Samba on the Streets

Rio
December 16, 2011

My original plan was to go to Florianopolis in Brazil before continuing on to Rio. However, rain was predicted the whole time I would be there, and I decided that 26 hours was a long time to spend on a bus to spend a couple rainy days in a beach town, especially when it would take another 16 hours to drive to Rio. In the end, I decided to fly from Buenos Aires straight to Rio. I guess I’ll just have to come back to Florianopolis another time.

I flew from Buenos Aires to Montevideo on Puna, a Uruguayan airline. The man sitting next to me said the 29 minute flight was probably the second shortest international flight in the world. (The first is escaping me.) The flight was fine, but the connection was delayed a couple hours which meant I arrived in Rio around 2:00 AM. Now, I’ve been pretty down on my Spanish, but being in a country where I don’t speak the language at all (or even know how to phonetically pronounce words!) made me appreciate just how far I could get on the little Spanish I know.

I had a little scare in the airport after arrival when I couldn’t get any money out of the ATMs and didn’t have enough cash to get a taxi to my hostel, but fortunately, after four machines and even more attempts, I was able to get out some Brazilian Reales—just not very many. Enough to get to the hostel, at least. I arrived around 3:00. The hostel was fine—I made my bed in the room of eight and went to sleep.

Morning came early, though, as I was awakened by screaming kids. Lots of them. Like Kindergarten Cop out of control screaming kids in a classroom. It turns out the hostel was next to some sort of preschool. (No wonder it was so cheap!) But being awake, I decided to get up. I perused some options for tours (I like starting a city stay with a tour—you get to see what’s out there and meet some new people.) while eating breakfast. I decided to do the city tour which covers the main must see sites of Rio. In my head, I was thinking it was a good day to site see because the cloudy sky wasn’t good for the beach. I like to think had I had more sleep, I would have realized that a cloudy day might not have been the best day to go to vista points, like Christ Redeemer and Sugarloaf, but really, who knows? I’d signed up for it.

The tour was nice, though not as full of information about Rio as I would have liked and not the views I would have gotten had I held out for a couple days. (Oh well--guess I’ll have to go back.) I also had a hard time staying awake during some of the drive. I’ll let the pictures speak for the sightseeing:

Christ the Redeemer

The view 

What I was supposed to see.

Cathedral

Lapa Steps

More step views. The steps are continually
 being changed--new tiles traded for old.

Lapa steps

Ahhh... San Francisco

Artist Selaron and me.
Don't know how the hand and tongue thing
started with him, but I figured I'd join him.

If you pass through the middle of this tree,
you'll get married soon.
The men all hugged the fence to pass.

Sugar Loaf

Views from Sugar Loaf

 That night I had dinner with one of the guys from the tour who was staying in the hostel. There was a little local party going on at a bar near the hostel on our walk back and we watched the dancing for a little. I think Brazilians are just born knowing how to move.  Other than that it was a quiet night for me. (I may have gotten lucky though. Two poor girls in my room (one of whom was the first speed skater from Australia to compete in the sport in the Olympics) who ate the same thing at the same restaurant—they had actually recommended the meal to us—were up all night sick from what they thought was food poisoning from the meal.)

The next morning was Saturday, which meant no preschool which meant I could sleep in a little, which I did. It was another cloudy day and I spent it walking around Copacabana. My friend Caroline was right—when you’re there, you find yourself humming Barry Manelow as you’re walking along the streets. That night a few girls from the hostel and I went to Lapa—an area of town known for its nightlife. It really was pretty crazy. There were people everywhere along the street for a couple blocks. Really, people everywhere. It was fun people watching, and we wandered around a bit, but we were pretty tired and ended up having a nice sampling of street food before heading back to the hostel.

After surviving the bus ride home (I think the bus drivers don’t quite know what to do when there’s no traffic—ours was swerving in and out of lanes, taking turns fast, and slamming on the brakes a little too quickly), I was ready to get in bed and have a nice sleep in the following morning. It was still the weekend, after all. What I hadn’t anticipated, however, was the preschool building serving as a church on Sundays. And those congregants do love to sing. As my mom would say (and I’m pretty sure the expression comes from scripture), they made a “joyful noise unto the Lord.” Wow.

I moved hostels Sunday afternoon. (The move had been planned in BA, and was I grateful!) The first hostel was in Leme, next to Copacabana. The second, The Lighthouse (which I highly recommend to anyone going to Rio), was in Ipanema. The staff was fantastic, and I got a great overview of Rio when I arrived—places to go, things to see, food to try. I went to the beach with Louka, a non-English speaking Italian guy from the hostel, and we met some of his friends there. (As he didn’t speak English, our conversation was in Spanish. So it was quite limited. But I will say it’s a lot easier to understand a non-native speaker of Spanish than it is to understand a native.) The afternoon was spent listening to live bossa nova on the boardwalk—between the music, the sand, and the waves, it was one of those I-can’t-believe-I’m-living-this-life moments.

Paradise

Is this really my life?

We went to Bib Bip that evening. It’s a little bar—big enough for two long tables and standing room against the wall (I never made it inside). There were a couple fridges behind a counter at the back of the place and the front was open with people standing outside. There were about 12-15 men sitting round the table playing samba. They would rotate in and out of the different instruments and take turns starting off the songs. It was like I was witnessing a private jam session. At a smaller table also outside was an old mustached man with a giant book in which he wrote down the names of people in attendance and kept track of the number of beers they drank. He took his job and the music very seriously, occasionally stopping the musicians to shush the people talking in the audience. There were all sorts of people in attendance including a man who had had a bit too much to drink and whose mental facilities might be in question even when sober. He was trying to get me to dance “pow-pow-pow” as he moved his pointed fingers in front of him to the music. He also tried rotating in to the musicians table. A couple of the musicians found him amusing, but the mustached record keeper did not, and he had a few words with him.

Tuesday morning I made it out early enough to lay out at the beach. It was gorgeous. The water was a cool, but tolerable, and the weather was sunny but not so hot to be uncomfortable. The only problem, which I didn’t discover until later, was that I did not do a very good job applying my spray-on sunscreen, and I ended up with some pink patches later that evening.

After a morning at the beach I went on a favela tour. It definitely was a sharp contrast to the life in Ipanema. The favelas are built on hills, and we started with a motorcycle ride to the top. The hills are steep and long, and moto-taxis are a very common service around the favelas. I didn’t realize a motorcycle could squeeze between some of the cars we passed or take the corners the way we did, but I’m alive and uninjured, so I guess the driver knew what he was doing. The tour was interesting, and I felt like I learned a lot more about life there than I had on the city tour. They all used to be quite dangerous, and many of them still are. 

Up to the favela. Ladies were told to
hold onto their drivers.
Men had to use the small handles in back.

However, awhile back the government started pacifying the different favelas and weeding out the drug lords and militia that ruled them. And it sounds like they’ve made a lot of progress. There’s a big police force present around the communities now, and they are trying to better living conditions for the people there. The one we visited was next to a fantastic sports complex that the kids can use for free if they go to school. They have a long way to go, but you could see progress on the tour. 

Power sharing.

View from the favela.

Supporting the entrepreneurship in the favela

A better garbage collecting
system is still needed.

That night was samba in the streets. Literally, there were people playing samba in some random street and people all around dancing and listening. While there were a lot of tourists there, one lady from Rio said that it was a really authentically Brazilian thing to do—gather around music and enjoy each other. What a life!

Tuesday was another day of planning for me, but I did make it to a traditional Brazilian place for dinner. Restaurants that are either all you can eat or pay by the kilo are quite popular, and quite tasty.

After running errands on Wednesday, I began my travels to Nairobi. I was supposed to catch a bus from the bus terminal at 5:30 for a six hour ride to Sao Paolo. The hostel suggested catching a local bus to the terminal around 3:45 because traffic could make the journey up to an hour and you never really know when the local busses will show up. I was outside at 4:00. And I arrived at the bus terminal at 5:40. Fortunately, there was another bus leaving at 7:30 that would get me to Sao Paolo by 2:00, which still felt like plenty of time to catch my 4:20 flight, even with the hour shuttle ride to the airport. And, the bus company was great about switching my ticket.

 As I had time to kill, I wandered around the terminal a bit, read some, and then decided that I should grab some dinner. It was about 7:15 when I got my food, and as I was eating I kept looking at my watch thinking I didn’t have much time and wondering why I didn’t start earlier. At 7:23 I decided I better get my food to go. So, I asked for a to-go container. The guy was really helpful, but a little too thorough for my time constraints. He finally handed me the bag with my salad. I took it and hustled down to the bus (only making one wrong turn). As I got there, a bus was pulling away. I literally started running after it, shouting, astonished by my ability to miss two busses in the same day. I was able to catch the driver’s attention, but he motioned for me to go to the next bus. Fortunately, it was a false alarm, and the bus I needed was still boarding passengers. I got on and took a deep breath.

I made friends with some German men who were on the bus and when we were talking I learned that the shuttle I was planning to take to the airport didn’t run from 2:00-4:00am. Oops. Fortunately, however, there was a guy in front of us overheard our conversation who said he’s split a taxi with me.

When we arrived in Sao Paolo I ran off the bus to get the taxi. The driver was nice enough, but a bit old, and perhaps should not have been driving at night. My cab buddy and I were already thinking this when it started to pour. The skies opened up and let out a deluge. Streets started flooding, you couldn’t see ahead of you, and our driver slowed to a crawl. While this was probably a safe thing to do, it didn’t feel like such a great move when I was trying to catch a flight and I was wondering why we couldn’t have found one of the cab drivers that were passing us on either side to take us to the airport.

After an eternity, we arrived. It was 3:55. I still had an hour and twenty five minutes before my flight, so I was feeling okay, but I didn’t have a big cushion. I also didn’t know that the check-in for Qatar airlines was a good half mile from where I was. While I didn’t pull out the full sprint, I did walk at a pretty fast clip to get to check-in area 3, and in the end I left the counter 7 minutes before it closed. 

Have I mentioned that tours are a good way for me to travel?

Good Visa Karma in Buenos Aires

December 14, 2011

Well, it’s been awhile. I’m currently 30 hours into my nearly 40 hour journey from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Nairobi, Kenya. So much happens each day that I want to remember, but I’m finding myself wanting to spend the time I’m traveling doing things other than writing, thus I’m behind. But I’ll do my best to try to catch up.

It was nice to be back in Buenos Aires after almost five years. Walking around the city triggered little shards of memory—incomplete episodes or a feeling of familiarity. 

Giant Christmas Tree in
Galerias Pacifico

Invisible man on Florida Street

Before being free to enjoy the city, however, I had to get going on my Brazilian visa. (You have to get one in advance of visiting the country. It had been hanging over my head for a while at this point, but through a combination of poor planning and decision making on my part, I still didn’t have one. While I also didn’t have a set date to be in Brazil, I had planned to spend most of my on-my-own time between Ushuaia and Africa there. And, I had my Nairobi flight booked from Sao Paulo, so I needed to get there by at least December 14.)

Anyway, I had grand intentions of getting the visa done early Friday morning, but after wanting to sleep in after a very late arrival Thursday night, and then running into Caroline, my roommate from Peru, and wanting to catch up with her, and then going with my friend Paul to several ATMs trying unsuccessfully to get cash, and then finding a place to take passport photos, it was closer to 2:00 when I arrived at the embassy. And, it turns out that address I had wasn’t even the correct place for me to be. Clearly I wasn’t the first person to go there, however, as the security guard handed me a paper with the correct address to the consulate. The paper also had visa attention hours on it. Unfortunately, they had closed an hour before and wouldn’t be open again until Monday. This was going to foil my plans of trying to get to Brazil after a couple nights in Buenos Aires.

As I was contemplating my options outside the embassy I realized the consulate nearby (and near a cash point my friend hadn’t yet tried), so I decided to go inside and see what the deal was. After passing through security, I was greeted by a very unhelpful, unhappy woman in reception. Through gesturing and broken Spanish, I was able to gather that she could not help me at all, but I could submit an online application on one of the computers behind me. After I finished it, I was then able to learn from the security guard through broken Spanish and English and a series of gestures that I then needed to sign up for an appointment online. He pulled up the screen I needed to sign up for one on the computer, but all of the appointment slots were filled until December 15. I was supposed to fly out of Sao Paolo for Nairobi on the 14^th. Again, through a series of broken language and gestures, I explained my predicament to the security guard and on contemplation he sent me over to counter five.  

I wasn’t quite sure what I was waiting for, but after a few minutes, a woman came out.  I explained to her my problem (no gesturing needed—she spoke perfect English) and asked if there was any way I could come on Monday even though I didn’t have an appointment and see if someone who had one didn’t show up and take that spot. She said no, that I had to have an appointment, and furthermore, that people always show up for their appointments because if they don’t, their visa is automatically denied. I asked her if there was another consulate I could go to in a nearby city, or if there was any other way to get a visa. There were places a few hours away. I then explained that I had already filled out the application and would I use the same one for another consulate. At this point, she asked to see the application number I had written down. She turned and started typing things on her computer. While she was doing this, I was looking around and saw a notice saying that n addition to the photos, completed application, and passport that I had with me, I was also supposed to have proof of onward travel from Brazil, a paystub, and a recent bank statement none of which I did. Oops.

After a moment of typing, the lady asked to see my passport and a photo. She taped the photo on a blank sheet of paper and then asked me about the bank statement. I told her I didn’t have one, but that I could pull it up on the computer if she wanted. She didn’t go for that. After thinking for a moment, she asked me if I had a credit card. Fortunately (as you never know how you could lose one or how long it might take to get a replacement), I did. She looked at it, asked me about my credit limit, which I told her, and she wrote down on the paper. She then had me sign the piece of paper and turned back to her computer. She disappeared for another moment and then she came back with instructions about paying for the visa. “Go to this bank at this address and pay this amount. You must go to this branch and it must be paid today. If you do that, you can pick up your visa on Monday at noon. If anyone asks, you had an appointment.” And she turned away and went back to her office. That was it.

I pulled out the map trying to figure out where I needed to go. The security guard saw this and told me in English where the bank was—it was only four blocks from the consulate. But, it closes at 3:00 on Fridays and I needed to hurry. I looked at my watch, which said 3:00. (Fortunately, it was only 2:54—keeping my watch ahead is just a little trick I do to make sure I’m on time everywhere. Haha.) Anyway, the security guard motioned for me to hurry and exit using the stairs, which I did, and then I took off running down the street.

I have a time-stamped queue number from the bank that says 2:57:48. The bank locked the doors at 3:00 exactly. I was feeling pretty grateful at this point: grateful to the lady for processing my application, grateful to the security guard for letting me in on the closing time of the bank, and grateful I had left my flip-flops on the truck in Ushuaia and was thus wearing my sneakers—much better for running.  I was feeling so grateful I didn’t even mind the 30 minutes I had to wait before my number was called to pay for the visa.

The lucky day ended with a fantastic night at a tango show. I went with Paul who had been in Buenos Aires a couple years before. A few of his friends from the hostel at that time had gone to a show and couldn’t say enough about it. He’d been telling me about his plans to see a show from the first week of the trip. The hostel suggested going to La Ventana to see tango, and if any of you find yourselves in B.A., I highly recommend it. We had a delicious steak dinner and the entertainment was fantastic. In addition to the tango singers and dancers, the show had a performance by a drummer, a musician on some sort of small guitar-like instrument, and a cowboy who performed a sort of dance which combined a sort of clogging in cowboy boots and keeping rhythm with small balls attached to a string which he swung around, clacking the balls on the floor. (My description doesn’t do the act justice—it was really impressive!)

La Ventana

Enjoying steak dinner

Casa Rosada, where the president lives, at night.

The rest of the time in Buenos Aires was nice, though I didn’t do much in the way of touristy things. I picked up my visa on Monday without any problems, although I did have a moment of nervousness when an American man in front of me in line had his denied. (I don’t know why it was denied, but he seemed to be pretty surprised by the whole thing.) I also spent time running a few errands and trying to figure out travel plans for Brazil and India. (I also realized too late that I have an Indian visa problem as well, mainly I don’t have one and I need one to enter the country. I’ll be visiting the consulate in Nairobi as soon as I drop off my things at the hotel. I hope I haven’t used up all my good visa karma.) It’s amazing how much time trip planning takes—especially for someone like me who has a hard time making decisions. (Have I mentioned how I really enjoy doing tours?)

In B.A. I also saw Marcel, the guy I dated when I lived there. It was nice catching up—funny how time passes but some things don’t seem to change much. He did joke with me that I was like Benjamin Button—getting better with age. I liked that. J Caroline and I also spent a lot of time together—I’ve met some really interesting, engaging people since I’ve been traveling—and had some really bad luck with dinner spots. I also did a bit of running, which felt great, but I can’t seem to get my feet to go back to their normal size. Oh, and did I mention eating ice cream?

Carolina and Micaela

Freddo ice cream

The End of the World

December 1, 2011

The tour literally ended at the end of the world. Okay, maybe not literally the end of the world, but the last stop, Ushuaia, is the southernmost city in the world. And, to get there, we had to cross the Strait of Magellan. In one of the novels I read with my students a boy sails on a boat passing through the “dangerous” Strait of Magellan, and because of that, I think I have some strange fascination with it.

Our ferry

Spray on the boat

Merko and Jane soaked after spending
time on the deck. The water was rough.

We crossed into Tierra del Fuego on a ferry and continued on with a long day of driving. We stopped that night right on the border of Chile and Argentina so we could cross it first thing in the morning. The town consisted of the hotel with the campground and a gas station. Several in the group decided to upgrade to the hotel as it was freezing and windy. As I had a little Spanish and no one at the hotel spoke English, I became in charge of helping organize the rooms. (It was much more difficult than one would expect it to be.)  For my services, the lady let me use the hotel showers free of charge, which was fantastic. (“Shhh…Don’t tell anyone!”)

The town where we spent the night.
The whole town.

Eating dinner inside Gus. Too cold outside.

The next day we crossed back into Argentina and arrived at the End of the World by midday. We toured the national park there that afternoon, heard about possible excursions for the following day, and went out to dinner to celebrate the last night of the trip. Deciding on the excursions was difficult for me. The ladies from the hostel strongly recommended going on a boat ride where you would see the lighthouse, a cormorant island, a sea lion island, and a penguin island. The other option that caught my attention was taking a bus and then a short boat ride to an island where the penguins actually were.  After much deliberation, I decided on going to walk with the penguins. Unfortunately, the trip was completely booked, so I settled for the boat ride.

Part of the Tierra del Fuego National Park.

A view from the park.

I am here.

The following morning when I went for the boat ride, I learned that the penguin part of the trip had been canceled due to bad weather. Disappointed, I decided that I’d prefer to spend time around the city rather than taking the partial boat ride before leaving for Buenos Aires that evening.

City museum. As close as I'm
going to get to penguins?

They're so cute!

Adorning the town Christmas tree.

Around noon I went to double check the departure time of my flight that evening. I was on the same flight as two other people from the trip, but they had received notices of changes in departure time while I hadn’t. Well, I went to check my reservation, and it turned out I actually didn’t have one. In my email inbox I had a confirmation of my reservation, but not a confirmation of my flight. Oops. Need to learn to read the fine print more carefully. This added considerably to the tasks I needed to accomplish that day, namely figuring out how I was going to get to Buenos Aires and where I was going to stay in the meantime.

In the end, I found accommodation in a fabulous hostel with a view of the sea and I was able to book a flight for the following night. The silver lining was that I also had another chance to see the penguins I was excited about. Once again, I was too late to book a walk with the penguins, but I was able to get on a boat tour for the next morning.

The boat trip was nice; the penguins were fantastic. I think I got a bit lucky, too, as the weather was fine for us to sail the couple hours to make it to the island, but the weather turned and we actually were bussed back to the port because they felt the water was unsafe for us to sail in.

Penguins!

Seeing penguins. Not a very good consequence for teaching me responsibility and planning…but a great end to the trip!

Weathering the W Trek

November 29, 2011

Five hundred ninety-seven kilometers is lot of distance to cover in a day by truck-bus over roads in variable conditions of drivability. But we did it to arrive at Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park where we would set up camp for the next five nights. While I wasn’t familiar with the park before reading the information in preparation for this trip, the park is supposed to be a bit of a mecca for hikers. The popular W walk involves three major walks to take in views of the Grey Glacier and Lake, the Cuernos, and the Torres del Paine, three peaks that are featured on Chile’s 1000 peso banknote.  The trek gets its name by the W shape the trails make on a map.

See where the trek gets its name?

During this part of the trip, we had the option of backpacking along the trail or staying at camp where the truck was parked and doing various day hikes. While I love hiking, I prefer doing it with a minimal load on my back. Therefore, when I read that most all components of the W walk could be seen by doing various day trips instead of renting the needed equipment and then lugging all my kit on my back, I knew I would be staying at camp with the truck. Other members of the group were more ambitious. (In hindsight, it the hike doesn’t have to be as difficult as I was imagining it would be. There are refugios strategically placed along the trek where you can stay the night in a bed and buy meals, and sometimes even leave your kit for the day, allowing the walk to be “backpacked” without carrying all that much stuff. (Several in the group took advantage this.) That said, the refugios (and the food they sell) are very expensive. On the other hand, the W walk day walks weren’t as easily accessible as I had thought they would be—two trailheads were reachable only by an expensive ferry ride and the third was an hour’s drive and then a 15 minute shuttle ride away from our camp. All in all, I’m glad I opted for approaching the trek the way I did. )

We're welcome!

Gus at our campsite

 The evening we arrived was spent talking to a ranger about options in the park, setting up camp, and eating dinner. I was also able to take short walk to a beautiful viewing spot—I do love 10:00 sunsets. I’m continually impressed by nature’s awe-inspiring beauty.

View from our campsite!

 The ferry across to the first trailhead left at 9:00 the following morning. Backpackers and day hikers alike boarded the boat together. The W walk called for heading up the westernmost trail to views of the Grey Glacier that first day. As there were predicted 70 km per hour winds along that trail, most of the day hikers opted for going up the middle trail of the W to Valle de Frances and wait for another day when the winds were supposed to be a little less extreme to climb to see the glacier.

Trekkers on their way

About to board the ferry

Ferry ride

The hike started out nice. The trail wasn’t very steep and the weather was fine. After reaching the first camp 8 kilometers in though, things got more difficult. The trail turned to bigger rocks and boulders to climb. The weather also got colder and wetter. There were some pretty nice views of the mountains, a glacier (We saw a mini-avalanche—amazing how loud it was!), and a river. We were making good time up the mountain (One other disadvantage of the day hike was that there were only eight hours between the first ferry arriving and the last leaving, so that somewhat limited the distance you could cover.), but by the time we made it to the viewpoint we were aiming for, it was snowing and there wasn’t much of a view.

Fire bush along the way

Suspension bridges always
make me a little nervous.

First part complete.

This is the lookout spot. 

Hard boiled egg lunch.

On our way back down the mountain we ran into a woman who had fallen and evidently dislocated her shoulder. There were people assisting her, but she was clearly in a lot of pain, and there didn’t seem to be an easy way for her to get down the mountain and to proper care. We continued down and talked to the ranger at the first campsite who happened to be talking to a doctor, and they headed up to help her. It was full-on raining for the last hour of the way down to camp and the wind (and the latitude?) was making it hit us almost vertically. I was happy to make it to the cafeteria of that first refugio to wait in the warmth for the ferry to arrive, and I was inwardly cheering my decision to do the day hike option, particularly as weather was predicted to be worse the following day.

Views coming down

Wind on the water

 And worse it was. As we sat in Gus to stay dry after our pancake breakfast (after a lie-in (British for sleeping in J)) with the rain pounding on the windows, we decided that today was not a good day for hiking. (We had actually met up with most of the backpackers in the cafeteria before taking the ferry back the previous evening. The verdict seemed to be that the glacier-view hike they did really wasn’t worth doing in the weather they had done it in as there weren’t any views.)

Glad I'm in here and not on the mountain. 

 A couple in our group (Arthur and Liz—New Zealanders in their late 60s) had managed to get the last two tickets on a boat ride to see Grey Glacier for that afternoon. It was leaving from a hotel 45 minutes from camp, and as the weather was so wet, the rest of us in camp decided to go along for the ride. As the rain continued to come down we made bets on how many of the backpackers would have changed their minds about staying on the trail for four days and be at the pickup spot when Jimmy and Clare went to pick up the three girls that that planned to stay for just one night that evening.

After dropping off Arthur and Liz, I spent the afternoon journaling and chatting in front of a fire in the lobby of a five-star hotel half a mile from camp. Not a bad way to spend a rainy afternoon. (The hotel was amazing, for the record. However, I don’t know that I could ever justify paying upwards of $1200 per night to stay in a place—even if everything is included, but it was nice to sit in in for a bit.) When I returned to camp, two of the six W trekkers were there—poor Adam was sick and Darren had knee problems.

Arthur and Liz gave raving reviews of the Grey Glacier cruise, and there had been some cancellations, so four of us decided to do the cruise the following day.  Clare and Jimmy decided that they needed to take Adam to the hospital in the nearest town which was 90 minutes away (he’d been sick off and on the whole trip and he really didn’t look good coming back down from the mountain), so the nice guide from Kamura (another overlanding company that had been following a similar route as us) offered to help take people to their excursions. We almost missed the boat between not being able to find the people from our group who had gone horseback riding in the morning (we were supposed to pick them up on the way to the hotel to get the boat) and the Kamura truck breaking down two times en route, but we made it in the end.

Our boat's in the distance.

Stylin' in the life jacket

The boat ride to the glacier was crazy—the boat was rocking up and down, water covering the whole front window. I actually found it quite fun, but people were getting sick left and right and the poor tour guide was taking care of the clear plastic bags full of sick. Gross.

Grey glacier was nice and the boat took us up quite close to it, but I think we’d been a little spoiled in El Calafate, and the glacier wasn’t Perito Moreno. Still, it was a good time.

Grey Glacier and me

Another view

The blue was amazing!

A rainbow!

 The following morning was the final day of trekking for the W-ers, and many of us were planning on climbing the final leg of the W to the views of Torres del Paine. The night before had not been without excitement we learned over breakfast. Liz managed to impale herself with a sharp branch while going out to use the restroom in the middle of the night, and poor Clare and Jimmy had to make another hospital trip in the middle of the night. Poor Liz ended up with 11 stitches! They had just gotten back from the hospital an hour before they were to take us to the base of the hike, but Jimmy managed to get up and drive us to the shuttle stop in enough time for us to start the hike as planned.

The hike was great. The weather cooperated and the day was mostly beautiful. We summited just as the clouds were clearing from the three peaks, and I was able to get some decent pictures before they were swallowed up again. We reunited with the trekkers at the bottom and enjoyed hearing about everyone’s adventures. (Have I mentioned I’m glad I didn’t try to backpack the whole thing?)

Torres del Paine, here I come!

View along the way

We came to this sign an hour
and a half into the hike. Hmm...

Torres del Paine

I made it!

Contemplating its magnificence.

The crew's made it up!

Erin, Helen, and me relaxing after the hike.

We had to cross this bridge to get to the trail head.
The driver had to move his mirrors in to fit. Tight squeeze!

 That night Jimmy and Clare orchestrated a giant barbeque to celebrate the trek and the trip.

Damian, Erin, Helen

Cory manning the grill.

Jimmy enjoying his meat. Kelly enjoying Jimmy.

Erin, Damo, Adam (feeling better)

I made rice pudding for breakfast.
Didn't have a lot of luck with the pan.

An hour of scrubbing later.
Won't try making rice pudding again.