National Parks and FISH!!!

After one national park, we decided to head north to another. After a 26 hour bus ride, we arrived in Esquel, a very small town on the edge of the Los Alerces National park. We left some stuff at the hotel, and headed out to the park for 6 days of camping and fishing. We camped the first two days at a campsite that we thought was free, but later turned out to be the pay site. It wasn´t much money, and it was very pretty, and right on the lake. We had a nice campsite right by the lake, with a fire pit, and had access to a shower, so it worked out nicely. We had a good fire, and drank some ¨wonderful¨ boxed wine! We hiked along the river and fished for a day and a half, and caught a couple very little trout. The next day we got back on the bus for an hour and a half, to go up to another part of the park, with bigger rivers...and fish! We ended up getting dropped off at the wrong area, that only had a pay campsite, but it was closed for the season, and we just found a little site towards the back, and camped for free for 4 days. It was pretty funny, as this was the exact campsite that me (Ben) and our friend Harvey stayed at 5 years ago when they were in the park, we didn´t pay that time either. The first day was pretty nasty, and we just hung around the campsite and fished the lake a little, with no luck. The next day was very nice and we hiked along the road to a lookout point, and then tried to find our way down the mountain to the river.

It was awful, as there was no real path, and it was as thick as a jungle, not to mention almost stepping on several huge yellow jacket nests. We finally found the river after about 2 hours of bushwhacking, and started fishing. We had a couple bites, and caught a few right towards the end of the day, but not the big ones we were looking for. We decided there was no way we could go back up the way we came down, and decided we would go around the lake, and swim if we had to. Luckily we found a little path, and with a little wading, and fence jumping, we made it back on a much quicker route. The next day was very rainy, and we got poured on all day, but we were determined to catch some fish anyway, so we went back by the quicker route, and found the second smaller river that Ben remembered from his previous time in the park. The river was full of big trout that you could see everywhere. We caught several large brown and rainbow trout, and even brought one back to cook for dinner. The fishing was great, but difficult, as there were downed trees all along the bank, and once you hooked up with a fish, you had to maneuver them around the trees to land them. We lost a few fish, and a lot of lures, but still caught some great ones. That about did it for that national park, but now that we have got the fishing bug, we are heading to another for some more fishing!

The Fitz Roy

Our bus ride down to El Calafate really wasn´t all that bad; our seats reclined pretty far and we had some Tylenol PM to help us through the 40 hours! After getting some supplies in El Calafate we took another bus ride to El Chalten, about another 3 hours away, to hike around Mt. Fitz Roy. It is in South Argentina close to the Chile border and the Fitz Roy is a little over 10,000 feet. The hiking is not too strenuous and very beautiful. Our first day it was incredibly windy - and naturally we forgot the stakes to our tent! Ben, being the boy scout he is, rigged up some fallen trees and rocks around our tent to protect us from blowing away. Once he was done everyone else at the camp site was jealous of our spot! We spent the first night at Laguna Torre which is a small lake at the base of Glacier Grande and survived the wind without blowing away. The next day we hiked to another camp site that sits closer to Mt. Fitz Roy, dropped our stuff and trekked up to the lookout point which is fairly steep but worth it. It was really incredible and the weather was gorgeous - perfectly clear, sunny, and hardly any wind! Would have been a great night for a camp fire, but unfortunately they are not allowed in the national park - with the wind you can see why. We had some rowdy neighbors that stayed up until 3 am and then we heard them get back up around 5 am to go see sunrise over the mountain. I don´t think it is possible for them to be any louder than they were. Our last day we just hiked around the camp sight to various viewpoints and played some cards before spending another night. Thankfully most of our neighbors had moved on so we got a little more sleep. It was a good way to spend 4 days and get a little more back on budget after being in Buenos Aires for a week. Afterwards we spent a couple days in El Calafate which is a really cute town. It is small but has some good places to eat and all the buildings look like log cabins which you can´t beat in a mountain setting. Our first night back we went to an all you can eat parrilla that Ben actually ate at back in 2005 when he was here with our buddy Harvey Cleveland. We stuffed ourselves silly. From here we are heading north to Esquel to hopefully do some more camping and fishing.

Parrilla´s and Malbec

We arrived in Buenos Aires without any hiccups. This city is much more European than I imagined and has tons of plazas and cafes all over the place. Our hotel room was in the San Telmo neighborhood where we just hung around for a couple days waiting for our friend Allison Ellis to come meet us - what a great time! We walked around the city her first day then sort of took it easy; since she had the brilliant idea of eating sushi before she got on the plane :( For dinner we went to one of the many parrilla´s around town which is just a place that serves a bunch of meat with some sides. Each of us got a steak and a salad, and split a bottle of Malbec - a typical Argentina meal. On Sundays San Temlo turns into a huge street market that took up the first part of our afternoon. It is supposed to be an antique market, but it is really just handicrafts and touristy souvenirs. We found some good stuff though. Then we ventured off to the La Recoleta Cemetery where Eva Peron is buried. It is really impressive with all the mausoleums and stained glass, but a lot farther away than we thought; we took a cab back. Since BA is so big we decided to change locations to the Palermo neighborhood. It is really cute with more cafes and little boutiques on every corner. We stayed in a hostel that really wasn´t the best - I got bitten by bed bugs, but we figured we would only be here for two nights. There is a museum close by that we checked out - not really that impressive - and a Japanese Gardens. One night we went to a local soccer game, Velez vs. Boca, and it was nuts! We went through 6 different security checks before we were even in the stadium and even then we were behind a barbwire fence because we were with Boca the away team. The field even has a small moat around it to make it harder to charge the field! I have never seen fans sing and scream the entire match like that, it was a really good time even though we thought the company was going to take us for pizza beforehand and didn´t, so we were starving the whole time.

The next day we took a cooking class that taught us how to make empanadas and Argentina BBQ. Empanadas are great little pastries that are stuffed with meat, they are delicious and very cheap around here. Their BBQ consists of some different kinds of meat: Blood Sausage, Intestines, Short Ribs, and Flank Steak; our own personal parrilla with unlimited wine! It was so much fun and we had a really good group of people. The food was great and we drank plenty of wine, breaking two glasses in the process (neither of which were broken by us thankfully!).

Afterwards we decided to get out of the city for a bit and went to the Tigre Delta. It is only about 1 1/2 hours from the main train station. We found a great place to stay that we actually had to ourselves the first night; took a boat tour to 3 Bocas and ate some good food and drank some good wine. The delta is much more relaxing than the city- the town is right on the channels and the people seem to spend their time chilling along the water rather than inside cafes. It was a great way to end our time. Allison has to go home unfortunately and we have a 40 hour bus ride ahead of us getting to the south of Argentina to hike the Fitz Roy!