Me Embracing the World

Me Embracing the World

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Southward... (Bariloche, Argentina)

Man, where has the time gone, it feels like January just disapeared...

I´ve spent the past month traveling from Mendoza to Bariloche, something I thought would take me just a day. In fact, I almost just bought a direct ticket from Mendoza. Of course, I didn´t, and one month later I find myself here. I´ve been traveling with a group of friends the whole time, a group thats fluctuated from 3 to 5 people depending on the various locations we´ve been.

You´ll see these people littered throughout the 3 new albums of photos that I´ve posted (I´ve also updated the map, give it a look! http://ballofdirt.com/journeys/15065.html), so let´s get to know them...
Left to Right: Kathleen, Andreas, Katrine, and Johanas

1) Kathleen, 24, tree planter girl from Canada. I´ve been traveling with her since we met in Copacabana, Bolivia, with exception of a week detour into Chile. She´s an artist, guitar player, and soon to be teacher when she returns to BC. Great companion who, among other things has taught me the value of taking care of myself, contributing to the group, and cooking.

2) Andreas, 41, traveller from Austria/Italy. Andreas brings a touch of class to the group, with his ever-poised demeanor, fine italian cooking, and heaps of sarcasm when you least expect it. He met Kathleen in Mendoza and we´ve been together since. He´s taught me new understanding of ´going with the flow´ and how to cook a mean aldente pasta.

3) Katrine, 24, occupational therapist from Belgium. With her big brown curly hair and welcoming smile, Katrine does good as an ambassador of Belgian good will. She used to be a gymnast and thus has been teaching me the value of streching, and Kathleen the art of handstands and flips. Fresh off a Columbian romance, she´s also quite good with the spanish and brings a ´can do´ spirit to everything she does.

4) Johanas, 25, criminologist from Belgium. The other half of the fearsome Belgian twosome, Johanas is a very friendly and empathetic human being. Through in a good sense of humor and a desire to address societies ills, and you get some really good company. Unfortunately, he had to return to his native land two days ago, before we came to Bariloche, but we wish him all the best in his future working with refugees!

So... quite a interesting bunch, and as you´ve now read, we´re down to 4 at the moment. That will probably thin out more as things progress, as Andreas is moving west towards the island Chiloe in Chile, although Katrine and Kathleen are both working their way towards Ushauia as well.

And that´s where I´m headed. Down South. Way South, 1000km from Antartica, and the most southern city in the world. Along the way I hope to see some glaciers, penguins, and the sharp rocky mountains that charecterize southern Patagonia.

Yes... that´s where I´m going, but what have I done for the past month? Where have I been?
Well, as I listed in the last post, From Mendoza, I´ve snaked my way rather slowly down through:

...6 hour bus south



  • Malargue - Small rural town nestled up against the Andes, I spent a week here with Kathleen and Andreas, hiking, farming, siestaing{it was really hot}, eating ice cream, biking to a fish farm and finally finishing my oversized book, The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul by Rudy Rucker

...2 hour bus north


  • San Rafael- The urban connection point between Malargue and Mendoza, I just spent a few hours in my sister city, dinner and then back on the bus south

...8 hour bus south

  • Neuquén - The capital of the district of the same name, a large pleasent city with nothing of note besides the fact that I flew next to someone from Neuquén on my flight from Lima to Cuzco. Of course at the time I never thought I would actually go here, so it was a trip. Kathleen and I spent an afternoon waiting around and then hopped a micro to push onward.

...3 hour bus south east

  • Junín de Los Andes - yippied (yuppie hippie) up small town, close to ski resorts, and briming with a lake tahoe vibe. The first place where Kathleen and I encountered the fact that its actually tourist high season and its possible to not have a place to stay if you don´t reserve ahead. Luckily, our taxi driver knew someone (a local shop merchant) who rented out a house, so for a night its like we were local Junínians, with a little cottage to ourselves.

  • San Martin de Los Andes - Whatever we found in Junín, San Martin (just an hour south) was like an enlarged version. Bigger city, with a big lake, pronounced moutains, covered with trees... San Martin would be our home base for the next week.

We also found ourselves with the problem once again of having no place to sleep in San Martin, but once again we also were helped by a recommendation from our friendly taxi driver. This time it landed us at Casa Coco, the abode of one charesmatic reinasance man by the name, not suprisingly, of Coco. It wasn´t a hostel in the technical sense, as it was just a house, but Coco had set up the upstair room to squeeze about 20 people into a row of bunk beds and every little nook and cranny of the attic. All I can say is we loved it.

First off, the back story, Coco is an extremely charesmatic later-aged man who welcomes everyone to his house with a hug and a kiss. He really is a reniasance man, a painter, an arquitechet (He actually built the odd looking Swiss style house), a tango singer with a PA in his living room and a mind full of melodies and lyrics, a chef who would always prepare some asada (barbecue) or pizza each night, and a lover of travel and language.

The real highlight for me was getting to see him use his singing talents, which we employed quite frequently due to the fact that there were two professional tango players who lived in the house! Julia (Bandoleón, a strange button accordian that shows no sign of organization) and Dardo (Accordian, his name means Dart in spanish) were a wonderful pair of musicians and people from Rosario (North of Buenos Aires). They were in an Orchestra Típico together back at home, and playing in the resturants of San Martin for several months. I had the great fun of sitting around Casa Coco with them on several nights, doing my best to keep up with the tango skills. To be honest, I think we did best when we played some buena vista social club tunes.

But this is how Casa Coco was, always full of music, always full of life. For our first few days, there was a group of 8 or so 20 something guys from BA (Buenos Aires). Every night was loud and rocous until at least 6 in the morning, and since the whole house was basically just one giant room, we had to learn to sleep with it. Still, we didn´t mind too much, it just added to the great feel of the place.

Anyways... according to plan, Kathleen and I met back up with Andreas, Katrine, and Johanas in San Martin and decided to rent a car for a week and drive around touring the many surrounding lakes that make up the Argentinian Lake District. We piled a bunch of food and tents into the car and took off for Parque National Lanín. Simply put, this trip was a vacation from the vacation and it was wonderful as such. We were treated to astounding veiws of Volcan Lanín and the surrounding lakes. Rather than see all the lakes, we took a day or two at each one we visited and got to enjoy the tranquility of camping, even with our lacking of supplies. Luckily, all the sites had fire pits and we found ourselves cooking some Parilla (barbecue) in true Argentinian fashion ( you burn the wood in a corner and move the coals under the grill when they´re glowing hot, suprisingly enough, you don´t need that much wood to cook a bunch of meat).



As an unexpected highlight, we looked up into the sky at night and were suprised to find a VERY large comet just sitting there, streaming in the sky. Comet McNaught (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_McNaught), which supossedly is the brightest one in the past 40 years. The beauty of which being that it really wasn´t in my plans to go comet hunting, but McNaught is only visible from the southern hemisphere, and was only discovered on August 6, 2006 anyways. The first night I saw it, I actually just thought it was an airplane in the distance, over the lake, so i didn´t tell anyone. But the next night, it was brighter, and it was clear that it was something quite special in the sky. I did my best to take some photos, but ran up against the limitations of my night photography equipment/ability.
When it was all said and done, it was time to travel south to Bariloche, the launching point for southern Patagonia.... but thats a story for another day....
ALL THE BEST!





2 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow -- what a wonderful update! Thrilling to read -- thanks for sharing -- truly wonderful! :-)

Anonymous said...

Hello Jesse! Nice the blog!!
I am from Brazil and I saw you have a friend from Belgium( Katrine, 24, occupational therapist from Belgium), so can you give her email adrees? I am a student of O.T. in Brazil and next year there will be a congress of Occupational Therapy in her country and I need to be in contact with her, please. Thanks!!! karoliny16@hotmail.com