Before getting into what to do in Patagonia, there’s probably a better question to start things off:

What is Patagonia?

A Map of Patagonia, shamelessly stolen from the Internet

Besides being a hip, outdoor clothing company, Patagonia refers to the region of land comprising the southernmost portion of South America.  Ignoring physical borders, Patagonia includes both Argentina and Chile and rises as far north as the southern section of Argentina’s Buenos Aires district (not the city).  For decades, the geological diversity, boundless natural beauty and sparse population have made the region a tremendous draw for trekkers, campers, sport fishers, climbers and aficionados of nearly every other popular outdoor adventure.  The region gets its name from the European myth of the Patagons (etymology uncertain), mythical giants said to inhabit the far reaches of South America.  The 5′11″ average height of the Tehuelche Indians (eight inches past the European average of the time) helps explain this slightly, though not why Patagonians were still believed to be 12-15 feet tall over 250 years after their discovery.

For my purposes, Patagonia would be limited to its southernmost third or, more specifically, places I could get to by bus in under 24 hours.  This knocks out such popular mid-Patagonia favorites as Bariloche (founded by Swiss settlers, it’s often considered to be the chocolate capital of South America) and Puerto Montt (fjords, Jaimee!).  It was already early March and I would need to be back in Ushuaia by the 18th for my cruise — trips to Antarctica are neither cheap nor refundable at this point the game, and massive cruise ships wait for no man.  To be safe and fully prepared, I set March 16th as my ultimate cut-off date, which left me with the following popular options, with the winners in bold:

• Punta Arenas: “Sandy Point.”  The largest city in southern Patagonia, major attractions include boats and ferries to surrounding islands and a three-day cruise through the fjords to Puerto Montt.  As I was about to embark on a cruise to Antarctica, this seemed like an unnecessary use of my time.
• Puerto Natales: North of Punta Arenas, this smaller port town is the jumping-off point for trekkers headed to Torres del Paine.  While scenic, the waterside Chilean city offers few activities of its own, but a glut of options for outdoor gear rental and organized expeditions.  As I had already decided on Torres del Paine, this stop was a necessity.
• Torres del Paine National Park: Named for two naturally formed granite torres (”towers”) the park is one of Patagonia’s most famous, offering spectacular scenic beauty comprised of lakes, rivers, mountains, forests and glaciers, all with meticulously kept trails and an ample supply of refugios — “refuges” along the way for sleeping, bathing and supply restocking (including relatively inexpensive boxed wines).
• El Chalten: Tehuelche for “smoking mountain” (Mt. Fitzroy is not a volcano, but as it is always enshrouded by clouds, the indians believed it to be), the Argentinian city was built specifically for tourist purposes in 1985 as an access point for the popular Mt. FitzRoy and its surrounding national park.  Unlike Torres del Paine National Park, there is no entry fee and the city provides free camping to tourists.
• 

  Mt. FitzRoy (note: stock photo)

  Mt. FitzRoy: Named by Argentinian explorer Francisco Moreno (who himself would get a famous glacier named after him), this stark mountain peak straddling the Argentinian and Chilean borders has brought in famous mountain climbers from around the world for over a century due to its height and complexity.  The park that surrounds it has no admission charge and there are many diverse and interesting trails looping around the mountain.  I didn’t get to go, but several excursions out of El Calafate put me within visual range of the peak.

• El Calafate: A small bush with yellow flowers and dark blue berries called the “calafate” gives this city its name.  Getting its start early in the last century as a trading post for wool merchants, El Calafate has — like the other Patagonian cities above — shifted its focus to tourism instead.  The city now is filled with hotels, hostels, fine restaurants, an airport and even a casino (the biggest indicator apparently of a town’s tourist draw).
• Perito Moreno Glacier: 19 miles of solid ice, this glacier is the world’s third largest reserve of fresh water and one of Argentina’s biggest natural tourist draws.  It was spectacular, though given that I was less than a week away from visiting Antarctica and all the ice therein, this visit was possibly unnecessary.
• Monumento Natural Bosques Petrificados: Argentina’s very own Badlands (much like those in South Dakota), complete with petrified forest.  It’s not one of the area’s bigger draws, but as I’ve wanted to see a petrified forest since I envisioned massive stone trees as a child (the reality isn’t quite as epic), this was a definite.

The Plan

And so with two weeks at my disposal, I planned out my epic Patagonian adventure as follows:

• Day 1: 18 hours by bus from Ushuaia to Puerto Natales, Chile, with mandatory bus stop-over and bus switch in Punto Arenas.
• Day 2: Scope out gear and transportation for Torres del Paine National Park in Puerto Natales.
• Day 3-7: The “W” circuit at Torres del Paine.  I wouldn’t learn what this means until Puerto Natales, but all advice seemed to center around this famous 5-day trek.
• Day 8: Recharge in Puerto Natales.  Bathe.
• Day 9: Figure out means of getting to El Calafate, Argentina.
• Day 10: Scope out tour companies and transportation in El Calafate.  Look into something called the “Big Ice Trek” which involves several hours of ice-climbing on Perito Moreno Glacier.
• Day 11: Perito Moreno Glacier
• Day 12: Badlands Petrified Forest
• Day 13-14: Somehow figure out a way back to Ushuaia in time to not lose 3900 dollar Antarctica cruise fee by missing boat.

Don’t Bring Apples into Chile

Just getting the bus ticket up to Puerto Natales was probably the most difficult aspect of the trip.  Three companies operate out of Ushuaia, though a stop at the Ushuaia tourist information center was needed for a list of their addresses and prices.  Forty-five minutes at one ticket counter were wasted upon realizing they needed my actual passport and not simply its number (which I’ve long since memorized and is generally enough for any situation).  I was forewarned by many that the buses — which don’t leave daily — are nearly always sold out, and it’s impossible to buy tickets the day of the departure.

Argentina stamps us out of their country with little fanfare, inspecting passports only long enough to find a page empty enough for an exit stamp.  Getting into Chile proved far more problematic, for me and me alone.

The Strait of Magellan

I feel the need to preface this by explaining that I don’t even particularly like apples.  Told that I would be on a bus for eightteen hours with few stops to resupply on food, I cleverly hit up the grocery store the night before our departure to stock up on travel snacks: crackers, cookies and yes, apples.  I don’t know what compelled me to purchase them, since I never have any particular craving for apples, but upon passing the produce aisles and looking down at my basket of highly processed junk food, it seemed like the healthy, adult choice to pick up two apples and add some fresh fruit to the mix.

Chile does not appreciate fresh Argentinian fruit.

Had I been more observant of the landscape, I might’ve seen the many billboards erected close the Chile’s border of a large red circle and cross superimposed over the image of a green apple much like any of the three I had with me, but sadly I did not notice any of these until future border crossings where they always caused a hint of sour amusement.

As bags are checked, we shuffle through like clockwork, removing our unsuspicious belongings from the x-ray machine and heading back to the bus to repack them below.  My iPod plays and I mindlessly shuffle through the procession ready to retrieve my backpack and move on.  A woman in uniform grabs my arm and shifts into focus in front of me; she’d been calling to me but the music had blocked her from my attention until now.  She’s saying something in Spanish as I remove my headphones, but even had I caught the beginning of her sentence I likely would not have understood.  I shake my head in confusion.  She removes the two apples from my bag.

“Manzanas! [apples!]”

“Si.  Manzanas. [Yes.  Apples.]”

She says something else that goes over my head.  “Apples are bad, m’kay?” or something similar.  She pulls out my immigration form and points at the question “Are you importing any produce or livestock” followed by a clearly checked “NO.”  Something-something-problem.  Something-something-fine.

Buses, trucks and cars sit lined up for the Magellan ferry.

“I mean, ‘importing,’ well sure, I saw that.  It just sounds like, you know, like mass quantities — uhh, mucho.”

She motions for me to stand aside, grasping little of what I had just said and/or caring less.  I watch as everyone else passes through as before, unmolested.  At one point, after being ignored for five minutes or so, I start to surmise that I misunderstood what she barked at me and had been standing there foolishly for no reason at all.

“Well,” I say, reaching towards my passport, “sorry about the appl–”

She turns quickly and slams her hand down on the ID, barking something out.  It’s true what I’ve been warned — Chileans talk incredibly fast.  I’m getting nothing here.

The last of the passengers on my bus filter out and two other customs agents are now conversing incomprehensibly with the woman that has detained me.  She barks at our driver unceremoniously as he comes in to check in on me, causing him to back away while staring at me with thinly veiled irritation.  A new woman takes a hold of the apples and guides me into a back room.

“You know,” I say, “You can keep the apples or..  It’s funny.  I don’t even like apples.  No me gusta, no me gusta! [I don't like, I don't like!]. Si?”

“No,” she says, and mentions something about papers, while shuffling through a pile on her desk, finally honing in on a specific sheet that she begins to fill out.  Upon being given the form, I see that it loosely translates to: Declaration That I Brought Illegal Contraband into Chile.

“Really?  Verdad? [Really?]”

She nods while sifting through more papers as I add my personal information to the form.  Upon finishing, she presents me with a new form:

Declaration that Chile is Confiscating My Illegal Contraband From Me

Whatever.  Then, a third:

Declaration that Chile Will be Destroying My Shady Contraband in a Fiery Inferno

The fiery inferno part is made up, but the bureaucratic acceptance via form of the complete destruction of my apples is 100% true.  Since the initial mention of a fine, I’ve heard no more of it, and I’m starting to feel optimistic.  Outside of the office, she presents me back to the first official who is currently standing next to my bus driver, his arms crossed in frustration.  She examines my copies of the three forms I had only just filled out and turns one over to begin scrawling something on the back.

“This,” she says now in choppy English, pointing at what she’d just written on my form, “is my boss email.  You have to write to him.  You have to say you sorry.”

“I AM sorry.”

“You tell to my boss.”

I leave without my apples and walk back to the bus alongside the driver, neither of us looking at one another.  I never really do get around to writing the customs official’s boss…

Puerto Natales

Milodon and Me

The giant Milodon imposingly greets all visitors to Puerto Natales with its fierce, herbivorous stance, as though ready to slowly tear through the insignificant stature of any human blocking its path to fresh, ummm, leaves.  Yes, as far as frightening, extinct creatures go, the giant Milodon sloth is relatively low on the list, though having roughly the body of a bear (and, it is said, “the tail of a kangaroo!”) and being over twice as tall as the average human, the creature ain’t, much like the Wu-Tang Clan, nuthin to fuck wit.

Luckily it is long extinct, with only the giant statue honoring the creature erected as a bizarre welcome from Puerto Natales to all visitors.  Over 10,000 years ago, these creatures roamed Chilean Patagonia, standing on their hind legs to pull down trees and branches for their choicest leaves.  A well-preserved specimen was found in a cave 15 miles outside of the city in the early 20th century, leading biologists to speculate that some living Milodons might still exist.  The cave is now a national landmark, though not one I found to be worth visiting as the primary statue brought me more than enough Milodon joy.

It’s ten o’clock at night and the second bus I’ve ridden today has pulled in along a dark, non-descript street in Puerto Natales that clearly serves as its bus station.  I’m alone and have yet to get my bearings, but having been in some state of transit since 5:30 this morning, I’m mostly just happy to be here.  The trip from Ushuaia was luckily punctuated by enough breaks — border stops in both Chile and Argentina, a ferry ride across the Strait of Magellan as well as a bus switch in Punta Arenas — as to keep it interesting and always provide for some sorely needed leg stretching.

It’s a small city, with only a few buildings taller than two stories through the central section of town.  One can’t judge a city’s safety based on never having been mugged there, but I always felt safe at night in nearly every Patagonian town.  These Patagonian towns that survive and thrive based on being catering to tourists really seem to frown on any of their inhabitants chasing said tourists away via petty crime.  Nearly all the hostels offer free gear storage for backpackers while they disappear for 5-15 days into Torres del Paine, in addition to arranging shuttle pick-up and drop-off to the national park.

Erratic Rock Hostel doesn’t appear from the reviews to be known for being the best or cheapest lodging in town, but they receive a profound respect from the trekking community for their 3 PM daily, well-publicized “Torres del Paine” class.  For fifteen minutes, someone well-versed in the Torres do’s and dont’s goes over everything any of the park’s visitors might need to be aware of before heading off on their journey.  The lecturer — whom I would randomly meet again in Buenos Aires and cause me to get more intoxicated than at any other point in my trip — basically intended to get across that the park can, at times, be extremely cold, windy and wet.

“Plan for it now,” she says, in her strong Australian accent.  “It rains almost daily.  I advise having a single outfit for walking in that you intend to just get wrecked in every possible way –  wet, ripped, dirty, smelly — and then another cozy, dry outfit for sleeping in.  You’ll be miserable in the mornings when you put that nasty, dank gear back on, but at least this way your nights are that bad.”

Guanacos. I didn't take this picture, but I'm pretty sure I saw these three in an identical pose, so I have no problem appropriating it.

My enthusiasm for this trip wanes.

Camping gear rental is everywhere and nowhere — Stores on nearly every street advertise, but none are open.  It’s four in the afternoon now and much like in Ushuaia, this city stands by its siesta policy.  Except in special cases, everything closes down between one and five, daily.  Luck is on my side as I find the single shop willing to ignore the cultural siesta policy and I lay a claim on their last light-weight single person tent.  Gear runs me around thirty dollars, but includes a tent, sleeping bag, sleep mat, waterproof pants, camp stove and cookwear set.  Ten dollars more gets me a hat and alpaca scarf to keep.  At the grocery store I stock up on powdered soups, bread, salami, cheese, granola bars and chocolate.

No apples.

Ushuaia, as seen from a boat that may or may not be headed to Antarctica

Ushuaia - pronounced “oosh-WHY-uh”.  Alleged southernmost city in the world.

Puerto Williams in Chile argues this claim, but Ushuaia is at the very least the southernmost place where you can visit a casino and a strip club in the same night without walking more than three blocks.  Also, Puerto Williams has a population of around 2000, and Chile itself defines “city” as “an urban entity with more than 5000 residents,” which means they are the clear loser here by their own wording.  Unfortunately, this battle over nomenclature is an ongoing source of strife between the two countries, as Argentina makes it difficult for ships and services to reach Puerto Williams, strictly to hinder the growth of a potential rival in the quest to be “southernmost.”

Sunrise from the window of the plane, minutes from landing in Ushuaia

From the t-shirts, signs and other assorted tourist kitsch, Ushuaia clearly gets off on being called “The End of the World,” though upon stating that’s where I was on facebook, responses made it seem as though friends thought I was experiencing some sort of existential crisis.  A series of ice-capped mountains trail off into hills that eventually drop off into the sea, with the large town of Ushuaia rolling down the slope to the water’s edge.  A large port made up of equal parts cargo ships and luxury cruise vessels spreads out at the bottom of the city into the Beagle Channel, which is the body of water connecting the city to the meeting point of the two massive oceans.

After being “discovered” by Captain FitzRoy of the HMS Beagle in the late nineteenth century, a township was established which later led to the construction of the city’s infamous prison.  Using Britain’s knack for sending dangerous convicts to as remote and inescapable a place as possible (see: Australia), Argentina established the jail in Ushuaia because it was at the southernmost tip of the island of Tierra del Fuego.  As they were now forced colonists, the prisoners spent their days chopping wood, building most of the early structures in the town as well as the End of the World Railway, which still operates today for train afficianados.  Not being one myself, I opted out of the ride.

The tall mountains of the Martial mountain range frame the city on all sides but the one perched over the Beagle Channel

Being the only significant port city in the south where Atlantic meets Pacific, it remains a major stopping point for vessels traversing between the two oceans, despite losing a great deal of business when the Panama Canal opened.  Unlike Puerto Williams, Ushuaia and its 64,000 inhabitants are undeniably a city, with fully functional airports, hospitals, school systems, mass transit and all the other fun benefits and pitfalls that come with city-dom.  It’s also the capital of Tierra del Fuego (literally “Land of Fire”), the large island south of the Strait of Magellan that, despite being surrounded on all sides by Chilean territory is considered part of Argentina.  Its separation from the Argentinian mainland stands out a bit on South American maps, but no moreso than Alaska’s does in maps of the United States.

In addition, Ushuaia is the name of the ship (the MV Ushuaia) that will be taking me to Antarctica, thus giving me a reason to be this far south (over 1000 kilometers more south than the tip of Africa) in the first place.  Planning out this marginally epic trip over half a year ago, it was uncertain which March cruise I would be able to secure a spot on, so I went ahead and gave myself the whole month to explore down here.  It’s Patagonia, after all, and if it’s scenic enough to inspire a line of international outdoor-wear, there should be enough ways to fill a couple weeks.  I’d only just flown in from Buenos Aires, where I’d spent the night at the airport passing through from Sao Paolo.  Arriving at eight at night, only to depart at five the following morning left little time for urban exploration.

San Martin, the equivalent of Main Street.

Dense, red wooden beams line the ceiling of the airport giving it the appearance of a ski lodge — an image that seems to be embraced throughout the town.  Main street, filled with fancy restaurants, travel guides and ski/snowboard supply stores could be mistaken for being found in any upscale Colorado ski town.  Glacier Martial overlooks the town from nearly any vantage point, a permanent blanket of ice over one of the largest mountains bordering the small city.  Year round, a chair-life brings tourists up to the glacier, though serves skiiers more in the winter months (May-October), despite there being only a single, marginally interesting trail descending from the primarily forest-covered slope.  A far more interesting and diverse mountain for winter sports lies about ten minutes outside of town, though remains closed down entirely during the warm season (which March occasionally teeters frigidly on the edge of).

The Hostel at the End of the World

Several nights into the Freestyle Hostel, I wake to a British girl complaining about the bass-heavy, all-night dance party that permeated the door of our room and prevented her from more than cursory sleep interludes.  From my perspective, it’s a downside to a hostel with some of the best personality of any that I’ve stayed at thus far in my journey.  Though upon returning to the hostel several weeks later, I opt out of the notorious “room #3″ which receives the brunt of any late night festivity’s overlapping.

My friend Patrick torments Rasta-Max while he works.

“Hey.  Hey.  Check out this lighter.  It’s, uh, cool.  The flame is green.  Go ahead,” implores the imposing figure with a long beard and dreadlocks swinging down far below his shoulders.  His accent is Argentinian, but the cadence takes on a slight Jamaican flair.  Or maybe it’s just what in the States would be called “the stoner accent” applied over standard Argentinian English.

“But Rasta-Max, it’s just going to electrocute me like your gum did the other day.“  It didn’t even look like a real pack of gum, though admittedly I expected more of a mousetrap style of accidental self-torture than the surprisingly potent electric jolt it supplied.

“Hey.  No.  This is good.  Check it out.”  His hand has been making a steady offering gesture towards me with the implement of pain loosely disguised as a lighter.  Bulky as he is, “bear-like” is a perfectly valid descriptor for Rasta-Max, though his penchant for hugging everyone that walks into the hostel and a steady grin that comes off as warm and genuine despite his occasional electric torment of clientele limits him to the realm of the “teddy” or “panda” varieties.

Antarctic cruise ships, freshly returned from the seventh continent or preparing to depart

“Will it make you really happy if I use your lighter?” I sigh.  A crowd of newcomers has now gathered around expectantly.

“You–” he breaks off into a slight snicker.  “You love it.  It’s green.”

“Ok, Rasta-Max.  Fine—AHHFUCKGGGT!“  The faux lighter drops involuntarily to the floor as my hand seizes up in a jolt of temporary, localized paralysis that includes much of my forearm.  Despite full awareness of the punishment that was to come, I was unprepared for the strength of the burst.

“Are you happy now, Rasta-Max?” I ask.

He picks up two pieces of metal from the ground with a slight frown.

“Aww,” he says sadly, walking back to his desk.  “You broke it.”

The dining area is small, but has that undefinable property that quickly brings travelers together.  Many comment on this over the course of my stay — that Freestyle is undeniably a “social hostel” — though we fail to put into words precisely what causes this phenomenon.  On paper, it’s no different from many other hostels I’ve stayed at, but has a definite life and character to it that transcend the sum of its parts.

“I got here three weeks ago and just haven’t been able to leave.  This is probably my favorite hostel I’ve been to in South America,” an Irishman tells me.  His opinion has to be taken with a grain of salt, though, as this is the same person that arrogantly told my similarly Irish friend “you know, you’re the only Irish person I’ve met around here that’s as interesting as me…”

A group of us — equal parts male and female — are eating dinner together when a girl suggests checking out the town’s strip club.

“Which one?” I ask.

“There’s more than the one?” she asks.

“There are three,” someone says.

“Four,” I correct.

“You really know your strip clubs…” someone directs at me.

“Look, the tourist section of town is small.  It’s hard to miss giant billboards of slutty, near-naked Argentinian women over seedy, windowless buildings.”

From the sidelines, a long-haired child of about five that we assume to be a girl walks up to us and presents the entire group with a pair of emphatic middle fingers and a tremendous grin.  Most of the group laughs.

“I just can’t find this funny,” says an American woman.  “I’m a teacher back in the States and this is just the worst kind of behavior to encourage in kids this young.

“Hey, what are you guys doing with my son,” Rasta-Max yells at us from behind the counter.  The boy quickly runs away from us and back towards Rasta-Max.

The city, as seen from above

A plan has been in the works all evening  to check out the city’s lone dance club, but like most clubs in Argentina, it won’t get interesting until around two in the morning (going on until around seven) and we’ve now come up with an interesting way to kill an hour before dancing.  A pink palace sits four blocks from the Freestyle with non-functional windows and a sign in English proclaiming it to be a “men’s club.”

“Is this a strip club?” someone asks.

“I think so,” I say.  “Between being listed as a ‘Gentlemans Club’ and the two fat, rounded palace spires on the roof that are clearly meant to be giant tits, I’d be surprised to find a family restaurant inside.”

I lead the way into a dark, smoky room comprised of an L-shaped bar taking up two walls, while dark, mismatched sofas line the remaining walls of the small room.  My entrance breaks up a conversation between a stout, muscular man behind the bar and two women leaning slightly against it that quickly bolt upright upon noticing me.  Only women sit upon the sofas, and they all adjust their postures and stare at the newly entered group intently.

“This is a whorehouse,” one of our group says to the entire room.  Those in the doorway immediately shuffle back out without even glancing inside, leaving me furthest in the brothel as everyone else makes a quick exit.

“So..,” I say to the bartender.  “Well, thanks anyway.”  I make a halfhearted wave and turn around.  His impassive stare sits latched on me, unchanging, as I uncomfortably follow suit behind the others.  Two of the other strip clubs are closed, including one whose prominent billboard proclaims it to be a “Nihgt Club,” leaving us but one option.  A small wooden stage along one side of the room has a single topless occupant, not dancing so much as talking to two cheaply-dressed men that don’t appear to be tourists.

“NO!” a short, older man with a mustache barks as he walks briskly towards us.  “Nonononononononono!  No chicas!”

What kind of strip club doesn’t allow girls?  It seems odd to kick out nine potential drinkers from a strip club due to some inexplicable form of propriety, but the girls leave and we head out after them.

“Your strip club sucks anyway, man!” someone says.

“No chicas,” the man retorts.

Kayak Patagonia

Gray skies and mist add a subdued, ethereal tone to our kayaking experience

“So you want me to set up the canoe trip for you,” Rasta-Max asks us.  Only a girl from California and myself have any interest in the trip, but we’ve got enough to have asked Max about it several times.

“You mean the Kayak trip?”

“No,” he says.  “No, that’s different.”

“Yeah, I know — we want the kayak one.  With the kayaks and the meat and stuff. You know if it’s gonna rain tomorrow?”

“It’s Ushuaia,” he answers.

Posing from a lookout point with Lago Escondido in the background

It’s a valid answer.  The weather here has fluctuated wildly every day, as cold, bleak clouds give way to sunny days that are surprisingly warm for “the southernmost city in the world.”  Nights are always chillier, and bring about strong winds that exacerbate the situation, but I still never required more than my hoodie at any given time.  This was a good thing, as I owned nothing warmer.  Every day here is rainy and sunny and gray and beautiful.  They generally take turns.

Sunday at seven in the morning — some people are just getting back to the hostel to pass out into their beds — it’s rain’s turn.  Our guide and driver ushers us into the rear of his SUV with most of the gear; two of his friends already are firmly in place in the backseat.  Their English is as choppy as my Spanish but we make light conversation as slightly frozen rain slushes upon impact with the windows of the car.  A large, hollowed-out gourd of mate (”mah-TAY”) is passed around the car, though I’ll give a few paragraphs to the ubiquitous tea in my next “Food and Drinks” post.

Setting out

At Lago Escondido (”Hidden Lake” — Two discrete lookout points along the drive displayed the large, mountain-framed lake quite visibly, so the name is confusing), as I stand in the icy rain with a cotton hoodie on, I realize I’ve made a terrible mistake.  Our guide has a few spare articles of clothing, and the windbreaker and hat are useful.  The gloves go to his female friend and there isn’t a second pair.  I cram my hands into my pockets and ball them into cold fists.

“Oh my God,” the Californian girl says.  “This is horrible.  I almost don’t want to go.”

A perpetual whiner, one of my projects for myself was to cut down on complaining during my time abroad, especially about things I had no control over.  My primary rule was to never be the first in a group to complain about any source of misery.  As the seal was now broken, I poignantly added:

“Yeah, this fucking sucks.”

A double kayak is lowered into the water and the Californian girl and I get in.  She’d had a good sales position in the States before the weight of never having traveled became too much, causing her to optimistically drop out of everything at 30 and head out for at least a year, covering much of South America and Australia.  Recently, the weight of not learning had been weighing her down as she contemplated staying somewhere for a few months to pick up a new skill or hobby like surfing or Capoeira (Brazilian dance-fighting).

No explanation was given for while all the trees along the beach were dead

Whether it’s chemicals or nutrients in the water, weird reflections from the clouds or some ethereal quality of being this far south, both of us are hypnotized by the rich, blueness of the water.  Putting my hand in, I’m surprised that it’s not very cold either, though this could just as easily be related to the sickly white frigidity of my hands as to any unnatural warmth endemic to the lake.  The effort of propelling the large, two-person kayak forward steadily warms me and then, eventually, my hands as well.  Blue sky cuts through the clouds at times, hinting at a bright, vivid warmth that never actually stays.

A forest of dead, leafless trees with long spindly branches dots the beach we park along, adding to the eerie effect of the cold, gray morning.  It’s unnaturally quiet and creepy, but any trepidation about our current situation is eased by the unloading of a stockpile of meat large enough to fill more than twice our current party.  Forget soccer.  Asado is the national sport here in Argentina.  It’s like our guide explains while stacking wood for his slow-burning barbecue:

Starting the fire for our asado

“Forget soccer.  Asado is our national sport here in Argentina.”

American men (sorry, “men from the United States” — a subtle distinction that matters to a lot of South Americans) do pride themselves on their ability to char meat to acceptable flavor levels, but there’s an impatience to the barbecuing that doesn’t seem to exist in Argentina.  A proper asado raises the meat high enough above the burning embers to require a solid hour or two of slow roasting before serving, even in the woods under sub-optimal, rainy conditions.  As wet leaves burn their way down to viable kindling, I follow a stream inland in the shadow of imposing, snow-capped Patagonian mountains until it trickles down to a massive beaver dam blocking the passive of water from above.

An hour passes and I make my way back to the asado site, which is slightly protected from the drizzle of rain by a thin canopy of trees and the grillmaster who has apparently spent every moment of the past hour gently maneuvering the burning embers to ideal grilling specifications.

The Beaver Dam

“How you like meat?” he asks.

“Rare,” I say.  He’s confused by the term, which surprises me (and continues to surprise me months later — in the land of meat tourism where giant, bloody slabs of beef are the norm, how is this word still in any way foreign?) and I resort to broken Spanish to attempt to clarify myself.  “Rojo.  Sangre.  Mucho Sangre.” (”Red.  Blood.  Much blood.”)

MEAT

“Ahh,” he says.  “Si.  We say ‘vuelta y vuelta.’  ‘Vuelta’ is ‘turn,’ and so, ‘turn and turn.’  You turn meat once.  Then you turn again.  No more.  No more cooking.”

“Yes.  Yes, that is what I want.”

Like most tourist excursions in Ushuaia, the trip is fairly expensive.  Eighty dollars for a five-hour kayak excursion including a way-more-than-all-you-can-eat meat barbecue would be relatively inexpensive in the States, but it’s a high end experience in South America.  Sticking to my budget, an average day shouldn’t surpass twenty dollars, so by this point I’m cramming more than a week’s worth of savings into less than half a day’s entertainment.  But as the bottles of wine and Quilmes (the “Budweiser” of Argentina, this pilsner is basically pronounced “Kill me’s”) start to flow, it’s clear that they don’t intend for any tourist to feel short-changed.

Vuelta y vuelta

As the wine flows like wine, so does the meat.  Far past the point where the succulent, dripping meat has evoked any joy in those devouring it, the grillmaster continues to fill freshly emptied spaces on his makeshift grill until every last dripping chunk from his large cooler has been mildly charred and doled out to the long-since-filled crew.  The air mists up occasionally still, but it’s warmed enough now that sitting around the fire digesting an irrational amount of red meat is at least mildly palatable.  Looking at the massive pile of meat remnants I’m reminded that a friend’s annual “F-Day” (”F” for exorbitant amounts of Food amongst other things) is less than a week away, and while I’d rather be here than anywhere else, the surplus of short-term friendships with little in the way of anything more significant does get to me at times.

Not working is still pretty sweet, though.

My First Glacier

Glacier Martial overlooking the town. The range pictured was fully covered less than a hundred years ago, but melts back a little bit every year.

Glacier Martial shrinks down significantly every year, but seeing as this is my first visit, it’s still fairly impressive for my first glacier.  The trail upwards from the chairlift died close to a quarter mile ago (I’m still not thinking in kilometers yet, which makes gauging anything around here difficult) and we’ve pulled ourselves exhaustingly up rocks that take on additional ice with each meter’s ascent.  Ice covers the last of the viable hand or foot-holds, theoretically blocking further passage up the glacier.  Futilely, I form my hands into a taut claw shape and attempt to drag myself just a few feet more, instead falling sharply to my knees and scraping my hands along the sandpaper-y, jagged sheet of ice before rolling down awkwardly onto the glacier’s rocky border.

Ice spreads out above me in a massive inverted triangle.  It’s only impresive until we make our way downwards far enough to see just how immense the glacier stretches out above the speck of a triangle that only recently spread out before me imposingly.  In the end, the highlight of the trail is the spectacular view of the now insignificant southernmost city in the world.

The ride up to the start of the trail.

End of the line

Me, at the end of the world

Carnival Fail

What are you looking for from Carnival?  The question was half-heartedly asked of me a few times, always upon hearing I intended to be in Rio de Janeiro rather than, say, Olinda or Salvador de Bahia.  “If you’re looking for the Disneyland Carnival, Rio’s it.  Salvador’s where the party’s at, man…”  This downplaying of Rio isn’t entirely true, as her streets explode with (if you can find them) blocos — moving street parties that follow the path of a flatbed truck carrying a performing samba band — and the beaches saturate to uncomfortable levels.  There is definitely a party here.

Ipanema beach during Carnival

A far more significant mistake was failing to secure a spot in a hostel early on.  After months of travel, I’d taken for granted just how effortlessly hostels provide all the necessary social and advisory needs.  For just 3-15 dollars a night and the minor annoyances of thin sunken mattresses, overcrowded rooms, poor ventilation, vomit-filled sinks, people that don’t have a problem having sex directly below you on a bunk-bed, people that have a problem with you having sex directly above them on a bunk-bed and very little personal storage space, the hostel is possibly the greatest benefit to solo travelers available.

While some of the more expensive hotels I’ve stayed at down here (well, never more than a two-star…) are manned by well-dressed, clean-cut locals, the English is choppy at best and they rarely know more than a few restaurants or attractions to recommend.  Hostel employees (who generally always speak English) on the other hand tend to function as expert concierges to nearly every culinary, social, cultural, religious or hedonistic desire the fledgling tourist might require.  In most cases they’re backed by a wall of information, maps, directions and ideas.

In addition to all the inherent advice given by the hostels themselves, there’s no greater resource than other travelers.  Those on their way out after a weekend or a week bumming around a particular location are only too glad to talk about their exploits, especially quick to share any pitfalls or off-the-beaten-path locations that’d be otherwise impossible to find for someone just passing through.  The generally friendly nature of travelers makes it fairly easy to find short-term traveling partners and good company as well.

(of course there are some downsides to having hosteled in Rio for Carnival, as nearly every South American backpacker seems to be aware of this story…)

So, as I made my way each time through the living room of the beautifully furnished apartment, doing my best to be respectfully quiet and unobtrusive, I realized I might have made a slight mistake.

Compounding this was my lack of Portuguese and the rarity of casual English speakers in the loud, street-side parties we managed to track down.  Blocos are vibrant and infectious with loud, percussion-laden samba music and slow-moving crowds, but with the exception of a single interestingly successful evening, Jaimee and I failed miserably to connect with random party-goers.

With two days left to spare, Jaimee returned to the States leaving me to wander the streets striking up less conversations with locals than at nearly anywhere else since I’ve been travelings.  In my mind I’d envision a dream team of friends from Pennsylvania, New York and Maryland that would dominate the streets of this festival, creating an experience like no other.  The sad reality of it was that I was by myself, and only more and more cognizant of that fact due to being surrounded by the biggest party on earth.

Maybe it’s a classic example of experience not living up to expectation.

Eh, there were some good things.

The Sambodrome

Samba “school” is a misnomer, as they aren’t schools in any traditional sense so much as groups of samba representatives from every district in the city.  Fourteen schools spend an entire year creating their own massive army of floats and dancers — complete with an original samba song, which is played on repeat for their entire parade — to march down through the sambadrome past thousands of drunken spectators and a crowd of judges.  The sambadrome itself is unlike venues for any other type of event, measuring several city blocks — a massive amount of the city’s real estate for something apparently only used in any capacity for four days of the year.

A close-up of some of a school's performers and the elaborate suits they'e forced to spend an hour relentlessly dancing in

Primary schools (14 of them) are split between the Sunday and Monday nights of Carnival while 14 lesser schools perform on Friday and Saturday.  No one was entirely clear on what prize awaited the “lesser” schools, though common perception was that it was an opportunity to advance the following year to a primary spot, as this year’s loser gets knocked down a peg.  From about ten at night until six in the morning, each school gets about an hour to trot out thousands of dancers, four to five floats and a scantily clad queen, all dancing relentlessly down the half mile or so of the sambadrome with unwavering smiles plastered on their faces.

From piecing together common elements in the garish outfits of  the dancers and intricate designwork of each float, it’s clear that each school presents a theme of some sort that influences their entire presentation.  A float with a massive bust of Jules Verne is followed by one of a submarine pulled by giant squids, in a sea of flag-adorned dancers representing Around the World in 80 Days.  A giant roulette wheel is chased by a hundred dancers dressed as packs of cigarettes (vices?).  A focus on cars, trains, planes and boats alludes to a general theme of transportation but not much more.

Jaimee and I went on Saturday, and while we witnessed “lesser” schools, it was still one of the biggest spectacles I’ve ever seen.  The stands are divided into “sectors” and we found ourselves placed in Sector 9, which is basically a sector comprised of bleachers towards the end of the throughway.  Across the way are the more expensive sectors — private booths like small parties made up of those willing to spend a little extra to view the display.  Food and drinks here are plentiful and there’s surprisingly little price-gouging, even for mixed drinks.

From the "transportation"-themed school, this float was something of a transformer, switching from a train to, uh, a bunch of people in black dancing weirdly. Or something.

The more expensive sectors across the way. By this point in the night (or morning) they'd cleared out a bit, though we were surprised by all of those sitting on the edges, even in the higher booths.

No clue.

Who doesn't love tanks?

Just to sort of give an idea of the size of this thing...

Yeah, I'm sure this one's never been done before...

This was the beginning of the Jules Verne-themed school

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

This group apparently has lots of Pride in America.

Each float (no matter how bizarrely conceived) had about this level of effort and detail put into it. The schools work year-round for a single night's performance.

Dancing cigarettes. There is a context for which I'm sure this makes sense.

Jaimee and me with various spinning shining things in the background

Roulette, with a boundless supply of vice-themed dancers in tow

I was celebrating something -- a school, maybe? -- by dancing with flags they had handed out. Smart move giving them to intoxicated people... It's close to five in the morning at this point and many people have already taken off.

Jaimee and me, enjoying the spectacle.

I actually have like 30 pictures with this French girl. For some reason I kept getting her to pose with me. Maybe it's because she gave me the bunny ears...

Bloco Parties

The banda, in blue and white hats, lead the bloco along

They shuffle down the street with the slow lurch of drunken zombies, heads bumping steadily to the persistent thumping of live samba music.  The parade-style parties share the same general idea as the larger sambadrome presentations, but are far more informal and open to the public to join in as the flatbed truck carrying the banda (it just means band) of musicians lumbers slowly forward.

Blocos range from small, unpublicized affairs that are little more than glorified drum circles while a crowd watches on to massive beachfront events bringing in as many as 200,000 onlookers.  There are estimated to be between three and

four hundred of these roving parties over the course of Carnival week in Rio, though only about forty of them are highly publicized.  Based on our luck in actually finding any, the publicizing is a little sloppy.

One of the smaller, less publicized blocos. We stumbled upon this one accidentally while wandering through a part of town less known for its parties.

At one point, Jaimee and I found ourselves on a nearly deserted corner at four in the afternoon on Friday, standing beneath a sign that basically translated to: “Bloco - HERE, Friday, 4 pm.”  Walking streets that are peculiarly empty for being so close to the beach during what’s heralded to be the biggest party in the world.  Crossing one of these streets, a car careens around the corner and almost plows into me without slowing as I only narrowly throw myself over it screaming an obscenity that even non-English speakers all clearly recogized.  Minutes later, in a clothing store we’d entered to find something for Jaimee, a local woman approaches me.

Beach Blanket Bloco. One of the larger ones we went to, the banda (on the slowly moving platform above) steadily moved down the sidewalk as large crowds to either side followed along.

“You speak English, right?” she asks.

“Si.”

“You have to be careful here.  We.. These drivers.  They are not nice like you.  They are not like drivers where you come from.  They always more important than people walking.  They will…hit.”

It’s true.  Never have I seen drivers with less regard for pedestrians than in Rio.

There are apparently blocos going on non-stop at some point in Rio for all of the long Carnival weekend.  Unfortunately, only a few are going on in set locations at any given time.  We begin asking passers-by and anyone that understands English for advice, getting directions from knowledgable-looking people that appear to mean well, though after walking upward of ten blocks in the random directions the point, fruitlessly, aren’t of much help.

A few days in and we start to grasp how things work.  Pete had tried to hook me up with one of his friends down here, who’d emailed me a list of bloco locations that actually got us to a few as they were going on.  The friend would’ve been a great resource, except that his phone died the first night of Carnival and his bloco email was the last I heard from him until after I’d left Brazil.

So… Carnival.  Interesting?  Sure.  Fun?  At times.  Did I do it right?  Oh hell no!

Rio at sunset

Given that the bulk of the Carnival experience takes up about four days, ten days in Rio de Janeiro sandwiching the festival allows for an interesting tourist vantage point: From a bustling, oversized beach city, Rio swells up uncomfortably to “Disneyland on acid” proportions, only to fizzle back down into whatever passes for normalcy.  I slacked on lodging and found myself short of accommodations with only a month to spare prior to Carnival, and only through one of my friend Pete’s connections was I able to secure a spot in an apartment owned by the mother of one of his friends.  She was incredibly sweet, though once the festival kicked off, I realized this probably wasn’t the optimal lodging situation for what could potentially have been a sloppy, sweat-and-alcohol-saturated week.  I’ll get into my Carnival failure in the next post, but even if I completely failed at the Carnival experience, there are worse places to be than Rio.

Rio de Janeiro — literally “River of January” and also known as A Cidade Maravilhosa, or “The Marvelous City” — once served as the Portuguese empire’s capital here, and is still the second largest city in Brazil after the far more sprawling and uniform Sao Paulo.  After seeing City of God, I was naturally worried about crime in the city, though most of that takes place within favelas, which are supposedly among the worst slums on earth.  Adding insult to poverty, tour groups now run through the favelas in bulletproof vehicles, giving tourists a chance to see just how terrible it is to be poor.  Jaimee and I opted out of this tour.

A Quick Geography Lesson

A fairly accurate cartoon map of Rio.

The steep, rocky peaks that break up Rio’s otherwise flat, beach paradise stand poised around the city like a rocky crown, less a mountain range than a series of individual protests from the planet against man’s slow encroachment.  It’s no surprise as Rio’s Tijuaca Forest and White Stone State Park are the largest and second-largest urban forests in the world.  Few places on Earth better exemplify the contrast between city and nature, as massive skyscrapers and cityscapes trail off into tall, foliage-covered crags shooting off violently, improbably, into the sky.  Every square meter of developable real estate has been utilized here.  Anything else gets a teleferico or big Jesus statue put on it and turns into a tourist attraction.  Win-win.

Sugarloaf

Flamengo - Meaning “Flemish,” it likely got its name from its central beach being owned by Belgians in the city’s very early years.  Not the most happening spot in Rio, but fairly calm and quiet.  This is where our apartment was located.  Its beaches aren’t terribly good, but it’s not more than ten minutes away by cab or bus to Copacabana or Ipanema.

Pao de Acucar - “Pao” meaning “bread,” and “Acucar” for “sugar.”  Literally, Sugarloaf.  A tall peak accessible only by cable car (used in a famous battle scene between James Bond and Jaws in Moonraker) that provides a fairly outstanding view of the city and surrounding islands.  It costs money, of course, so if you’re on a budget, it’s not that different a vista than what you get from Corcovado.

Corcovado - “Hunchback” in Portuguese.  The big Jesus.  I wanted to suavely hang-glide by the guy and wave, but it turns out he’s too far from the cliff you jump off of to be anything but sacrosanct background scenery.  Like Sugarloaf, it’s a great vantage point, and a place where it is apparently cool to do the Jesus pose in a photo-op without it being frowned upon.

Corcovado

The Red Curvy Line on the Left Side of the Map - That’s the cliff I jumped off of with the help of a large kite-like device.  The updraft is strong enough to immediately carry any jumpers brave or stupid enough to take the leap (assuming they’re wearing the right apparatus).  How anyone figured out this was possible in the first place is beyond me.

Copacabana - It turns out the Barry Manilow song has nothing to do with this world famous beach.  It was in my head for days before I actually listened to the words — it’s about some far less interesting nightclub in Cuba, apparently.  The beach is tremendous in length, heading west towards a large breaker that separates it from the equally large Ipanema on the other side.  Despite its proximity, the sand and ocean look and feel different here.  I’m told it’s less popular as well, and admittedly I liked Ipanema much better, but both beaches appeared to be equally packed.

Ipanema - If you’ve always wanted to sit under an umbrella by the ocean and have anything you could possibly want delivered directly to your seat, and you don’t mind some slight overcrowding, this is the beach for you.  You probably know the song “The Girl from Ipanema.”  You”d recognize it if you heard it, anyway.  Well, the girls are nice enough, but if you know that song and “Mas Que Nada” (by either the Tamba Trio or Sergio Mendes) and you’ll recognize half the music played in bars and by street bands in Rio.  It’s not the infectious nature of these songs that make them hard to get out of your head — they’re literally being played at all times throughout Rio.

Ipanema beach. The man in center is selling chips of some kind from an enormous bag, scooping them up with a plastic cup for all interested buyers.

Getting High in Rio

Despite the two craggy mounds of Sugarloaf with matchbox-sized cablecars riding small strings of thread upwards in the distance just outside our balcony, Jaimee and I avoid the obvious tourist destination in favor of the similarly high altitude Corcovado for all the obvious reasons:

1. Cooler sounding name
2. More centralized lookout point
3. Big tourist Jesus

Posing with Jesus

A train takes us slowly up the mountainside.  It strikes me that it’d be an ingenious — if slightly sacrilegious — photo-op to share Jesus’s welcoming pose.  Not wishing to offend, I do so from below, out of the gaze of the throngs of seemingly devout tourists (they’d have to be to buy all the Jesus The Redeemer magnets, snowglobes, keychains, ashtrays, aprons, t-shirts and commemorative plates on sale at the gift shop here).

My discretion proves unwarranted.  From above, a line of people wait to share the pose.  Jesus doesn’t seem to mind much — his large, giddy smile is almost reminiscent of Dogma’s “Buddy Christ.”  I consider retaking the shot, but following the universal “the more people do it, the less hip it is” rule, I opt out.  I’d always thought Rio’s Jesus was enormous, and it’s quite large from up here, though he’s just a small silhouette of a cross from anywhere else in town.  The location is central enough, though, that what he lacks in size, he makes up in ubiquity, as even at night (due to some powerful floodlights) Jesus is almost inescapable from anywhere in central Rio.

From all the way up here, Rio de Janeiro is beaches, ocean, islands, mountain with a small side of city.  Our presence is everywhere, but seems superfluous to the all-encompassing nature around it.  It’s beautiful.

One of the views from Corcovado. Ipanema and Leblon are directly behind me in this picture.

Sugarloaf as seen from Corcovado

Jaimee leaves with two days left on my temporary lease and little to do.  I don’t speak Portuguese and don’t know anyone here, and surrounded by one of the biggest parties on earth, these facts are starting to get to me.  I’ll save that for the next post.

Riding up to Sugarloaf. Apparently there is a club that operates at the top every Saturday night, though we never made it.

Sugarloaf is a bit of hike from the apartment, but its peak hovers above everything else for the entire walk making it an easy landmark.  Unlike Corcovado, the ride up is by cable car rather than train, but the view neither more or less spectactular.  My camera is new and terrible, and its pictures and my own inability to connect with anyone in the town whose tremendous fiesta is only beginning to simmer down begins to wear me down.  In line for pasteis, I misunderstand the order of the lines (One is to pay for a food ticket, the second is to trade said ticket in for food.  Guess what order I waited in…) and throw a pointless tantrum, unintelligible to any of the natives, and shamefully ignored by any english-speaking tourists.  I walk away hungry.

The view from Sugarloaf

Less and Less Sand Every Day…

It turns out we’ve made it to Rio with just enough spare time to get a few days of fairly genuine Rio de Janeiro before the Carnival crew sets in.  I’d imagine it’s very much like being in Daytona beach during the last few days before “college spring break” wave crashes down, bringing with it an unending supply of hedonism, lawlessness and general douchebaggery to the entire city.  Nearly everyone I’ve met from Rio since Carnival has made a point of telling me they make a annual pilgrimage out of the city while the festival’s in full swing.

A fried cheese vendor carries a portable oven with him. The cheese is dipped in oregano and cooked just enough to make it soft without melting it.

By Friday, Ipanema and Copacabana both are uncomfortably saturated with tourists and locals, looking less like a beach than a crowded music festival.  Tuesday is still pre-Carnival, and while the beach is dense with families, students, tourists and other assorted locals, it’s comfortable enough to settle down with a rented umbrella and seats.  The gear comes cheap (around five dollars) and with it, a full-service waiter specializing in all basic mixed drinks.  Not everything is available from the small, beachside shacks set up as bars, but caipirinhas are pretty much guaranteed.

For food — or anything, really — beach-goers instead rely upon traveling vendors, continuously making their circuit through all nine of Ipanema’s postos.  Rising up at regular intervals above the throngs of people like miniature versions of Rio’s mountains behind them, the postos mark the different segments of Ipanema’s beach and provide (for a fee, paid after waiting in a ridiculously long line) bathroom and shower services.  Posto 9 has been famous for decades as the “hip” posto where all the artists, painters and interesting and attractive characters hang out.  After spending our first visit, I was informed it’s now the gay hangout, though few displays of affection, gay or straight, took place by us on the crowded yet lackadaisical beach.

Another vendor, this one selling heated pastries filled with some form of meat.

Vendors loop through umbrellas as thought on a regular trail, with familiar faces showing up every twenty minutes or so in case I might have changed my mind about buying a Brazilian flag beachtowel that turns into a tote bag.  Food is in abundance here, generally kept hot in insulated container or cooked fresh on the beach with small, portable coal-burning ovens.  Several men carry miniature barrels — one under each arm — serving mate, a popular buzz-inducing tea (that is even more wildly popular throughout Argentina).  Any other potentially necessary beach accessory comes directly to our chairs with only a brief flash of eye contact as a signal of intent to buy: sunglasses, tanning lotions, jewelry, towels, swimwear, assorted tourist kitsch and drugs.  It’s likely the most full-service beach in the world.

But because the water’s just too damned cold, it easily loses any “best beach” awards in my book.  Nice place for tanning and people watching, though…

Boardwalks stretch along the vastness of both primary beaches (Ipanaema and Copacabana) but don’t connect, requiring a slight detour into the city to cross from one to the other.  Copacabana doesn’t seem geographically different, and the bars and sport-oriented attractions (volleyball courts, handball courts and other derivations of internationally popular beach games, combined with pull-up bars and other means for the physically fit to casually display their fitness levels publicly) are just as abundant on either side.  One popular variation of volleyball involved only using heads and feet, a la soccer.  It would’ve been far more impressive if any of the rounds got past two volleys, though.

A coconut milk vendor. These guys have stacks of coconuts which are freshly cut for buyers and served with a straw. Probably Jaimee's favorite purchase, though they did nothing for me.

I can see why Ipanema fans feel the way they do.  The beach just has a better vibe…

Assorted Others

• 

  My room in Flamengo

  I’m pretty sure Brazil has the worst napkins on Earth.  I think I’m going to dedicate an entire post to “The Napkins of South America.”

• My waterproof Olympus 1030 died off the beach of Ipanema, causing me to seek out a new camera.  Electronics are extremely expensive in Rio, and based on the selection, close to a year behind in terms of the newest models.  My first camera purchase was terrible and while I was allowed to return it for an exchange, it was necessary that the new camera be as or more expensive than the original.  As the one I wanted was not, I was forced to buy diapers as well.  For whatever reason, diapers were the only thing in the electronics (???) store that covered the gap in prices.  Upon paying for merchandise in these stores, you are given a ticket and sent to the back where the ticket is given to a stockroom boy to retrieve your new gear from the back.  After ten minutes waiting, the guy returns with my camera and starts to explain those diapers are not available.  Despite my explaining that the diapers are not necessary, he calls the manager over, who follows me out of the store stating something in Portuguese while I walk rapidly out the store, head down, saying “no diapers!  no diapers!”  I was worried he was going to send people after me, but he stopped pursuit after I left the store.
• Buses have turnstiles on the inside that are impossible for all but the most slender people to get through.  It’s horribly designed, and borderline cruel to fat people.  It is also borderline entertaining.

The only thing that could make this experience more awkward for this woman would be a tourist snapping pictures of her.

• Trash.  They don’t use trashcans here so much as open metal baskets attached to poles, raised up about four feet into the air.  Likely this is to protect the trash from rampant, feral dogs which roam the streets of nearly every South American town.  It’s not exactly clear how these baskets are collected by trashmen as sometimes the trash is thrown sans bags, which would be a nightmare to collect.

This shot of a South American trash pedestal was taken a few weeks later in Argentina, but since I'm discussing it here, I wanted to have a picture to go along with the description.

Ending on a High Note

From the start, “hanggliding by Jesus in Rio” has been high up on the to-do list, so it was a bit of a disappointment to see how far we’d actually be flying from the guy.  I wasn’t looking to high-five a statue or have any kind of profound, adrenaline-fueled religious moment, but if nothing else it would’ve been a good photo-op.  Still, jumping off of a cliff while attached to a glorified kite still makes for a filling morning.

"There've been almost no accidents this year..." I'm told.

Waivers signed, we — the instructor, two other riders plus gear, all crammed together — ride to the top of peak in an old hatchback that often seems unwilling to take on the steep, windy road.  Disassembled next to me is the glider in a large tote barely bigger than a glorified gym bag.  This gym bag is going to carry me off of a cliff.

At the top, a runway trails off into a long wooden ramp that descends off of the cliff at a slight angle.  A line of fliers are queued leading towards the start of the ramp, and expectant gliders not yet paired with a device wait to either side of the runway in harnesses and helmets, adrenaline building as each jumper makes his way into the air.  Those waiting listen in on the instructions given verbatim in broken English to each nervous rider:

“You put your arm around me here,” the instructor says, guiding his tandem pupils arm around his own back to a flap of canvas along is shoulder, “and don’t let go. When I say ‘RUN’ you run with me.  You move like I do.  Look forward.  When we reach the edge of the ramp, you run.  These are most important: You do not jump!  You do not stop running!  You run with me off the edge.  Wind does rest.”

Near the edge of the runway

I nod and know this will not be a problem for me.  Whatever fear might grip me as the space before me dwindles down to nothing will always come second to my deep fear of embarrassment.  I will not be that guy that trips up at the end of the runway, plunging awkwardly forward and down, while onlookers wait to determine that I’m well before allowing themselves to be amused by the somersaulting pile of nylon and skin that just plummeted down before them.

My turn arrives and the instructor reviews everything.  Hands, feet and all other assorted limbs are in the right places.  I stand looking forward — forward and not down — my eyes affixed far in the distance, past city, buildings, beaches, certain death, out onto the vast expanse of ocean before me, waiting on my cue.  A countdown from three is given and we jog at a surprisingly leisurely pace downward, matching strides as though in a three-legged race.  At the end, I don’t stop, nor do I jump.  The runway ends and we are flying.

Into thin air

The descent is — oddly pleasant.  Adrenaline fuels the initial jump — or run, rather — but once aloft, the sensation is one of floating slowly downwards, with barely more than a light breeze marking our passage through open space.  The expanse of northwest Rio spreads out below me, a large hillside made up of enormous homes with impossibly large yards this close to the city’s center, often with pools and tennis courts as well.  “Our most famous director lives there,” the pilot tells me,  pointing at one of the larger mansions.  “Our Spielberg.”

He swirls the glider in an endless series of interconnected ‘S’ shapes, steering it through almost imperceptible motions of the central bar that his hands stay perpetually gripped to.  His hands push softly to the right and the bar moves mere inches that bring about a massive spin rightwards.  My only rule now that we are aloft: Never touch this bar in any way.  Instead, my only attachment to anything really is to a strong canvas harness that connects to my groin and upper back.  I’m flying.

The view from above, including the pole that appears to be the sole means oof steering the glider.

We’re surprisingly far over the ocean now in a trip that’s lasted every bit of the promised fifteen minutes.  I hadn’t expected riding a kite off of a mountain to be so relaxing.

“I’m going to spin around now to the beach.  It’s going to get fast as we get close, but don’t worry — we’ll slow down right before landing and you just run.  Ok?”

“Sure!”

It all happens as promised.  The ground comes fast and hard — seemingly too fast to possibly slow in time to a brisk run, but a light pull at the last moment on the bar catches a billow of salty air.  We land together in a jerky, arrhythmic jog, but manage to safely avoid the ignominy of falling to our knees into the sand.  Two quick clicks free my harness from the glider (that’s all that was keeping me attached through our descent!?) and the experience is complete.

A glider darts in for a landing

The trip almost hadn’t happened.  My bus to Sao Paulo leaves in 45 minutes, and my lugguge still waits for me at the apartment across town.  But some things are worth taking risks for.

Going to a ¨futbol¨ game in Brazil was on my list from the very beginning.  I´ve always found the sport incredibly boring to watch, but assumed the raw energy of the local fans would compensate for the low scores and excessive running that we Americans find so terminally boring.  I was wrong.

Also, it rained.

I am having so much fun in this picture.

I think Jaimee enjoyed herself at least.

A typical vista, coming over a hill along the coast of Brazil between Sao Paulo and Rio

Cresting another hill along Brazil’s Atlantic coastline between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, I feel a sense of expectant awe grow in me. It’s neither the first nor the last of such ascents we’ve taken along this trip, and the views are barely dissimilar from one another. But looking out over a vista of hills turned beaches that steadily melt into an ocean dotted with a near endless supply of small islands manages to stay fresh and exciting the same way similar works by a favorite artist might. My friend Jaimee from the States put the rental car on her card — it’s way beyond my meager budget at this point in my frugal travels — stretching the seven hour drive out to over two days to fully take in one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world.

“This is even better than the drive from San Francisco to Big Sur,” I say.

“No, it’s not better. It’s just a different kind of good,” she corrects me. She’s one of my favorite road trip partners despite how easily we fall into mutually heated arguments over things almost entirely subjective.

Our destination is Rio de Janeiro, and more specifically what Carnival transforms the city into. But moreso than usual, the “getting there” is the best part. This ride was easily my favorite experience in Brazil.

Jaimee enjoys a fresh beverage...

...and so do I

Transvestite Motocade Assualt

“Did you just see that guy on a motorcycle wearing a bra,” Jaimee asks.

“I thought it was an ugly woman.”

There had been a cluster of teenaged girls huddled around the young, lanky biker in cheap lingerie who had sneered at us in makeup as we drove past. A green neon line superimposed on the GPS over a map that looked nothing like the twisty, narrow street our rented Fiat careened through assured us we were on the right path, but more and more evidence was adding up to the contrary. It’s not the first time technology had led us astray on this trip — the GPS initially being set to “Avoid Highways” had gotten us into one of the less savory neighborhoods of São Paulo just minutes after leaving the car rental agency — but we’d unfairly assumed it to be firmly entrenched on our side by now after two hours of fairly accurate advice.

A tunnel through a small mountain had led us into this town, and we had only planned to stay long enough for lunch at McDonald’s (a Brazilian Big Mac is identical in flavor and name to its American counterpart in every way. It is not even “La Big Mac.”) Unfortunately, the small mountain that hosted a high-speed tunnel into town, also hosted a series of poor neighborhoods directly above it. To a GPS, there is apparently little differentiation between these two vertically parallel roadways. To someone going the wrong way up twisty, barely paved, one-way shantytown street, there is a tremendous difference. This difference is compounded by the presence of angry, transvestite bikers barrelling down from above.

They dot down the road at first in small numbers, then more densely as the cluster thickens, one or two to each bike. Whether this is a daily function or some bizarre local holiday isn’t immediately clear, but they all crane their heads by us, glaring, laughing, shouting ominous Portuguese declarations as they pass. The road’s too narrow for me to maneuver and I ride up against the edge of a wall to give as much berth as possible. We’re foreignors, lost and obvious, blocking something strange and celebratory, and it’s not appreciated.  Some angrily pound the sides of the fiat as we pass.

“Oh my God. I feel so unsafe right now. This is terrible.” Jaimee says it all calmly without emotion, almost as though sarcastic.  She is not in any way being sarcastic.

Twenty. Thirty. Maybe forty or more bikes zip down around us before the stream dies off to a dribble. I spin the car around on the narrow hillside, praying no more bikes shoot out unexpectedly from above while doing so, and proceed to dart back toward town. On the GPS, the overlay of a map generally seems accurate, only to confuse itself by mixing in the alternate path, rendering it effectively useless. I’m driving now is a sense of urgency that’s wasted by my lack of knowledge as to where I’m physically located, yet every bra-wearing biker — we’re seeing them everywhere now — fuels this necessity to find our way from these backstreets and once more on a highway — any highway — again.

It's almost worth clicking on the picture to enlarge and look closer at the two nearest our car. The tranny on the back of the bike might be giving the most vacuous stare ever.

Eventually we manage to find our way. Like most other experiences down here, the scariest, the most pointless and the most surreal are the ones that stay with us best, long after having ended.

Everything else passes by us along the way, immediately put away in the mind like half-memories, collections of strange images and fragments of anecdotes. An abandoned amusement park with sinister trashcans and ticket booths. Small coastal highways that dwindle down to single lane bridges that look neither supportive nor inviting. Long, unmarked dirt roads that GPS assures us are correct, ending in tiny buildings huddled together to make a town where everyone sits together around a single television to watch a futbol game. None are noteworthy on their own, but it’d hardly capture the spirit of the trip to leave them omitted.

I found the ticket booths the creepiest, but Jaimee was most freaked out by the trash cans.

A narrow one-lane bridge. We almost weren´t certain from the posts at either side if it was even legal to cross.

I don´t really care for soccer in any way, but I´m not above pretending to for a good photo-op.

It’s a Paraty

Towns along the coast are as nice or nicer than any beachfront vacation spots in the States that I’ve been to. Each has its own charm and character, its own size and substance. Posh, larger resort areas are followed by more quaint towns with barely more than a gas station and a place to buy some cheap pasteis. The fried dumplings are similar in size and idea to your typical empanada, though fried and fully saturated by oil; it makes no sense to me how so many Brazilians I see are so incredibly fit with this being the one reliable snack food available in any town.

I´ll put out another food entry soon with more on All Things Empanada.

At times we make stops in larger towns with names like “Ubatuba,” paying to park while navigating through large beachside concession stands, safely enshrouded from the sun by umbrellas. Other times, a side quest leads us down unmarked sandy roads in search of a beach only hinted at by signs, maps and our general understanding of the local geography. The Fiat reliably tearing through the open coastline, we stop and claim complete ownership of these beaches, barren but for stray dogs and the occasional empty cabana unmanned during this apparent low season. It’s a seven hour trip that takes us close to three days.

A random beach we found our way onto.

Paraty (pronounced Para-Chee) is one of the more famous and idyllic stops along this route, just past the midway point between São Paulo and Rio. A white church from colonial times sits starkly along the edge of the waterside, creating a photo op fully taken advantage of by post card vendors throughout the region. A small “old town” with cobblestone streets bustles with touristy — though fantastic — restaurants and gift shops with all the standard local kitsch. Roads are closed to all but horse-drawn local carriages, and various actors role-play classic historical sterotypes that may or may not have graced Paraty’s streets in the past.

The old church at Paraty

The Pirate, for instance, sauntering through town while sneering abrasively, comes off a little too much like a Jack Sparrow knock-off. And really, who the hell dresses up like a pirate for a living anyway? The African Slave, on the other hand was genuinely fearsome. Turning down a side street, I came across him for the first time with no knowledge of Paraty’s paid local characters, only to bump into over six and a half feet of mountainous muscle encased in massive, broken chains. Well over three hundred pounds of muscle, his clothes are old and tattered, and slightly rust-stained from supporting the chains for so long. His eyes bulged as he stared down at me, before moving his intense, zombie-like gaze forward into space over the road behind me, his quivering glance somewhere between confused and enraged.

The Misty Chill

“Dude. You’re AWESOME!“

A slight ringing still comes from the heavy chains as they swing about his motionless form. He does not acknowledge my observation of his awesomeness, and eventually I leave him to his silent rage. Looking back, a block later, he remains in the same hulking stance on the corner, unmoving other than deep, heaving breaths.

I’m pretty sure he was one of the city’s paid characters, at least.

This isn’t my first time in Paraty. Plans with Jaimee were ephemeral at best before her arrival and could’ve taken us anywhere from Florianopolis (a mistake to have missed, I’ve been told) to Iguazu Falls (I’d get there eventually and unexpectedly). I had days to kill before her arrival, and had been told by many that there are few places just hours away from São Paulo that are as perfect for wasting away

The view out the front door of the Misty Chill. I never quite understand how some cheap hostels manage to have far better views than some of the more expensive hotels in town.

a few days as Paraty. Two days at the Misty Chill hostel was ample time for rides to local beaches by bus, boat or even my own poor swimming abilities at times. Misty Chill came recommended as a “party hostel,” likely for having happy hour drink specials on caipirinhas (my least favorite drink in Ecuador, they’re made perfectly in Brazil, which makes sense given they are the national drink) and a general good vibe from the unanimously attractive people working there.

One of them, a Canadian (I think — they don’t really have discernable accents when they don’t say “eh,” and the “aboot” thing seems to be localized to the Toronto region) woman slightly younger than me, turned out to be running the place. She’d worked for IBM and got burnt out on technology and the system, coming to South America looking for something else. I listened to her carefully. For nearly a day, I make my way around town with three marginally lapsed Hassidic Jews. Lapsed enough to wear relatively normal looking clothes (scandalous for hassids) but not so lapsed that, while drunk, the male tried to talk me into leaving the bar and returning to the hotel to put on tefillin. I have no doubts within me that this was his sole intention, by the way.

“They just make me feel so good when they’re on, you know? They’re like powerful. Man, I really want to put some tefillin on you. I think that’d be awesome.”

It’s the most bizarre proposition that’s ever come my way, but I politely don’t dismiss the idea, allowing time, drunkenness and short attention spans to keep me from being wrapped in the sacred leather straps. For several hours, I feel that I am flirting with one of the girls, before she tells me she has never kissed a man before and would only do so with one she was fairly certain she would marry. I couldn’t tell if this was a warning or an offer. We watched a cluster of local drummers together, carefully being orchestrated for the upcoming Carnival celebration then went our separate ways.

The Hasidic girl and the drum orchestra. She confessed that she'd only begun exposing her shoulders in the past week or two. When in (or around) Rio...

Narrow, old streets piled together from uneven rocks that make walking awkward and uncomfortable suffer from poor drainage, giving them at times canal-like properties, even if their accumulated water is less than a foot or more deep. Stretching out to sea is a single enormous dock, extra wide to handle boat crews in matching shirts seated under umbrellas before their respective schooners and partyboats, all calling out for riders. The landscape of local beachs, mountains dying off into the ocean in grand natural piers and endless islands creates a glut of natural aquatic attractions vast enough to easily fill the thirty or more large boats here willing to take people on three hour tours.

Paraty´s uneven stone streets are more fun to look at than they are to walk on.

Forty bucks gets you about five hours on one of the ships, each with distinct personalities ranging from mellow, to family-oriented to Girls Gone Wild. The latter I was not aware of until our trip had ended. Bumming around scenic island beaches through clear cerulean blue water isn’t a bad way to spend five hours.

Pictures from the Boat

Our home for five sunny hours

Small, beachy islands dot the waters here, always with mainland Brazil´s mountains in the background. This is someone´s private island. I am fairly certain I hate whoever lives here.

A public beach. Small boats take riders to shore, though most of us just swam.

There were usually one or two of the other boats at each of our stops.

More boats, more islands, etc, etc

Relaxing to some live music. The guy mostly knew only Jack Johnson and Bob Marley songs, which meant his playlist completely matched those of every hostel or DJ in town.

Jaimee and me

Diving from the sides of the boat

Rio de Janeiro

Our proximity to the famous city is given away at first more by the increase in fast, reckless driving than by any increase in urban landscape. Until now, drivers have seemed mostly calm and patient, adhering to basic traffic laws and propriety. That sort of gets tossed upon crossing Rio’s borders. It’s night, and too difficult to gauge the beauty and vastness of the city, as I’ve heard too many horror stories about finding one’s self in the wrong part (or any part) of Rio’s favelas.

The GPS takes us almost directly to the Fiat’s pre-appointed drop-off point. For everything else, it is forgiven.