing chairlift ride, dear reader (but then you knew that, as I wouldn’t otherwise be writing here). And fortunately neither of these situations arise frequently in my day-to-day life, so my particular phobia is not a debilitating one. If I ever get to El Mirador in Guatemala, though – with the tallest temple in the Mayan world – I’ll have to brace myself. There’s no way I’m NOT going up it, so I’ll just have to figure out the “down” part of it. Perhaps I can hire a brawny Kiwi backpacker to carry me down ... hmmm.

Anyway, now that I’ve unburdened myself, I should tell you too that I’m leaving Bariloche tomorrow, heading on to Puerto Madryn on the coast in what is nicknamed “Welsh Patagonia” because of the number of immigrant from that particular part of the world. Bydd yn ddrwg gennyf i adael Bariloche ... but I’m also happy to hit the road again! (That’s Welsh, by the way, courtesy of an online translation site. Thought I'd get in the spirit of the thing. “I’ll be sorry to leave Bariloche” ... at least that’s what it’s supposed to mean. If the website lied, and I accidentally said something rude, I apologize to any Welsh speakers who may be reading this.)

My bus is at 6 pm tomorrow, and will be my first experience of overnight bus travel in South America. I’m told they do it very well, so the 14 hours should pass quickly enough. They will even feed me, and give me a seat that reclines all the way so I can actually sleep. I’ll take a picture if I remember so I can show you.

I’m going to say goodbye to Bariloche properly tomorrow with one of the things it is best known for: chocolate. There are 3 things, mainly, that Bariloche is famous for: skiing, trekking and chocolate. I figure I’ve done enough of #2 (and would have done #1, were it the season), so I can indulge in #3 to my heart’s content. Er, stomach’s content. Whatever.

Chocolaterias abound in this town (and I love that there is a specific word for chocolate stores in Spanish), and I’m going to check out a few. I had chocolate ice cream at Rapa Nui on Friday (see picture to left), but I also want to try their hot chocolate with chilli, and go to a couple other stores that are supposed to be mouth-wateringly good. I’d offer to bring some back for you all to try, but I don’t think chocolate would survive 3 months on the road. (Plus I don’t think I’d have the willpower to get it all the way back uneaten.)

Talk to you again from Puerto Madryn! Keep your fingers crossed for me that the bus is as comfortable as they say, otherwise it`s going to be a long 14 hours.

Chairlifts Are Easier on Skis

I don’t tend to think of Argentina when I think about skiing. But there are some very large mountains right next door to Bariloche, so this is a ski centre for Argentina. I visited a ski resort yesterday – Cerro Catedral – which is (I believe) the largest in South America. There was a little bit of snow, right near the top, but it’s not ski season yet; that comes around in June. For now, the ski runs are still dusty, barren expanses of sand and rock.

Two of the lifts were running, though, so that interested tourists (like me, although nearly everyone else was Argentine) can get to the top and check out the views. (You can check it out to the left … picture snow instead of the dirt and rocks, and I think you’d be looking down a very nice, broad, cruising blue run.) Top of the mountain is about 2500 metres, so you can see for miles around.

The first lift was easy enough – a gondola called the Cable Carril – but the second was a bit of a challenge. A chairlift took me to the very top; while I’ve long since mastered the art of getting on and off chairlifts gracefully WITH skis, it’s a different story without. Getting on isn’t so bad, but getting off was entertaining (at least when I watched other people do it). The chairlift guy grabs you by the elbow and kind of swings you around out of the path of the chair; picture square-dancing, without the cheesy music.

But the views were absolutely worth it. I’d forgotten to bring a lunch, so I ate in the restaurant at the top of the mountain called Refugio Lynch (don’t ask me why the “Lynch”; he could’ve been one of the multitude of British immigrants who ended up around here in the latter part of the 19th century.) There’s a large open deck with tables and loungers, so you can hang out with a sandwich and a beer and drink in the panaroma before you. I did, for at least an hour.

Then I hiked some around the top of the mountain, to work off the jamon y queso and the cerveza, My legs had better end up in good shape after this stay in Bariloche; not only is the town itself basically one big hill (so anytime I head south, such as getting back to the hostel from downtown, I have to walk uphill or up steep stairs), but I’ve done a few of the hikes around the area. Tomorrow I’m going to Cerro Campanario, which my Spanish teacher assures me is the most beautiful of all.

Last Sunday was Cerro Otto, which is smaller than Catedral and hike-able to the top; what I hadn’t realized before I started out was that I’d have to walk 5 km first just to get to the start of the 8-km hike to the top. Then I hiked around some of the trails from the top, up and down mountainsides that made me feel like I was one of the Von Trapps in the Sound of Music, escaping on foot over the Alps. Fortunately, no Nazis made an appearance, only a few other determined hikers, like me, who appeared to think a half-marathon distance up and down the sides of mountains was a good idea.

I did a little bit of hiking in El Bolsón, too, but Saturday was a cold and rainy day so didn’t venture too far. Mostly, I spent my afternoon at the market, eating ridiculously large waffles, sampling the local artesan ice cream (their chocolate profundo flavour is heaven on earth) and the locally made beer. I did a little happy dance when I found the beer again in a store in Bariloche, and I’m sipping one right now – El Bolsón cerveza artesenal con frambuesa is seriously good, and a bargain at only 12 pesos (about $3). (You can buy cheaper -- Quilmes, another Argentine beer, goes for about $1.50 for a litre bottle -- but for me, personally, I prefer to buy less but buy what I really like when I do.) Anyway, all the snacking put an end to thoughts of hiking again, and I chilled out – as a good hippie should -- till the return bus to Bariloche.

Also near Bariloche, you can do very long hikes to mountain refugios and stay overnight for about $8 Canadian, but I likely won’t do that before I leave. For one thing, I don’t really fancy dragging my backpack along the 10-km or more that would be necessary to reach one of these, and for another, I’m probably leaving Bariloche this weekend. I’ve really liked this town, but I have my last day of Spanish school tomorrow and I’m kind of itching to move on to new places. And while I still have 3 months to go, I know it’s going to fly by and will end up being much too short!

So it’s onward soon … somewhere warmer would be very nice! Bariloche is okay when the sun is out (or when you’re hiking up the side of a mountain and working up a sweat), but as soon as it gets dark the evenings are pretty chilly. But yesterday in Mendoza, my roommate told me, it was 27C … so going north might be a good plan. A former colleague of mine is also on vacation in Argentina now, so if I can work it out I’ll meet up with her somewhere on her itinerary.

First, though, I want to head over to the coast to Puerto Madryn, to check out both the wildlife preserve and the Welsh communities in the Chobut valley. I might detour to the Cueva de Las Manos first (near Perito Moreno – the town, not the glacier), but it’s a pretty expensive detour and I’m not sure it’s worth it this trip. Plus, it’s further south so is unlikely to be warm, and I only have one fleece (which I’d rather not have to wear every single day).

Okay, must sign off soon as I have Spanish homework to do for my final class tomorrow. It’s been a fun two weeks, and I’ve learned a lot – I can even say things in the past tense now, and I’m very proud of that. I still can’t listen fast enough to keep up with Argentine speech, but I’m hoping to improve with more practice. Failing that, I’ll hold out for countries further north where they speak a little less quickly.

There are some tricky things about Spanish, although much of it seems quite straightforward. Pronounciation isn’t hard, since letters are pronounced more or less consistently (except for a few Argentine quirks with “ll”s and “y”’s) and the accents have distinctly different purposes which I understand (unlike French, where I get all confused). But they don’t use pronouns, generally; the “I” or “you” or “she” is implied by the form of the verb that you use, so I have to pay close attention to make sure I know who’s being talked about.

Worse, some of the verb forms in the past tense are spelled exactly like the present tense, but for different pronouns; for example, “hablo” (no accent) is present-tense “I speak”, but “habló” (accent on the “o”) is past-tense “he spoke”. And “está” (with accent) means "he/she is" (or “you are”, if you're being formal), but “esta” (no accent) means “this”. All well and good when it’s written down, and when it’s spoken, the accent means that the emphasis goes on the last syllable (so it should sound different that the no-accent version, where the first syllable is emphasized); however, the differences in sound are often subtle enough that I don’t pick up on them. When I’m speaking, I probably over-emphasize the accented part of the word, but I want to make sure I’m understood; sometimes I throw in the pronoun, too, just to be safe, which means I’ll sound even more like a gringa but may mean less confusion.

There are other, weirder verbs too that change forms completely from one tense to the next, but I suppose I’ll just have to memorize those as there seems to be no logic. Same for the masculine/feminine thing; I have no idea why a week (la semana) should be feminine, but a day (el dia) should be masculine. And don’t even get me started on “por” and “para” and which to use when, or the fact that there’s two verbs for “to be” (“estar” and “ser”) which are, in theory, used for different situations but in reality overlap. For example: you use “estar” to say “the room is dark” (“la habitacion está oscura”) when it's dark because the curtains are closed, but “ser” (“la habitacion es oscura”) when it’s always dark because it never gets any sun.

Oy vey. I think I have pretty good survival Spanish now, for a gringa tourist, but it’s going to be a long time before I’m fluent! Anyone want to come hit the south of Spain with me next winter, and practise our Spanish on the waiters bringing us drinks on the beach?