A Feel-Good Moral to a Disappointing Hike

3/18/10: Ushuaia, Argentina

“I’m confused – did we ever actually see the glacier?”

– Zhou, after our hike to the somewhat ambiguous Martial Glacier

The nice part about growing up in Ohio is that there’s never any doubt whether or not you just saw a glacier. You didn’t. There are no glaciers in Ohio. Here at “the end of the world” though, there are glaciers. In fact, we almost splurged to do a hike on the Martial Glacier, then thought we’d save our feet from crampons until visiting the famous Perito Moreno glacier next week. Instead, today we spent a few hours hiking up to a scenic viewpoint of the glacier.

The hike itself was only three hours round trip, but it was on a steep enough incline that we felt for sure we’d reach an amazing lookout. As we crested the final ridge to the top and saw people milling about in a jovial manner while taking photographs, we couldn’t wait to reach the edge. As it turned out, this is what we saw:

To us, it just appeared to be more snow and mountain, the same thing we’d been looking at for the entire hike.

Here we are near the bottom of the trail.

We stood around for a little while, perhaps hoping that the awe-inspiring glacier would appear if we waited long enough. It didn’t, so we reluctantly trekked back down.

It was back in the comfort of our cozy dorm room that I began thinking. Kids, you might want to get your pens and paper and write this down, because here comes a nice little moral of this story. We’ve spent a lot of time on this trip doing things with a specific goal in mind. We did eight days of game drives in Africa hoping to see big cats. We hiked 11 days on the Annapurna Circuit trying to get to the Thorong La Pass. We took a three day trip to Xian just to see the Terracotta Warriors. And today we trekked to the Martial Glacier hoping to see a glacier.

When you get caught up in a specific goal though, sometimes you lose sight of the journey. Our best experiences have almost always come while trying to accomplish something else. In Tanzania I’ll always remember being charged by an elephant one morning at camp. In Nepal I’ll remember our visit with the monk and our stay with the family in Ghara. In China I’ll remember our visit with the baby pandas. And today? Today I’ll remember the hike to the top.

Taking the road less traveled.

A delicate walk through the icy mountainside.

A little shelter from the ubiquitous... clouds.

The view of Ushuaia.

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Picture of the Day: A Penguin in Zhou’s Clothing.

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Fully Recovered!

3/17/10: Ushuaia, Argentina

[Editor’s Note: We’ve redone our site completely, so if you’re reading in google reader come check it out and let us know what you think!]

You may have noticed that my last few posts have been a bit lackluster. I think it’s because I’ve only just recovered today from the triple whammy of 1) that nasty and totally unexpected 131 USD reciprocity fee (each!) we had to pay the Argentine government when we got into the Buenos Aires airport, 2) the extended jet lag from crossing a bazillion time zones and taking too many naps and 3) the 52-hour bus ride. Remarkably enough, this was the first time that any of these three things has ever happened to us. Yes, we’ve had to pay expensive visa fees, but we always knew they were coming. This one just snuck up on us and knocked us over the head with its giant billy club. No, I don’t know exactly what a billy club is, but I assume it hurts when you get hit on the head with one. Hurts A LOT. (And yes, I just compared the reciprocity fee to an ogre. Maybe I’m turning into Kevin with with the weird metaphors.) As for the jet lag – though we’ve had a couple of long-haul flights before, we’d always found ourselves adjusted within a day. For some reason, South America just isn’t treating us as well. And the 52-hour bus ride? Let’s hope that’s the first AND the last.

I think also contributing to my recent state of blah-ness is that we’ve had a little bit of trouble adjusting to the food here. Everything is either ham and cheese sandwiches or meat and potatoes. Don’t get me wrong, I love cheese and I love potatoes and I mostly like meat, but it does get a bit old. There’s only so many times you can be approached with a roll with a single slice of ham and a single slice of cheese hidden somewhere in it before you want to knock the sandwich out of the guy’s hand with your giant billy club. (Yes, I just said “giant billy club” a second time. Let’s play a game and see how many more times I can use it in this post.)

So today we decided to go out for dinner. For a nice dinner.

Kevin peruses the menu at Maria Lola Restaurant.

Look! Wineglasses! The last time Kevin and I went to have a nice dinner, just the two of us, was – hmm, I can’t remember exactly, but it was definitely before we got married. (Well, this is if you don’t count Thanksgiving, which I don’t, because I was sick and I ate a salad.) So here we were, like real adults, sitting at a real restaurant, reading a menu that didn’t divide itself into sections labeled “pizzas” and “sandwiches.” I was so woozy with happiness, you could have knocked me over with a pin, never mind a giant billy club. (Three!)

Since we were already splurging on dinner, I decided to throw caution to the winds and order a glass of wine. If we’re already going to go over budget for the day, let’s at least do it with some class, don’t you think? I was even prepared, because I knew that a glass of red wine is something like “un copa de vino tinto” in Spanish. I perused the wine menu and was disappointed to see that everything was sold in bottles, but then Kevin astutely pointed to the last page of the food menu where it listed “Puerto Cruz blanco/tinto – $10,” under a heading that included the word “copa.” So there it was! Hiding on the last page! I proudly ordered my glass of red wine and “el trucha” (the trout). Kevin had the famous Fuegian lamb, which came with potatoes au gratin. I guess maybe I was the only one who was tired of meat and potatoes.

My glass of wine came right away in an alarmingly small glass, but I figured for 10 pesos (roughly 2.60 USD), what could you really expect? I took a sip, ready to savor my first taste of non-airplane wine (which isn’t that bad, really), and then I figured out why that particular wine was listed on the last page, with the desserts, and not listed on actual the wine menu. Because it was a dessert wine.

Now normally I’d feel really stupid and embarrassed and awkward in this situation, much like how a leprechaun named Roger might feel if he were to accidentally walk into a giant Billy club (Four! Work with me here), but even this little hiccup couldn’t overcome my happiness of eating a nice meal out. But to salvage any possible dignity from the situation, I did at least wait until I finished my dinner before having my glass of wine. That way the waiter might think I did it on purpose, you know, ordering dessert wine way before it was time for dessert.

Anyway! None of that matters now. We thoroughly enjoyed our meal (another sentence straight out of the KC playbook), which ended up costing us 115 pesos (~30 USD). A bit expensive for us, considering our daily budget in Argentina is only 65 USD, but it was the perfect way to celebrate my full recovery from the blah-ness I’d be feeling since arriving in South America. I’d even say my recovery was so complete that if an anyone had come chasing after us with a giant billy club, I’d have been able to knock them out with my tiny but powerful fists. Five!
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Picture of the Day: The rose garden next door to our hostel had the prettiest blooms.

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My Antarctic Dream

3/16/10: Ushuaia, Argentina

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to go to Antarctica. Granted, my memory isn’t great and I don’t remember much of anything before we were in Australia last month. But the point is, I’ve really wanted to go to Antarctica for at least a month, no matter the cost.

$5,000 per person for a five-day cruise?!?! Ok, so the cost does matter a little. Zhou and I agreed that we would not worry about it until we got to Ushuaia, and then we would look for any good last-minute deals. I agreed with myself that if we could find something for $2,000 or less, we would do it. I knew it was a long shot and I knew it was still out of our price range, but the most important thing I knew was that it’s Antarctica!

So today we went window shopping for ridiculously high-priced cruises. Well, first we warmed ourselves up by going window shopping for somewhat overpriced patches to sew over a hole in Zhou’s pack. We eventually found one and – wait, this is where I’m confused. If you go window shopping then decide to make a purchase, is it still considered window shopping? Many of you can tell by my wardrobe that I’ve never actually gone shopping at all, so hopefully you’ll excuse me for my naivete. Anyway, we bought a patch for Zhou so I was hopeful that we’d buy a cruise for me.

After walking up and down the main street, we were left with one option – a travel agency advertised a special cruise price of only 3,300. We had been told earlier that someone had seen a cruise being advertised for $3,300, but this particular one didn’t specify a currency. At about 3.8 pesos to the dollar, if this was in pesos, we were in business. If there was a small child tagging along, I would have told him not to get his hopes up. Me, I had my hopes up.

We waited for what felt like an hour for the only worker in the room to free up, and in about three seconds we had the news we needed. The price was in dollars. Not only that, but there must have been a plethora of wealthy travelers in the city, because there was a long waitlist of hopefuls trying to get on the last cruise of the season.

It looks like my quest to visit all seven continents in less than seven months will have to wait until we strike it rich. (It will be easy to afford the trip after I write my bestseller, win my Oscar and top the Billboard charts with my hit single. The only problem then is I will be working hard to win a green jacket at Augusta, so traveling will be tricky.) It’s a bit hard to swallow now, but I’ve thought of something that has made it a lot easier. Zhou and I will definitely be going to Antarctica someday. Rather than do it by ourselves, you should come too!
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Picture of the Day: It seemed a bit odd to find a Flintstone-mobile in Ushuaia, so I thought I’d further confuse the situation by chewing on bread while driving.

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Millions of Penguins, Penguins for Me

3/15/10: Ushuaia, Argentina

Kevin and I love to hang out with the local fauna (see: gorillas and see: pandas, which I still maintain was the best post I ever wrote), so we jumped at the chance to go to an island and visit with some penguins.

Kevin with the curious birds.

I have to say – there was a lot of sketchy behavior going on on that island.

Oh hey, didn't see you guys there. No, I wasn't doing anything just now. What are you talking about?

Can I get some privacy, please? You tourists are so rude!

I’m also pretty sure we interrupted a big dance party.

Shake it, fellas, shake it!

Hey, I know I'm not exactly your species, but... I can still hang out with you guys, right?

Hey, wait! Don't go!

Sigh. At least I can finally pick this wedgie.

Since it’s molting season, a lot of the penguins looked quite woeful.

Why don't my feathers grow back already!

The penguins were very funny little characters – not quite as cute as the pandas, but maybe I would have felt differently if we had come during hatching season and gotten to see penguin babies. I’ve already put “take a super-expensive cruise to Antarctica in December to see baby penguins” on my life’s to-do list. Kev, you’re ok with that, right?
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Puzzles for Postcards

Hidden Birds (One per sentence, at least five letters long, can be hidden forward or backward)

That would have been the perfect golf shot if not for one variable: the wind.
With a markup like that, most rich people couldn’t even afford the sports car.
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Picture of the Day: This is what it looks like at the end of the world.

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Ushuaia or Bussed!

3/12/10 – 3/14/10: Argentina

I wish space on the bus were a little more… malleable. They give me and Zhou two seats, but when she lies down she hardly uses any of her space. What if I could somehow mold that extra space into a nice twin bed for myself? That would be the good life.

Instead there is real life though, and for us these past 52 hours that meant sleeping, eating and breathing only in our given seats on a bus heading from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world. (Technically we needed three buses to get there, but I’ll get to that later.) I’m sure you’re wondering at this point – how did the ride go?

How did it go?!? It went something like this:

7:00pm, Friday: We hesitantly climb the stairs to the top level of our double-decker, knowing that this is the last time we’ll smell fresh air for the next 36 hours. We had wanted to book cama seats which fully recline into a flat bed, but there were none available. Fortunately the semi-cama seats in front of us look fairly comfortable.

7:01pm, Friday: The seats are comfortable!

8:00pm, Friday: The first in a string of bad movies comes on. This time it’s the Vince Vaughn epic thriller, Four Christmases. At least it passes the time until dinner, which is served halfway through the film. Today’s feast: vegetable lasagna, bread and cold rice topped with ham and cheese. We will soon learn that ham and cheese is the staple Argentinian bus food.

10:30pm, Friday: The movie has ended and I can’t figure out how to operate the bathroom door. A line forms behind me as I wait for the person inside to come out. Boy, this sure is taking them a long time! I try the door again and realize no one was ever in there. I sheepishly smile at the guys behind me and then feel bad enough that I don’t even use the bathroom – I just brush my teeth and decide to come back later. I do however find out that the toilet is for liquids only. There’s Spanish graffiti on the wall next to this sign that says, according to my rough translation, “This means pee only! No poop!” I silently hope that the lasagna treats me well.

4:30am, Saturday: We reach our first lengthy stop to pick up and drop off people. There were a couple of quick stops late last night, but this one feels like Mike Holmgren came in and is trying to rebuild the passenger list from start. The worst part is that my seat is directly next to the stairs to get off the bus, and everyone feels the need to bump into my head, or shoulder, or leg before getting off. I will learn soon that smacking the guy sitting by the exit is a staple Argentinian bus tradition.

5:15am, Saturday: We’ve been sitting at a blinking train track crossing for the last 10 minutes and there’s still no train in sight. The driver and the attendant finally decide to get out of the bus and manually lift the arm guarding the tracks. The driver then gets back on to get the bus across the track, leaving the attendant struggling to keep the arm in the air. He looks a bit like a skinny version of one of those World’s Strongest Man competitors: his veins are popping out of his forehead and his face is turning bright red. We make it safely across the tracks though, and I silently hope that the poor guy gets some rest.

5:30am, Saturday: I feel like blah from the humid bus, so I go downstairs to wash my face. As is often the case, a bloody nose strikes at a very inopportune time, especially since I don’t realize it until after I finish washing. I spend the next 20 minutes doing battle with this problem. I eventually win.

12:45pm, Saturday: I finally wake up after a very mediocre night’s sleep. I remember the big stop and the train tracks, as well as getting a weird Argentinian breakfast cookie that I didn’t eat, but other than that I had been iterating through the same three step process all night: listen to music, fall asleep, wake up and repeat.

1:00pm, Saturday: I woke up just in time for the action! A dog climbs on board and it appears to me that he is sniffing all the passengers for drugs. I think the passenger in the row in front of us thinks he is a candy-sniffing dog, because when the dog starts smelling him intently for a long time, he pulls the candy out of his pocket and gives it to the dog. The dog, unfazed, keeps sniffing around the guy. Eventually the policeman asks the guy to leave the bus while he and the dog check his belongings. Unfortunately since everything took place in Spanish and there were no subtitles, I can’t tell quite how the story ends. But the guy is eventually allowed back on. For the next thirty minutes he keeps looking over his shoulder suspiciously.

6:00pm, Saturday: The attendant thinks the bus has magically transformed into a retirement center, as he hands out Bingo cards to everyone. We play a game and a guy in the back of the bus wins a bottle of wine. We think Zhou got pretty close to a Bingo, but we’re not really sure since all the numbers were called out in Spanish and we were just randomly crossing off squares. It’s funny that even though we were guessing at what numbers were called, I still did terribly. I guess I’m not cut out to be a Bingo player.

7:00pm, Saturday: After several bad Spanish movies, they finally show another American movie with Spanish subtitles. I get excited when I start to see things get blown up, but eventually I learn that we are watching what has just dethroned Mars Attacks! as the worst movie of all-time. Yes, 2012 was that bad. Without spoiling anything for you, during one scene a plane is taking off amidst a volcanic explosion. Rocks are coming down everywhere around the plane, which is gaining speed down the runway. I understand that if the plane is hit that makes for a bad movie, but what I don’t understand is how all of a sudden John Cusack climbs up a cliff and runs on foot quickly enough to catch the plane just before it takes off over an immense gorge. The movie is so bad that I silently hope that I get to see it again and laugh at it.

7:45am, Sunday: Ahhh, fresh air! We were supposed to arrive in a small town called Rio Gallegos at 6am, but were running way behind schedule. We don’t care though, as not counting one ten minute break yesterday morning, neither of us have seen the outdoors in quite some time. Using my best Spanish, I order some breakfast croissants for us. “Cuanto cuesta croissants? … Dos, por favor. … Gracias.” This makes me two for two in talking in Spanish, if you’ll remember my triumph from a couple days ago. I devour my croissant, because not counting the two medium-sized dinners we had the past two nights, we haven’t eaten much food. Which brings me to:

8:00am, Sunday: This might be our last chance all day to use the bathroom. We haven’t been allowed to for the past 36 hours, so it might be wise to use it. The problem is that it’s too early in the morning for that kind of thing. I’m not ready. As I mentioned though, we haven’t been eating a lot, so I go ahead and chance it. Soon we board our next bus.

10:00am, Sunday: We park at a brick building and wait. And wait. At 11am, we’re finally told to get off the bus – we’re at the border. We spend the next hour in lines, five of them to be exact. At one point we re-board the bus, only to be called back out to get into another line. Eventually, we make it into Chile. We will soon learn that crossing borders is a staple Patagonian bus tradition.

1:00pm, Sunday: I should watch what I wish for. Guess what movie they show now? That’s right, 2012, starring John Cusack. At the beginning I am hopeful that I will be able to laugh at it this time, but after a few minutes I realize that it’s just going to get on my nerves in the same way that Tyra Banks’ speeches do on America’s Next Top Model (Zhou watches it – I just overhear things). I spend the next 2 hours, 38 minutes praying that the movie will end.

2:00pm, Sunday: We all get off the bus and onto the ferry to cross into Tierra del Fuego. Then the bus pulls up right beside us on the ferry, making us wonder why we got off in the first place. After a few minutes on the water, we understand. The ferry is rocking more heavily than a long-haired weirdo at a Metallica concert. If we were all still aboard the top level of the bus, it would probably tip right over into the sea. As it is, we’re surprised the whole boat doesn’t pull a Titantic on us.

3:00pm, Sunday: We get off the bus for the last of our four immigration stops. Well, I think it was four stops. I lost track a long time ago. Suffice it to say that I no longer have any idea what country we’re in. I just know that my passport is collecting valuable stamps. It’s now up to almost 60. Not bad for what started as a blank book just six months ago.

7:30pm, Sunday: Right on schedule, we pull up to Ushuaia. Hard to believe that 48.5 hours ago we were just starting our jour… what’s that? We have to get onto another bus? But all we’ve had to eat today is half a ham and cheese sandwich. I’m starving! Ok, fine, I’ll get on the next bus.

7:45pm, Sunday: Each bus has gotten progressively worse than the last. I can barely fit my legs into the allotted space, and then the guy in front of me leans his seat back into my face. I have no choice but to lean mine back just as far, creating a domino effect through the bus. Now everyone is effectively laying on top of each other at a 45 degree angle. This bus ride better be quick.

9:00pm, Sunday: We stop to get dinner – this isn’t a good sign. If we were near Ushuaia we wouldn’t stop. I don’t complain though as not only have Zhou and I not eaten much all day, we haven’t had a chance to get any water either. So I run off the bus and am the first one in line at the nearby restaurant. I buy a bottle of water and a couple of salami and cheese sandwiches (for variety, obviously, from the ham and cheese) and Zhou and I devour everything as if we were trying to impress Kobayashi sitting in the seat next to us.

10:45pm, Sunday: Almost 52 hours since the beginning of this post, we finally arrive in Ushuaia. Of the past 52 hours, I estimate that 48.5 were spent on the bus and the rest were spent in lines at immigrations. It’s freezing cold outside, in stark contrast to the good air of Buenos Aires. The entire bus ride was over land as flat as the Serengeti, but Ushuaia is more hilly than San Francisco. Zhou and I power walk up the hills to our hostel, where we immediately run for the showers and then crawl into bed. We both agree: no more buses.

Until tomorrow afternoon.
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Picture of the Day: I feel on top of the world whenever I go to Tierra del Fuego.

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