Worst Night Ever. EVER.

3/29/10: El Chalten, Argentina to Perito Moreno (city, not glacier), Argentina

There are so many ways to start this post that I can’t decide on a way to begin. Let’s just try out a few different beginnings then, shall we?

Beginning one (purely informational):
Getting to Bariloche from El Chalten is either two full-day bus rides, stopping in Perito Moreno for the night – or one long bus ride over two nights and one day. (How the math works out on this I have no idea.) The two-day ride would end up costing us roughly 25 USD more per person (including one night’s hostel stay at Perito Moreno city), but on the plus side we wouldn’t have to spend two nights in a row on a regular bus. (There’s no cama or semi-cama service on this particular route – if there had been, we would have for sure taken the double-overnight.) We eventually decided that, for the sake of my sanity, we would splurge on the two-day bus rides. Because who wants to arrive somewhere with a deranged wife for the sake of saving fifty dollars? Nobody, that’s who. But you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men? Me neither, but I’m pretty sure the gist of it is “let’s see how close we can get Zhou to the edge before pushing her right over it.”

Beginning two (parental advice flashback):
The one thing that my dad used to always say to me at the end of every telephone conversation when I was at school was, “Remember Zhou, your health comes first. Your health is the most important thing.” After I graduated and moved to Charlotte, it was, “Zhou, you should make sure you’re exercising regularly. If you have your health, you have the number one thing.” And before we left on the trip, the familiar refrain, “Zhou and Kevin, remember that safety comes first. If you have to spend some extra money, just do it. Don’t worry about the money, worry about your safety. That’s priority number one.” I kept thinking about this as we spent the wee hours of the morning sitting on the street in Perito Moreno, although in this situation you’d have to replace the word “safety” with “comfort” in my dad’s last phrase for it to actually be applicable.

Beginning three (conversational snippet):
Z: This isn’t romantic, you know.
K: What, for a honeymoon?
Z: No, for everything. EVERYTHING. This is most definitely NOT romantic.

But any way that I begin, one thing is undeniable. Today we spent the most miserable night/early morning/three hours that we’ve ever spent on this trip. Maybe excepting our first night in the London airport – because at least this time I didn’t throw up. Well, let me revise that statement. For ME it was the most miserable night/early morning/three hours that we’ve ever spent on this trip. I think Kevin mostly enjoyed himself. He is strange, that Kevin.

So what exactly happened? Well, our original bus, which left El Chalten on time at 9am, had suffered from some mechanical issues this (or was it technically yesterday?) morning. (It’s a bit questionable as to what the problem actually was since the bus seemed to be running ok to me.) After stopping two or three times on the road for some attempted repairs, the bus drivers evidently decided it would be best for us to stop for good at a small estancia (farm) in the middle of nowhere and call their backup bus to come get us instead of risking our bus breaking down on the road. Ok, fine. Great. We would spend four hours waiting at the estancia after already weathering a few hours of delays. Wonderful. No problem. We had a package of crackers and a Scrabble board, so we would be ok.

Hey there, let me help you with that play. Oh, and let me help you with those crackers as well.

Two brains are better than one.

Hey up there, I think you should play CATNIP.

Our backup bus arrived just after 7pm, and we all quickly piled in, relieved that it had actually made it. In hindsight perhaps we should have piled in rather less quickly, but at the time we were just so happy to be on the road again. The rest of the ride passed without much incident. We did stop once around 1am at a small stand that sold outrageously priced empanadas. Kevin said he asked for carne, but I’m pretty sure that they got “carne” confused with “air,” because that’s all I could seem to find in my empanada.

But at least I would spend the next three hours sleeping relatively peacefully on the bus. We pulled into the Perito Moreno bus stop – which was just the front of a hotel that the bus company worked with in order to squeeze the most money out of desperate, shelter-seeking backpackers – at 4:06am, seven hours behind schedule and four hours before our next bus would leave for Bariloche. The surly and unyielding (and I might add just plain MEAN) hotel owner was asking for the exorbitant rate of 60 pesos per person for a dorm bed for just three hours repose. We mutinied. About a dozen of us decided we’d rather sleep outside in front of the hotel than give the owner any money. He shrugged and promptly closed and locked the hotel door, leaving us to the mercy of the cold sidewalks and the medium-sized stray dogs. (Dad, don’t worry, if we had been in a big city or if there had only been three or four of us not wanting to spend the money, we would have gone inside. Safety first!)

Those dark figures are the twelve cheapos and our bags. That's our next bus, all locked up and looking very cozy.

A few of the more mechanically-minded folks spent the first hour or so convening, adjourning, and then reconvening the “Is it possible to unlock a bus door from the outside?” meeting. The next hour was filled with small talk. The rest of the time? We just waited. It was awful, the waiting.

I tried to sleep, but the rock-hard windowsill was not having any of that.

A few things opened (and by a few I mean two) around 7am, so Kevin and I sat down to a quick breakfast before getting on our next bus at 8am, which luckily left on time.

All in all, worst night ever.

But, as Kevin pointed out at five in the morning (in a statement I completely ignored, because there was no room for optimism in my brain at that time and under those circumstances), “Hey, at least it’s a good story. And now you have something to blog about!” Great.
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Puzzles for Postcards

Where Am I? Name the city.

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Picture of the Day: We will frame this one and call it “Prelude to the Worst Night EVER.”

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The Great Idea for This Blog Post Fell Through

3/28/10: El Chalten, Argentina

I like those word games where they have one word on the top line and a word of equal length on the bottom line, and you have to get from the top to the bottom by changing one letter at a time and making a new word in each blank. For example, how do you get from LION to KING in six steps?

Start: LION

1. LIEN
2. LIES
3. PIES
4. PINS
5. PING
6. KING

I’m going to try to simulate that game here, only using topics that have come up recently while traveling. My goal will be to get from “Taking Zhou out to dinner tonight” to “Hiking etiquette” also in exactly six steps. Here I go!

Start: Taking Zhou out to dinner tonight

Don’t tell Zhou this, but I secretly made the bet yesterday knowing that I was probably going to lose. When we ate dinner out two nights ago, the guy next to me ordered the best looking steak and potatoes I’ve ever seen. And tonight the food did not disappoint – 420 grams of the most delicious steak I’ve ever tasted for less than $9!

The thing was, I didn’t want to ask Zhou if we could go out to dinner again just for me to get it, because it’s Zhou’s job to convince frugal Kevin that it’s ok to spend money on food. So that’s the real reason I made the bet.

1. Bets between me and Zhou

Here’s a bet we came up with a long time ago. (Unfortunately we haven’t come up with the stakes yet, but if you can think of anything worthy of such a monumental wager, please let us know.) When we return home, I am fully confident that I can taste the difference between high-quality and low-quality bottled water. We’ll set up the bet like many blind taste tests – we will have three unlabeled cups of bottled water – two of one kind and one of the other. The crappy water used will be Deer Park. The good water will be either Aquafina or Dasani, whichever one is on sale. I will have to state which water is in which cup.

And here’s a bet I’ll throw out to anyone who wants to take it: same taste test, only using 1% milk vs. 2%.

2. Milk

You know what goes good with milk? Oreos. Up until this trip, I never really ate a lot of Oreos, but lately they’ve been the only recognizable snack food in many convenience stores. Even though I’m in my trying-new-foods mode, I still enjoy eating something I know every now and then. What I didn’t know about Oreos though is how durable they are. We’ll buy a pack and smush it, drop it, smack it, bop it, twist it and the Oreos just don’t crumble. Those sure are some tough cookies.

3. Common sayings

If your plans fall through, what happens? I’m told by the powers that be (Zhou) that this means your plans fall apart and you wind up doing something else. But stick with me here: shouldn’t plans that fall through be plans that actually happen? Picture your plans high up on a cloud, out of reach somewhere (this is where they should be because they’re things you want to get to in the future). If they fall through, where do they end up? Right in your arms, where you can execute them. Our plans for taking the day off today fell through, so here we are doing nothing.

You still think I’m wrong?

4. Things I get wrong

That’s not the only phrase I’ve found I sometimes get wrong. One more example for you to visualize: imagine getting to what you think will be an incredible view, only to find out you hiked all day to look at a big tree and some rocks. How would you describe that view? I’d say it’s definitely not worth sneezing at. Zhou told me the other day that the correct phrase is actually “it’s nothing to sneeze at” and if your memory is too sharp for your own good I then attempted to use the correct phrase in a recent post. I confess, I did it to sound smart…

5. Outsmarting ourselves

Sometimes on the trails here in El Chalten we’ll be having a loud conversation in English about music or sports or something, when a couple comes our way having a similar loud, English conversation. Sometimes that couple will be wearing USC sweatshirts and be eating an In ‘N Out burger, and you know what we’ll say to them as we pass? “Hola.” What is it about being in a foreign country that makes you feel the need to speak what little you know of the local language to other people who clearly just hopped off an American Airlines flight from LA?

And on that note, when the trail is only big enough for one person to walk on, which group gives way? Is it the one coming up the hill or the one heading down, back to the city?

6. Hiking etiquette

Done!
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Picture of the Day: Even the short, Zhou-sized hikes from El Chalten lead to some amazing views. This one even provided Zhou a nice place to sit.

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We Sure Are Cute For Two Ugly People

3/27/10: El Chalten, Argentina

It all started out innocently enough, with some impromptu sing-alongs (me singing along to the voices in my head and Kevin studiously keeping quiet). Hey, when all you have is (are?) each other for entertainment on a six-hour hike, you have to come up with something to do, and I like to sing. I also like to think that Kevin thoroughly enjoys my singing. Right, Kev?

Anyway, that’s how it all started out. I was treating Kevin to some bits and pieces of his favorite songs (“The Twelve Days of Christmas” in its entirety, some Sugar Ray, a little Third Eye Blind) when he somehow got to thinking about the song that Michael Cera and Ellen Page sing together at the end of the movie Juno.

K: Hey, how does that line go in that song? It’s like I don’t see how anyone else sees anything else in anyone else…?
Z: Hold on, let me think…We sure are cute for two ugly people. I don’t see what anyone can see in anyone else but you. I don’t see what anyone can see in anyone else but you. That’s it!
K: Nooo… that’s not it. I think it must be I don’t see what anyone else sees in anyone else but you. That way sounds much better.
Z: Do you want to bet on it? If I’m right, then we get to eat out tomorrow.
K: And what if I’m right?
Z: It doesn’t matter, because you won’t be right.
K: Well, if I’m right then I get to pick the hikes we do tomorrow.
Z: Ok.
K: You know that means that we might have to go back and do Laguna de los Tres again if the weather is nice, don’t you? And no complaining about it either!
Z: Fine! You could even say that if you’re right I have to give you a million dollars and I’d still take this bet, that’s how confident I am. Are you sure you still want to bet?
(I’m nothing if not a sporting person, you see.)
K: Well, you think you know the song. But me, on the other hand – I’m a lyricist. And I know how the song should be. Let’s shake on it.

Now normally I would never go up against Kevin (especially considering he’s a lyricist) on a music lyrics bet, and I even told him as much, but I knew in this particular instance that I was correct. And, as we would later find out, I was. Which means that we will have eaten dinner out on three of our four days in El Chalten! Aren’t you glad, Mom? (My mom told us on our last call that we should eat out more because “when you’re older, you won’t be able to eat what you want, so you should eat what you want when you’re young.”) The point of this story is this: Kevin, do not make bets against your wife when she tells you in advance you are for SURE going to lose.

Anyway, let’s rewind and actually talk a little bit about the hike itself. Today we did the six-hour round trip (22 km) Laguna Torre hike. I don’t think it was quite as nice as the Laguna de los Tres, but we could actually see Fitz Roy today, so that was a plus.

There's Fitzie on the far right. So that's what he looks like!

At one point on our hike, Kevin thought he heard the elusive huemul, which is a very endangered species of deer that only lives in the Southern Patagonian forest. (We saw pictures of them at the El Chalten information center, and they looked just like regular deer to me, but what do I know?) He excitedly motioned me to follow behind him as he tiptoed around the bend. “I think I hear them!” he whispered loudly. We walked quietly and slowly as we approached the sound, you know, so as not to scare the huemul, and this is what we saw:

Two woodpeckers searching for their breakfasts! At least I’m 99% sure that’s what we saw. I’ve never seen a woodpecker in real life, and up until this point I had no idea what they looked like, but I don’t think there could be much doubt that these two things were woodpeckers. I mean, they were pecking wood. And very loudly, at that. We stuck around for a few minutes just watching and listening to the birds, who didn’t seem to mind that we were only a few feet away. It was cool.

We made it up to the end of the trail, which was at the foot of a small lake (we knew to expect it this time, because “laguna” means lake!) and ate our lunch of tuna on crackers and salami on crackers. (Again? Yes, again.) Very similar to our experience two days ago, though this time there was no flying-away-salami incident, which was quite a relief. I don’t think I could have handled that a second time.

The lake itself wasn’t as pretty as the Laguna de los Tres, but it did at least have some bits of ice floating in it, so I guess that was kind of nice.

After we finished our lunch and finished taking our pictures, we set out on the three-hour trek back to El Chalten. And the whole way back I sang out loud, over and over again, “I don’t see what anyone can see in anyone else but you.” Because I like that line.
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Picture of the Day: Either a regular-sized cigarette is burning the crotch of a regular-sized broccoli or a giant cigarette is burning the crotch of a regular-sized tree. You decide.

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Everybody Blogs

3/26/10: El Chalten, Argentina

Everybody blogs. Or at least it appears that way. And up until last year I never understood why. I assumed that just because my life was too boring for anyone to read about, there’s no reason I’d want to read what anyone else had to say about theirs. However, now that I am co-author of the most popular blog (that begins with “no” and ends with “curry”) on the internet, blogging makes sense to me. There are four main reasons why I like keeping a blog:

1. Meeting people. Numerous people have contacted us after reading our blog with tips and things to do in certain regions. We have also found that the travel blogging community is a surprisingly close-knit group, which has made it easy for us to solicit advice from more experienced travelers.
2. Keeping in touch with people. Without the blog, we’d spend an inordinate amount of time emailing family and friends about life on the road. This gives us an easy out.
3. Time apart. One of the common worries people had when we planned our trip was how long it would take for us to kill each other. Thanks to the blog, we now have at least a half hour apart each day.
4. Reminder of the day’s activities. This is actually what I wanted to write about today. Let me break free of the constraints of a numbered list.

Ahhh, much better. Every day so many different things go on and we have many experiences we’ve never had before. Since my memory is shorter than Ozzie Guillen’s temper, the time I take thinking of blog topics really helps ingrain the highlights of the day into me. There’s only one problem: some days we don’t do anything. Normally this isn’t so bad because I can make up a post such as this one to fill up some space. Lately though, I’m running out of things to say. Have a look at our schedule and I think you’ll understand why:

3/22: Day off (my post)
3/23: Big Ice on Perito Moreno, one of the coolest things we’ve ever done (Zhou’s post)
3/24: Bus to El Chalten (my post)
3/25: Full day hike to see Mount Fitz Roy, the most famous mountain in Patagonia (Zhou’s post)
3/26: Day off (my post)
3/27: Full day hike to Laguna Torre, a glacial lake at the foot of a gorgeous stretch of the Andes (Zhou’s post)
3/28: Day off (my post)
3/29: Ride up Route 40, one of the most scenic drives in South America (Zhou’s post)
3/30: Bus to Bariloche (my post)

We’re in the middle of a five-post stretch where I pretty much don’t have a single interesting travel experience to write about. It’s not so much the lack of interesting stories you’ll be receiving, but I’m torn up inside about not being able to post cool, relevant pictures.

So you know what I’ll do instead? Post irrelevant pictures from past activities. Enjoy these for now – I’ll be back in two days to bore you again.

Doing a traditional Masai Warrior dance in Tanzania.

Sitting on the edge of Vic Falls in Zambia.

Hanging with the 100-Rupee Monk in Nepal.

The highest point of our trip, and our lives.

Zhou and her monkey friend on a beach in Thailand.

Weathering the cold at the Great Wall in China.

Falling from 12,000 feet above New Zealand.

Exploring the Big Ice of the Perito Merino glacier in Argentina.

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Picture of the Day: This is really just irrelevant picture #9 – where it all started, at Zhou’s house in Pennsylvania the night before take-off.

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Coy Fitz Roy

3/25/10: El Chalten, Argentina

Today we did the Laguna de los Tres hike from El Chalten. It’s a 25-km round trip (15-mile) day hike from El Chalten that is supposed to give some of the best views of Mount Fitz Roy.

Fitz Roy is on the far right – not that you can see him.

It turns out that Fitzie was feeling rather shy today and stayed hidden behind a cloud. Since it was so cloudy, we thought it might not actually be worth it to hike all the way to the top if the weather didn’t clear up, especially since we heard the views from the bottom of the ridge were already quite good. So we decided that we would stop at the bottom of the ridge before the one hour climb (which we heard was very rocky and steep and hard and practically IMPOSSIBLE in bad weather), and reassess the situation. Three hours and fifteen minutes after we had started the hike, we hadn’t seen any sign of the bottom of a ridge and had already started climbing up a rocky path.

Z: I think we’ve passed the bottom already.
K: No, I don’t think so. This path isn’t as steep and rocky as they said it would be.
Z: Yeah, but, we’re going up. I really think this is it.
K: No, this can’t be it.

As you might have already guessed, we stupidly had missed the viewpoint from the bottom, wherever that was, and had already unknowingly started climbing up the last part of the trail. We did figure this out eventually, and being the thorough (/stubborn) people that we are, we decided we might as well climb to the top.

When we reached the top, we had a view of snow and some mountains, but not coy Fitzie. He still hid underneath his cloud. I can see how it would be a really great hike on a clear day, but with all the clouds, I really wasn’t sure it had been worth the effort. Kevin, of course, didn’t feel the same way.

“I didn’t know there was a lake up here. Cool! If there wasn’t a lake, I’d say maybe it wasn’t worth it. But there’s a lake!”

Despite the fact that we’re pretty sure “laguna” means lake and this trek is called “Laguna de los Tres” AND despite the fact that there had been pictures of a lake on all of the trail signs, we still somehow never realized there was a lake at the end of the trail. Honestly, I’m not sure how we’ve managed to survive this long on our own.

We hunched down by the side of a big rock to shelter us from the now-howling wind and intermittent rain and ate a sophisticated lunch of tuna on crackers and salami on crackers. At one point a particularly strong gust of wind came by and blew the salami off of my lap and up against a rock next to us. For some reason I found this situation – the salami slices stuck firmly to the side of a rock by the force of the wind – hysterically funny and was rendered immovable from the laughing. Kevin, always the sensible one, calmly peeled the salami off of the rock and we finished our lunch. (Of course we ate the salami. We didn’t have that much food.)

These are our “I'm still not sure what Fitz Roy looks like” faces.

After lunch, we took a few quick photos and decided to head back down to a less-windy altitude. You know, they say Patagonia is the windiest place on earth, and I was just about to mention this fact to Kevin when an unexpectedly ferocious wind started to blow and forced my feet to skitter towards the side of the ridge. I suddenly had visions of myself tumbling off of the edge of the ridge and down the rocky side. It really did not look pleasant. But I couldn’t seem to fight against the wind and I kept getting closer and closer to the edge, so I called to Kevin for help. The word “hysterical” might have been applicable to my attitude here. If I recall correctly, my exact words were: “HELP! I’m going to get BLOWN OFF THE SIDE! HELP ME!!!” What can I say? I’m a panicker. Kevin, who never loses his head in a tough situation (see: flying salami), somehow heard my cry for help over the wind. He made his way carefully toward me, planted his feet wide apart, firmly grabbed my shoulders and held onto me at arm’s length until the wind died down. Now that Kevin was fully anchoring me to the ground, I calmed down enough to look at him and laugh at how ridiculous I had been. Of course I would never get blown off the edge of a cliff when Kevin was around!

I am so glad I married him.
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Puzzles for Postcards

Rhyme Time… Special Edition, take two! Someone didn’t understand the rules yesterday and blew it for all the real non-winners out there, so here’s one more chance for the non-winners to earn their postcards. Good luck! (And nice job, Amy.)

Friends Edition Rhyme Time:

Ross and Monica’s rooms for storing wine
Tribbiani covered in white wintery flakes
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Picture of the Day: Turn left at the trees with the mossy faces on them. Then hike two more hours.

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