It’s Deja Vu All Over Again

4/2/10: Bariloche, Argentina

How this post will be structured:

A statement about what happened today. (how many times we’ve done this before or how many times this particular thing has happened to us before or a random number of my choosing)

Example 1: I am about to begin writing a mediocre blog post that won’t be particularly funny or entertaining, but at least you will have something to read eight days from now. (>75)

Today we woke up early. (too many times, and none of those times have I been happy about it) We had a typical Argentine breakfast of some bread and some more bread. (17 or 18, however many days we’ve been in Argentina) We packed up our day packs with some snacks and our lunch (10,000) and waved goodbye to Nolise the dog and Bluse the cat (4). We walked to the bus stop. (800) We waited thirty minutes for the bus (799), were practically convinced we must have missed it and that it wasn’t going to come for another hour and almost gave up and walked back to our hostel (the almost part has happened many, many times; the actual giving up part has never happened…yet) We didn’t really know where we were going, so we just got off when all the other people who looked like they were doing hikes got off. (10)

After we got off the bus, we looked around and realized we had no idea where we were and what we were doing. (one million) We walked around for a bit and eventually asked another group of lost-looking tourists if they knew what they were doing. (38) But they didn’t. (17) We picked a trail at random and decided to walk up it. (8) Half an hour into it, we decided it wasn’t the correct trail and walked back down. (1!) We walked back down to the bottom of the mountain and walked to the beginning of another, easier-looking trail. (1 again!) We climbed to the top, using the new trail. (500) We stopped to look at the view and take some pictures (500). We ate a lunch of salami and crackers. (293) The salami did not try to fly away. (292). We climbed back down and took the bus back to our hostel (500). I took a nap. (250,000, and every time it’s still amazing). Kevin did not take a nap. (240,000) After a couple of hours doing nothing (2,300), we went out to dinner. (150) Dinner was delicious. (147) And cheap. (140)

Despite the salami-and-cracker lunch (293), the total confusion about what we were trying to do (one million), the getting lost even when it should be practically impossible to get lost (more times than I care to admit) and the fact that we spent most of the day walking (2,393), it was a really, really good day. (Every day. “Awwwww.”)

To distract you from this mediocre post that I have written (>75), here are a bunch of pictures!

Lots of lazy bees.

Purple countryside.

This is a display of love.

Contemplating a salami and crackers lunch.

Post-salami glow.

Kevin stands.

Nope, Kevin jumps.

Things growing scenic-ly in front of the mountain.

More of the same.

Saved the most scenic plants for last.

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Picture of the Day: It’s a winding road, and we still don’t know where it goes.

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Too Lazy to Think of a Title

4/1/10: Bariloche, Argentina

In my never-ending quest to please the audience of this blog, I have taken precious seconds out of my day to draw a graph for you.

When Zhou and I took our only vacation during our two years of work at Wachovia, we knew what we wanted to do with our week off: as little as possible. I’m pretty sure though if we had been given two or three weeks off, we would have planned a fun trip where we crammed in as much as we could. Anything over that time period though, and we would progressively get lazier.

It appears that we’ve now hit the wall of long vacations (WOLV), and as you can probably tell from the statistically-proven graph above, we’re heading quickly toward infinite laziness. It’s a scientific fact that only two people have ever reached infinite laziness: Homer Simpson and Jamarcus Russell. Despite what some may think given how often Zhou writes about napping, we actually do not want to join this crowd. I will, however, give you a sneak peak of what happens to planned activities after you’ve hit the WOLV.

On the docket for today was a hike up a mountain, a trip to the bus station to book tickets to Santiago, a walk around town and a barbeque for dinner. Given that we had not done a single strenuous thing for over four days, I thought we should have no problem getting ourselves out of bed. We are, after all, traveling around the world in order to actually see the world, not lounge around in our long underwear. I’ve got about 18 pairs of pajamas pants back home that are just itching to be worn, and I don’t want to make them jealous knowing that we’re not doing anything here.

Anyway, we were barely able to force ourselves out of bed at 10am, and then it was only to eat the complimentary homemade bread for breakfast. As soon as the bread was safely stored inside our stomachs, guess what Zhou did? She headed back downstairs for a nap, not to be awoken until 1pm. In the meantime I watched television and sat with a zen-like stillness so as not to accidentally do any unwanted exercise.

By 2pm though, we did head out to accomplish our goals, and surprisingly enough we did just that. (This is the only thing separating us from Homer Simpson.) Have a look for yourself:

The view to the west from the top of Cerro Campanario.

The view to the east from the top of Cerro Campanario. Unfortunately we were stuck under the rain clouds, not the blue skies.

I didn't pull this picture of a large church in Bariloche off the internet. We were actually there.

We stopped into what I would call “The Willy Wonka factory” of chocolate stores. Wait, does that not work? Suffice it to say this place was huge.

The only thing that wound up being missing was the barbeque dinner – that was just too much work. We reheated some leftover pasta instead.
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Picture of the Day: A small sampling of Bariloche’s famous chocolates. We ended up buying about three quarters of a pound of this stuff.

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For the Hundredth Time

3/31/10: Bariloche, Argentina
But really: anytime: anywhere

We stand nervously on the corner, counting down the minutes. Kevin stares off into the distance at nothing in particular, probably thinking about chili dogs or LeBron James. I look down at the ground, making small circles in the dusty road with my toe.

We are waiting for the bus. A local bus. (Dun dun dun!)

Will they understand what we’re trying to say? Can we take the 51 instead of the 22? Do we have enough change? How will we know when to get off? Why couldn’t there be a subway instead? Subways are easy!

Several buses have already gone by, none of them being the one we want. We have already been waiting for 15 minutes and I am feeling very anxious. “Can we just take 51 instead?” I ask Kevin. “That one already came by three times! I don’t think ours is coming…” Kevin shakes hand no, and we keep waiting. Eventually, we finally see our bus pulling up and we stick out our hands eagerly to flag it down. The bus pulls over in a cloud of dust, rolling past me a mere two inches in front of my nose. I hurriedly step back. The bus has stopped – 15 feet in front of us. We run to the door, coughing from the fumes. We hop onto the bus, and I hold on tightly to the front handrail as the bus jerks forward before we have time to catch our balance.

“[Insert bus stop here],” Kevin says. The bus driver nods and states the price. “What did he say?” Kevin asks me. I shrug. Kevin asks the driver to repeat the fare, hands over what he hopes is the appropriate amount of money and gets his change back. We do a quick survey of the bus and see that there are no seats available. We stand in the aisle and Kevin holds on to the tall handrail above our heads. I try a few different positions: hands-free (bad idea, as the bus lurches forward and I fall into Kevin), holding onto Kevin (only works on shorter rides), the tall handrail (uncomfortable for a shorty like me) and end up with the old standby: holding onto the back of someone else’s seat, hoping that I don’t accidentally pull on their hair.

We duck our heads down periodically and peer anxiously out of the windows, trying to figure out how far we have to go. “I think the guy said it should be about a 15-minute ride,” I whisper to Kevin. He nods his head, intently trying to match up our paper map with the street markers so we can recognize where to get off. Occasionally people push the red STOP button, and the bus stops at the next stop to let them off. I take these opportunities to look outside and try to get a general sense of where we are. A few minutes later, Kevin thinks we’re close to our stop, and we both turn on our “high alert” mindsets. We look closely at every building and street marker, and when we decide that we’re nearly there, I push the STOP button. The bus goes on for a disturbingly long time – the duration of which I am silently panicking in my head and hoping fervently that it will stop soon – as I watch what seems like hundreds of buildings and trees whiz by and we go further and further from our stop! And just at the moment when my silent panicking is about to turn into vocal panicking in the form of hysterical cries of “Stop the bus!” the bus finally stops and we get off with a sigh of relief.

We are a ten-minute walk from our actual stop, so we have to backtrack to get to it, but it doesn’t matter! We did it. We successfully navigated yet another local bus ride.
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Picture of the Day: I made this lovely zucchini/eggplant pasta sauce, but Kevin didn’t want eggplant! He ate his pasta plain.

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All Dogs Bark at Kevin (and Zhou)

3/30/10: Bariloche, Argentina

Guess what? I have a story for you from today! I’d advise you to go turn on the fire, grab a warm drink and get comfortable because you’re about to be treated to a lengthy mediocre tale. I’ll pick it up at the rising action.

It was about 9:15pm and our mostly motley crew of five piled off the local bus almost five miles outside the city. Just as we had done in the city, Zhou and I walked about 30 paces ahead of the pack. The old lady brought up a distant third position, talking at anyone who would listen. (We’re pretty sure English was her first language because she spoke it with no problem, but we’re also pretty sure she never understood a word anyone else said.) The young Asians brought up the rear, dragging their oversized roller luggage a few feet behind the old lady. (I thought it was awfully nice for the girl to be taking her little teenage brother around South America, but Zhou later informed me that they weren’t brother and sister at all: “I saw them kissing!”)

We had formed a team of five on accident – I had asked the other three which hostel they were looking for and they had taken this as an invitation to join us at ours. The old lady had ignored our warnings that our hostel was a 20 minute bus ride away and that it was most likely full. (Again, she was in her own little world.) I don’t think the shy Asians had the heart to tell the crazy old lady that they wanted to do something on their own because she had befriended them during our night on the street.

Anyway, Zhou and I had the directions to the hostel pulled up on her iTouch and began our walk up a dark, unpaved road into the woods. Three blocks and we’d be there.

The first block was easy. It was a bit steeper than we would have liked, and a bit darker, and a bit longer, but it was easy. The second block was more difficult, as we weren’t sure where it ended and a couple big dogs started barking at us. We looked over our shoulders a couple times – the old lady was still yammering away and the Asians looked to be struggling mightily with their luggage.

The third block and subsequent fourth and fifth blocks were the hard part. By this point the couple barking dogs had turned into an all-out riot. I looked around and saw nothing but what looked like Doberman Pinschers and Rottweilers, except for a couple Cujo-lookalikes lurking behind their fences. At one point Zhou panicked, shouting “This is it! We’re going to get eaten alive!” (The theme of Zhou panicking has been a common one in our recent posts, hasn’t it?)

When we finally figured out which street we were supposed to turn onto, we found it to be more of a narrow hiking trail than a street. We forged our way through the narrow opening and I, mighty Kevin, even began to get quite uncomfortable. If we weren’t eventually greeted by the best-looking hostel in the world I was preparing myself to get quite angry – at who I have no idea. Meanwhile, I could tell through Zhou’s terror that she was feeling responsible for the well-being of the people 30 paces behind us. And neither of us had the slightest clue how the they were feeling. All we knew was that the lady was still talking and the Asians were now gasping for air.

Unfortunately, I am not yet Sam Raimi and can not figure out a way to make the ending to these posts as frightening as the middle. Eventually, we made it past the dogs, through the woods, back to a normal dirt street and to Alaska Youth Hostel. And despite all that we had been through to get there, I wouldn’t waste a second in recommending it. If you do find yourself in Bariloche, please do stay at Alaska, but please email us and ask us the actual way to get there.

Epilogue: For those who were curious, the old lady and Asian couple all found beds available since it is now low season in Patagonia.
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Picture of the Day: They must have heard this was our first private room in two weeks, as they upgraded us quite a bit. In the foreground, our sitting room. In the background, the bedroom, complete with cable TV!

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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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