Into Chile

After leaving El Calafete, we began on another Doris planned expedition, this time on the Chilean side of the border in Torres Del Paine. Spent a brief night in Puente Something...I don't take a lot of time to memorize the town names any longer), then made our way out to the park the next day. Part of the ride involved a Catamaran ride across a lake, which we spent debating whether one of the passengers across from us was female or male, the jury is still out. Upon landing, we began the hike. The trek consisted of four nights at different refugios (they're like hostels in the woods, except that they're a bloody ripoff) which were sprinkled through the mountains. Im not sure how many kms we crossed during the time, but needless to say my knees were on the verge of imploding by the end of it. Although Jason already mentioned it, I would like to throw in a special note about the toughest guy I have ever seen in my life. In probably 80 km/h, ice flecked filled winds, this guy strips down to nothing but his pantaloons, pipe, mutton chops and the 10 inches of fur on his chest and struts around like its Bermuda. He then proceeds to put his gum boots on and head off up the mountain. I don't know who he is, but ever since that jaw dropping moment, he has dominated every conversation we've had. Getting back from the hike we travelled down to Punta Arenas, where we are now located, in anticipation of Dad & Doris's northern departure. Earlier today we went penguin hunting..err, watching, which ended in complete dissapointment. It cost $6 to get into this 'area', where we were presented with two of the stupidest penguins I've ever seen plus a dead one. The highlight of the trip being the two Chilean air force jets that flew overhead, we can only assume just protectin' the penguins. I'll be sad to see Dad & Doris leave tomorrow afternoon, it's been awesome having them down here and a thousand thanks to Doris for organizing two of the best hikes I've ever been on.

Pictures -

Me and the old man!

A view during the hike of the valley of the french

One less filthy penguin to infest our oceans

Another nut shot, not sure where these are going, but we just keep taking them!

It's cold down here

Well after leaving Bear Wilson to fend for himself in Buenos Aires, Jason, Ry and I headed south on our marathon bus ride to El Calafete. Upon arrival we were greeted by father and Doris waiting in the parking lot with a rental car. Minutes later we were on our way to El Chalten to begin our first expedition into the Andes. Our initial goal was to scale Mt. Fitzroy (named after the captain of the HMS Beagle...the ship that Darwin puttered around in for 5 years...for all you Darwin fans, I know you're out there somewhere). This plan was scaled back a bit when we realized that it was one of the most difficult peaks in the world to conquer...until next time Fitzroy. We managed to miss 18 straight days of rain and were fortunate to have some great (if not extremely cold) weather. Did a 1500 metre climb up to the base of Fitzroy on one of the days and subsequently discovered that our surfer gear and tropical skins were no match for the blowing ice. After coming down from the 4 day hike we drove back to El Calafete (where we are currently located), careful to hit as many rabbits as we could on the way back. We briefly drove along Route 40 (ala Motorcycle Diaries, which really got my revolutionary blood stirring) and today enjoyed the Perito Moreno glacier. Its the largest glacier in the world, outside of Antartica, and up until a few years ago was one of, if not the last, glacier to actually keep growing. Basically, visiting it involves waiting for giant chunks of ice to fall thunderously into the lake below, of which we saw a number. The highlight was watching a huge chunk detach from underneath the water and come hurtling up out of the water like some kind of nuclear submarine, supporting my theory that this is how ice cubes are born. Tomorrow we head off to somewhere in Chile for a longer, 6 day hike. The three of us actually control (or care to control) very little of our destinies, as this is all left in Doris' capable hands and the immense bible of itineraries she brought with her. In the meantime we'll soak up every last moment of grandeur in the amazing hotel that my Dad has springed for us!

Pictures!

Just Protectin' Mt. Fitzroy and the Andes...

Kicking Ryan in the junk while awaiting for the glacier to hurry up and entertain us. Much of our time spent waiting for chunks of ice to fall were spent in activities similar to this. We're also fairly confident that we were the first three people to ever wear shorts to the glacier.

The glacier itself in all its glory, quite an amazing sight, especially when you compare it to the large tour boats on the right hand side there.

Headed to the bottom of the world

I just realized that I recently changed memory cards on my camera, so I have a blank card with only the picture that I took outside this internet cafe on it...damnit. Anyways, the last 10 days or so have been pretty hectic once we picked up Gav. Stayed in Rio for one night and showed the ole bear around to Ipanema beach, then onto a Flamengo soccer game, then for a final Carretao before our departure. Left the next morning for Parati, where we stayed two nights (not totally by choice...damn buses), where we managed to get in some good island hopping and swimming. Whisked ourselves off to Sao Paulo for an entire hour, then quickly onto a bus for Foz de Iguacu, apparently the largest falls in the world, but they have a sign right at the entrance that differs from that claim. Spent one night at the falls, then it was off to Buenos Aires, where we are currently located. Had an absolutely fantastic steak dinner (best cut of meat Ive ever had...and it was about $6). Jas managed to find us last night and we went out for a few #########. This city is strange in that everything is pushed back a few hours. People don´t tend to go for dinner until at least 10pm, and bars/clubs will start to fill up at 2-3am. We outlasted them all by playing pool into the wee hours of the morning and have actually yet to go to bed...even though it's noon here....so tired. We just got back from the bus station where we booked a ticket for 9 tonight to head down to Rio Gallegos. It's a 36 hour minimum trip, and will shatter our previous 29 hour bus ride record. Tis about the same distance as from Vancouver to Tijuana (actually a little longer and on crappy roads). We tried to get a flight down there, but due to our poor planning and lazyness, found nothing but booked planes, so we have fallen on our backup plan. The thought of spending not one, but two whole nights on the same bus...well it sucks, but at least we´ll all be plenty tired, given that the plan is to stay awake until them (Randy, you would be so pleased). I think at this point I'm mindlessly rambling so I´ll stop.

Pictures! Outside the internet cafe, looking across the Avenue of 9th of July. Massive street that runs through BA, at this particular point it's 18 lanes wide, yikes.

Ilha Grande

Ry and I left Rio on the first and headed a few hours south to a place called Ilha Grande. It´s an island just off the coast and is considered to have some of the nicest beaches in the world, so we figured it would be a good place to detox after Carnaval. The beach thing defintely wasn´t a lie as you can see from the pics. We didn´t do a whole lot beside hiking to the different beaches of the island and then lying on them. We ran into some other buddies there and were able to get a few fun nights in before they left. On the 4th we were surprised to see Jas and Jacky walking on the road (its a tiny town...so everyone has to walk up the road!) and spent the rest of the time bumming around with them. Not too much excitement to report on. Our attempt to go diving was thwarted by some minor cold onsets, and we didn´t want to risk going down there just to not be able to equalize properly, so it was vetoed. We´re now back in Rio to pick up Mr. Wilson, but have just learned that he wont be arriving for another day, so it looks like it´s back to sitting on Ipanema beach drinking Acai and eating cheese sticks.

Pictures!
Dos Rios beach - decent little hike to get there, pretty much totally abandoned and probably the nicest beach I´ve ever been to, would have been perfect for surfing as well.

View of the town from one of the hikes, awesome scenery around the island. Apparently the coves used to act as perfect bases for pirates back in the day, Ryan and I searched for several hours for treasure, but came up with only sunburns.

Lopes Mendes - Considered by some to be one of the top 5 beaches in the world, although very nice, I prefered Dos Rios. Test yourself and see if you can find Ryan in that shot... hint, he has a towel on his head.

Me and Ry in our Carnaval costumes, now that I see them, the fact that Mukuda helped pick them out and his love of 80´s hair bands...well, you can figure it out.

Adios!

Carnaval

First off, sorry for the lack of updates! I kept meaning to update once I had some pictures, but given that we leave Rio in about an hour, I don´t know if that´s going to happen. So I´ll just throw up some text. Wow...a lot has happened, we´ve been to two soccer games, the giant jesus statue, a lot of days on the beach and of course Carnaval. The soccer games were amazing, and most of us have become loyal Botafogo fans, willing to give up anything for the good of our team in their struggle against the hated Flamengo bastards. We left both games thinking how lame Canucks games are and trying to figure out some way to transport these lunatics up north to spice up a few playoff games. Our free time has been spent lying around on the beach, gambling with one another and trying to get the Poy´s to clean up their McDonald´s garbage. We also managed to find an Olympics only channel, and from there were able to keep track of how much ass we were kicking over in Italy. Carnaval itself is hard to put into words. The people just don´t stop partying. Random trucks and cars will pull up to street corners with speakers and thus ensues some kind of celebration. Within seconds the SKOL (local beer) sellers will flood the area and voila, you have entertainment. The actual Samba parade was insane. I honestly think that Brazil could be the next superpower if it didn´t blow all its money on these parades every year. Each one consists of roughly 5000 people, all dressed in crazy costumes. If any one of these costumes showed up at some Vancouver halloween party, it would win the best costume hands down. Everything is so intricate, with tiny little details everywhere that you can´t even notice unless you´re sitting beside one of them. The floats have everything from fire breathing dragons to giant Bruce Lee heads and are each about the size of a house, leaving us to wonder what the hell they do with these things after Carnaval is over. Topless models hang off of every float as well as walking beside them (and along every beach for that matter), making for an absolutely disgusting scene....yes...disgusting, can´t stress that enough. Having stayed up until the next morning more nights than I care to count, Carnaval has definitely taken its toll on all of us. Somehow the locals don´t seem affected by this lack of sleep and yesterday held another celebration as they unveiled the clock that kept the time until next Carnaval. It´ll be good to get out of Rio for a while, which is exactly what Ry and I are doing today. We´re still not sure where we´re headed, and won´t know until we get to the bus station. All we know is we want a beach to sleep on and ...actually thats about it. We´ll swing back into Rio on the 6th or 7th to pick up Mr. Wilson, then it´s off towards Argentina/Uruguay!

Pictures! Given that I have nothing else to put up, I´ll put up this little guy for anyone who doesn´t know our route. Although popular theory suggests that our route will probably look nothing like that once it´s done!