It was well worth the bus ride

We are nearly at the end of the world, in El Calafate. In two hours we get on the bus to go to Puerto Natales, and Friday, we venture out into Los Torres Del Paine for a 10 day trek.

The 26 hour bus ride down here, though exceedingly long, was gorgeous. We drove through wide valleys that wound between an endless range of mountains, jagged ridges outlined black against the sky, cotten puffs of clouds grazing their peaks. The clouds, more varied then any i´ve seen, were art in themselves, streching across the sky in puffs, weaves, dots, horsetails and cotten candy formations all at once. In the pink glow from the setting sun, their beauty was intense. I was bouncing in my seat the whole way down.

We also drove though the flattest place i´ve been (in the second half of the ride) and i longed to stand alone in the center of the circle of earth beneath the perfect dome of deep blue sky. For 360 degrees there was nothing: no roads (save the one we were on), buildings, houses, trees, people. We did see the occasional sheep and horses. And Alpaca!! And Emus, herds of wild emus!

Today we visited El Glaciar Perito Moreno. Thirty km long, five wide, and 60 meters tall, it was quite unlike anything i´ve seen. It flows down from some impressive snowy mountains into an enormous glacial lake, its frontal face a sheer wall of ice, riddled with cracks and crevasses of vibrant glacial blue. I tried to imagine how big a person would appear standing at its base, but couldn´t quite manage. Cruize boats that took tourists through the lake for a closer look were dwarfed, even by the floating icebergs that had broken off of the glacier itself. And then there was the sound! The background noise was that of constant flowing water, winding its way down the glacier through its crevasses. This was puncuated by gunshots and booming thunder: the sounds of chunks of ice breaking off and crashing into the lake. I sat, stared, and listened for an undisrupted hour, completely content to watch this living wall of ice. When big chunks (bigger than a house) would sluff or fall off you could almost feel it, and the water would be white with frothe and bubbles for minutes afterwards as the ice bobbed back up to the surface. Truly spectacular. Especially considering that it might not be there any more in a couple of decades, if we as a planet keep going with our current carbon craze.

Last night Roxanne and I went out with some people we met on the bus: Frederico (from Bs.As.), Matt (from Canada), and Paige. We talked to Frede off and on during the bus ride down from El Bolson, which was great since he is learning english and we are learning spanish. Interesting to see his use of the english language and how it made logical sense, given our understanding of spanish. He shared his mate (meaning the tea, pronounced mah-tay) with us and we reciprocated by sharing our bottle of wine with him (which cost 4.90 pesos; $1.50 usd. cheaper than water!). We went to a cozy bar, drank local beer, and chatted for a few hours. When we got there at 10 pm, the place was deserted. It was starting to fill up at midnight when we left, but Frede said that at 1 AM it would be packed. Argentinians are night owls. They eat dinner at 9pm at the earliest and don´t go out until 1am. In Buenos Aires, according to Frede, people don´t go out until 3am!! I suppose this is a good reason for having siestas.

I bought my first mate and bombilla yesterday! Mate is the container out of which you drink the yerba (tea). The bombilla is a straw with a filter at the end. Traditionally, you completely fill the mate with yerba, pour in hot water from a thermos, drink all the tea, refill it with water, and pass it clockwise. The only thing I can think of to relate it to in the U.S. is weed, except mate is legal. Everywhere you go, be it a mountain hike, a boiling day at the beach, outside of the supermercado, at Perito Moreno or on the bus, people are drinking and sharing mate. It really fits with the social and incredibly kind nature of Argentinians.

And now, we go into the wild!