Suche zurücksetzen
South America
  • Helen Smith

South America

Ein 45-Tage Abenteuer von Helen Weiterlesen
FolgenÜbersichtKalenderTeilenTeilenBucket List
Neuste zuerst
  • Beginn der Reise
    26. November 2016
    Helen SmithSouth AmericaHelen Smith

    Argentinian Brewery

    26. November 2016 in Argentinien ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

    Spent my first day in Buenos Aires getting settled. I did get ripped off at the airport, mostly because I was so nervous about being ripped off I went to the first official looking booth I could find and accidentally ordered a private car instead of a taxi. Whoops.

    The driver asked me what I thought of Donald Trump. 😩🔫

    It was raining hard all afternoon, and I wandered around for a little while then spent three hours in an art museum. Gorgeous art, but I think Italy spoiled me for life, I don't feel like I'll really be impressed ever again.

    The exchange rate here is 15 pesos to $1, which is a lot of hard math. They also use the $ sign so everything looks really expensive even though it's cheap. $80 for a beer is only about $5 USD.

    Buenos Aires is a huge city with a new York vibe and Italian style. No one speaks more than a few words of English. I have literally never been anywhere in the world where they speak so little English. I absolutely have to go practice.

    Tonight I'm going to see a Tango dinner show and they told me I was reserving one of two remaining tables in the whole show. I suggested that since I'm alone I wouldn't mind being seated with another party. An American couple happened to be passing.

    Husband: honey aren't we going to that Tango show later? She can sit with us! She's ALONE.

    Wife: No she can't, stop talking to random people on the street.

    It was really awkward.    Weiterlesen

    Übersetzung anzeigen
  • Helen SmithSouth AmericaHelen Smith

    Estancia

    27. November 2016 in Argentinien ⋅ 🌙 21 °C

    So I get on the bus for my Estancia (ranch) visit today, and the first thing the guide says is, "you're the only person on this tour who requested an English guide. My English is terrible, are you sure you can't just speak Spanish?" he did all this IN SPANISH.

    me: "I'm sorry, I don't understand Spanish."

    Here is an example of how the tour went:

    Guide: Spanish Spanish Spanish cow Spanish Spanish ranch Spanish Spanish lunch Spanish.... *glances at me* the ranch has many animals for visit.

    Ug. The instructions for the zip line were also in Spanish. I did it anyway.

    During the folk music show, which was incredible, the lead singer asked how many people (in a group of 250)spoke English. I was one of two... So he skipped the English translations of the music.

    However, it is so lovely here and I saw a wild flamingo, a peacock, rode horses around the Estancia, and saw some horse racing, which was awesome.

    There's an older man who speaks English and Spanish been escorting me around, but he seems very kind, he's not too weird and he spent most of his day translating for me. When we went into the gift shop, which was all leather goods he pointed everything out, "soft leather. Beautiful." Sometimes he was looking at me, not the leather, but I always pretended be meant the leather.

    To my amusement, he warned me about interacting with the guide who is young and good looking, but very short. He was like, be careful interacting with these guides, especially the ones without children. I was like uh huh, I know exactly what you're trying to say.

    All in all great day.

    I tried argentine pizza, which I didn't like at all. The crust is so thick it looks like a slice of pie, and they put about an inch of cheese on top. It was a lot.

    When I got back to the hostel, there was a fluent English speaker there who just got back from Patagonia! He helped me replan my entire trip after informing me that my big hike, torres del Paine, is experiencing its biggest season yet and all the campsites are booked up. I can do one overnight there, but that's a far cry from the 10 days I planned. Oh well.    Weiterlesen

    Übersetzung anzeigen
  • Helen SmithSouth AmericaHelen Smith

    Walking Tour

    29. November 2016 in Argentinien ⋅ 🌙 17 °C

    Today I went on a six hour walking tour of the city of Buenos Aires. To my surprise, I was the only person who requested the 6 hour tour and I got a private tour with an English speaking history professor!! It was incredible and we got along great. Buenos Aires is huge. The biggest city in the United States is NYC and it has 8 million people. Buenos Aires has 14 million. Literally gigantic.

    Its the anniversary of the independence of Argentina today, and as a holiday treat the presidents house was open to tours....all in Spanish. But it was still very pretty and I'm lucky to have seen it.

    After that I went to the neighborhood of Palermo, which is the hipster neighborhood. There I found acai bowls, craft beer, and raw juice restaurants. I had a a couple beers at a beer garden and decided to walk back to my hostel, about 1 hour, through this huge park.

    This park is incredible. It's full of families walking together or playing soccer, young couples canoodling on benches, old people strolling. I think about how in America we're always trying to find ways to separate, but here in Buenos Aires there's this huge coming together of people to exercise and enjoy each other on a holiday.

    I realize that walking here in this park is the closest I will ever come to being invisible. I look Argentinian enough to escape notice and no one is walking with me. It's actually really neat to walk past all these people and watch them go about their day and know they aren't looking at me at all. I am just part of the crowd. It's like I have superpowers!

    I walk past this incredible path around this lake, then I see another beer garden!

    Wait. It's the same beer garden.

    I am way more drunk than I realized, and spent 45 min walking in a circle imagining I had superpowers.

    Fuck.

    I eventually made it back to my hostel.    Weiterlesen

    Übersetzung anzeigen
  • Helen SmithSouth AmericaHelen Smith

    Finding Penguins

    30. November 2016 in Argentinien ⋅ 🌙 -3 °C

    Flew here to Ushuaia, the second southernmost town in the world, and I'm finally out here in the mountains staying at a real backpacking hostel!! Everyone goes out hiking every day with their giant backpacks and comes back at night to drink beer and compare pictures. It's lovely.

    However, no one showers enough and these motherfuckers stink. I slept in a room with 6 beds filled with 5 smelly backpackers, telling myself that the smell is part of the experience and its fine.

    Ushuaia is a touristy mountain town. Everything is much more expensive here than it was in Buenos Aires. But at least everyone speaks excellent English!

    On the way to see the penguins we saw "flag trees," trees growing in the direction of the strong winds in Patagonia.

    Seeing the penguins was so special, I absolutely loved it. It's spring here, and all the flowers are in bloom. The baby penguins were just starting to be born, so while I didn't see any fluff balls waddling around, I got to see glimpses of dark gray hatchlings as the parents moved around the nests.

    On the tour I met a couple in their 30s who live in Cleveland Park in dc! We went to dinner and went through a bottle of wine, it was great. The sun sets at about 11 pm and rises well before 5.    Weiterlesen

    Übersetzung anzeigen
  • Helen SmithSouth AmericaHelen Smith

    The End of the World

    1. Dezember 2016 in Argentinien ⋅ ⛅ 4 °C

    It's a tradition at this hostel that everyone gets a nickname, and mine is Honor Student, because I did more research than most people and spent half the night telling people they couldn't hike Torres del Paine without reservations. Literally everyone planned to go, and no one had reservations. However, a big group managed to put together the trek starting December 16 and ending Christmas day, and I was jealous and spent the day stressing out about whether to restructure my trip yet again and join them.

    Today was a rainy day, but I wanted to go to the National Park anyway. When I told the owner of the hostel about my plans, he said, "good for you, you really are an honor student."

    The rain wasn't an issue, but the low rain clouds blocked a lot of the mountains on and off throughout the day. Both the hostel owner and the people at the park recommended this long hike through the lake region, which was really lovely. It's nice being here in spring, everything is light green and all the flowers are in bloom. It's odd that this is spring but it's SO COLD.

    There are many stray dogs in Ushuaia, they are all very friendly and funnily enough they all look well fed. I saw a guy try to give a stray a sandwich the other day and the dog just ignored it and asked for attention. So when I was hiking and I saw this dog trotting towards me, that's what I thought was happening.

    Then I saw it's tail.

    Then I got a closer look at its snout.

    Yeah, not a dog.

    I found out later that it was a type of golden retriever sized antarctic fox, but at the time I thought it was a young wolf or maybe a coyote.

    He came with a few feet of me and stopped, watching me. He didn't look aggressive, but he did look hungry, and he was waaaay too close. My first thought was that I didn't spring for that rabies shot and here I was on day 5 facing down a wild animal alone in the woods. My second thought was of that scene in Disney's beauty and the beast where Belle gets chased by wolves.

    I took a step back. The fox took a step forward. I ran a few steps, the fox followed. I was really scared.

    I figured I either had to feed the fox or scare the fox, so I took a deep breath and waved my arms and yelled EYEYEYEYEY!!

    The fox ran off. I took off down the path and kept looking behind me to see if he followed for the next hour.

    The rest of the hike was uneventful, I saw some birds, peat bogs, and some great views.

    Later in the trail was a sign for the end of the southernmost road in the world, excepting Antarctica.

    I went to the end of the world today.    Weiterlesen

    Übersetzung anzeigen
  • Helen SmithSouth AmericaHelen Smith

    Top of the World

    2. Dezember 2016 in Argentinien ⋅ ⛅ 8 °C

    I've made friends in this hostel. There's this American girl who's a teacher traveling for a year and she is so great. We spent the day together, along with a German guy we met on the bus, and an outgoing Israeli guy and girl who just finished their military service.

    Israelis do 2-3 years of mandatory military service, and then they are all in the best shape of their life and head down to Patagonia to climb mountains. Literally, the whole country is here. They are very welcoming and they all speak English, but they are a lot. They get up early and drink all night, and they move around in this big loud amorphous group.

    They showed me all their pictures of the park on top of some huge mountain and I was like, wait a minute, you guys didn't do the lake district?? They were like no, you got to do Cerro Guanaco, fuck that lake district.

    So today, I climbed a mountain. It's no wonder I missed it the first time, the employees of the park obviously hate this hike. When the bus driver dropped me off, he said, "don't do the mountain, you'll miss the bus back, do the lake district again." the woman collecting entrance fees had k similar advice. I didn't care one bit.

    This is the type of hike I came to Patagonia to do. It went straight up, and every 10 minutes the landscape changed. It was totally gorgeous.

    I liked going in a big group as well. When we passed the snow line the boys through snowballs at us. We laughed at the German guy, who was wearing designer tennis shoes instead of hiking boots and fell in the mud. When we got to the top, the Israelis were making coffee and passing it out, so I had some Israeli coffee on top of a mountain. We saw another fox, but it didn't come near that many people. Today was my favorite day so far.

    When I got back to the hostel, I was again tempted to travel with this group for the rest of my trip and discard my original plan. The Israelis were going on this 3 day camping trip in Ushuaia that sounded incredible, I could easily have hung out in Ushuaia until the 16th, done torres del Paine, then just headed straight for Brazil. But in the end I didn't. I had a great time in Ushuaia, and I'm ready to move on.    Weiterlesen

    Übersetzung anzeigen
  • Helen SmithSouth AmericaHelen Smith

    Preparing

    5. Dezember 2016 in Chile ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    I took a 12 hour bus to Punto Arenas, and stared out the window at the country I had originally planned to bike. It was totally flat, barren, and windy. There was the occasional sheep. Canceling that bike tour is literally one of the smartest travel decisions I've made. Also, it is not easy to get around in Patagonia. There's one road. Sometimes you have to take a ferry. Sometimes the border guards search all the Israelis on your bus and you're stuck at the border for an hour.

    In Punta Arenas, I was expecting a time little village but instead landed in a huge city. I was disoriented, because I'd crossed into Chile and suddenly my argentine pesos were no good and my argentine sim card stopped working. I tried to find my hostel with a physical map and it was hard. The Israelis got off the bus in Punta Arenas as well and piled into an Israeli hostel right next to the bus station. Must be nice.

    The next day I got back on the bus to go to Puerto Natales and try and salvage my trip to Torres Del Paine. Turns out there is literally only one reason anyone goes to Puerto Natales, and it's to hike Torres del Paine. They don't even have hotels, only hostels. Everything's in English and they have microbreweries, little coffee places catering to backpackers, and the largest camping store I've ever seen.

    The city is in crisis. No one has reservations and torres del Paine is full up. The reservation system is so complex many people are just going to the park without reservations. Once you're on the trail they have to give you a place to stay, you can't leave the park once you're in the mountains.

    Also, a bridge on the w trek is broken, and there's a huge portion of the trail that's unavailable. I spent two hours in the booking office and it was a scene. People were crying because they couldn't get campsites. Other people had to end their hike early because of the bridge and were arguing for refunds. The Israelis were throwing a huge fit. I got very lucky. I decided to only do one day on the w trek, then do the less popular o trek, and skip the section with the broken bridge. It all came together and I got campsites!!

    So now I'm going to go live on a mountain for 5 days. 😨

    I almost forgot, yesterday I went horseback rising. I arrived at the hostel and saw some guys from the bus
    They were like hey! We're going horseback riding but we're leaving now, do you want to come? I went. It was gorgeous and probably one of the best days of my life. I've never ridden a horse any faster than a walk, but we reached this big open field and the guide was like, ok we're going to gallop across this field! Hold on!

    It was exhilarating, and fulfilled that little 8 year old in my heart that wanted to gallop across a field on a horse with my hair streaming behind me.    Weiterlesen

    Übersetzung anzeigen
  • Helen SmithSouth AmericaHelen Smith

    Torres del Paine, Part 1

    12. Dezember 2016 in Chile ⋅ 🌧 15 °C

    Day 1 - Towers

    The day I left Puerto Natales two Germans showed up in the hostel who were also going to torres. They were both close to 7 feet tall. They were having a very serious discussion about food to take on their trip, and I was hanging out in the dorm trying to see if they'd join me for dinner. They didn't, and were a bit rude about it, but they agreed to share a taxi with me to the bus station in the morning.

    I walked right into my first campsite. I set up my tent then left my big pack in the tent while I climbed up the mountain to see the towers.

    When work was really hard this year, I used to Google image torres del Paine and tell myself that soon I would be there. To actually be there was surreal and emotional. The towers are breathtaking and unique, and the hike up is gorgeous on its own, but I had Googled the towers so many times I think I ruined the surprise a bit.

    The park has found a way to commercialize nature. They have hotels up the mountains, and signs that say, "tired? Take a horse down to base camp. Very affordable!" Also, when the trail got rough, I had to wait in line to go up the mountain. Ridiculous. But the view at the top was perfect. It felt so good to make it up there and finally fulfill my promise to myself.

    It is no wonder a bridge went down. They all looked like they'd been built by cub scouts, and they are often missing entire planks, nails, parts of railings have broken, the wood is obviously rotting, etc. Many people were crossing the rivers rather than risking the bridges.

    Day 2 - A Good Day To Walk To Dickson

    The next day I start the O circuit and headed to my first campsite. The hike is beautiful, but easy. I walked through daisy fields and by a Glacial Lake. You can tell when it's Glacier water because it's the color of light blue Gatorade. Very pretty.

    An American couple starting at the same time as me told me they were skipping the first campsite and going straight to the second, Dickson. I mocked them when I met a guide on the trail, they were way behind me and had twice the mileage to cover. The park puts guides on the trails for safety. It's literally their job to walk the trail, ask people their names and where they're headed and always, always, "how are your knees?" The guide contradicted me. "I am also going to Dickson. It is a beautiful day today, and a good day to walk to Dickson. You are making excellent time, you could go as well." I pretended to think about it, but I knew I would also skip the first campsite.

    Sure enough, I get to the first campsite by 2pm. It seemed so early to set up my tent and just hang out all day. I met a group of Chilean college boys, one of whom led the others in a series of stretches. I joined them and they shared their food with me. "don't go to Dickson," they told me. "that's crazy. Party with us tonight and we'll all walk there tomorrow. We have plenty of beer. " at the thought of having to walk with 8 Chilean boys, I thank him, but tell him I'm leaving. He tells me, half joking, "if I find you on the side of the trail, I will rescue you."

     On my way out, I see that if I go all the way to Dickson, my total distance for the day will be 31 km. I have no idea how many miles this is but I know it's more than I'm supposed to do per day at my level. I walk out anyway.

    Who is more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him? Only experienced backpackers should have done this hike.

    As I go over a mountain I realize the wind is picking up. Gusts knock me off my feet a few times and Tasmanian Devils pick up water from the lake and dirt from the trail and throw it in my face.

    When I cross the top of the mountain I gasp. The wind is so strong on the other side it's like sticking your head out a car window while it speeds down the highway. I wait for it to subside, but it doesn't. I have to walk through it. I walk with bent knees like a sumo wrestler and squint my eyes to keep from being blown away. It's 3 miles of heavy winds, and at the end I am completely exhausted. I still have miles and miles to go.

    I pass a ranger station and the ranger comes out to tell me my pace has majorly slowed, and I should camp with him that night.

    "you will not make it to Dickson before dark, and after dark the mountain lions come out."

    Yes, this is a good plan.

    "no, I'm fine." I hear myself say.

    "how are your knees?' the ranger asks, sizing me up.

    They hurt.

    "they're fine!" I jog a few steps and flash him a smile. He lets me go.

    An hour later I regret my choice. My feet ache, my knees and shoulders ache, and I'm so tired.

    I sit down on a log and ponder my fate. I could just camp anywhere, rules be damned, and hope the mountain lions aren't hungry. A woman jogs up to me. Yes, jogs.

    "get back up. You're close. The campsite is just behind that hill," she says. I nod and get up, bleary-eyed. I wonder if I'm imagining her.

    "you will make it. I can see it in your face. " then she jogs away.

    I have no idea which hill she meant. The trail doesn't even get to any Hill for another hour. I convince myself that this is the right hill and agree to let myself cry if it's not.

    She was right, the campsite is behind the hill, but not directly. It's behind a hill and around the lake, and I still had 30 minutes of walking left. I didn't cry.

    I stumbled into the campsite at 9 pm. I was the last one in. I'm greeted by a bunch of backpackers on the porch of the lodge.

    "did you come all the way from Las Torres?" one of them asks.

    I nod, and I can tell they're impressed. The two Germans were there, Yannick and Christian. Because I skipped a campsite, I caught up with them. Christian was shocked, he kept saying, "Yannick! The little lady from the hostel is here!" Yannick gave me a high five and a small smile that told me he was impressed, but not quite as surprised.

    Now in my tent, I'm alone again listening to the wind howling outside.

    I woke up several times in the night to the wind violently shaking my tent. I was scared the whole thing would rip right open. Thank God for REI, my tent stayed together, but I didn't sleep as well as I'd hoped. My whole body feels like it's been beaten with a stick.    Weiterlesen

    Übersetzung anzeigen
  • Helen SmithSouth AmericaHelen Smith

    Torres del Paine, Part 2

    12. Dezember 2016 in Chile ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    Day 3 - Rest day

    This morning I had to adjust the straps on my pack to accommodate my weight loss.

    I was shocked I could even walk this morning. It was a light day, only 10km, and up two small mountains. The big view today was of a huge Glacier melting into a teal pool. It was massive and blue and hauntingly beautiful.

    At night Yannick and Christian let me join them and two American guys for a game of poker. We played with pistachios instead of poker chips. Yannick and Christian seem to regard me as an annoying little sister they'll tolerate because they can't quite get rid of me. I lost early, but I had one great hand where I took nearly all Christians pistachios. He was so annoyed.

    I hiked extremely slowly today, I couldn't keep up any kind of pace for long. I'm worried because tomorrow is supposed to be the hardest day of the hike. I'm crossing this mountain that's the highest in the park, prone to heavy winds and sudden snow storms, and the biggest elevation change. I have to get up at 5 am to try and make it over. I really hope it works.

    Day 4 - Over the Pass

    It rained all night and into the morning. 5am was freezing. I considered staying in the camp and hoping for better weather tomorrow. I told myself I'd hike up to the pass, and if the rain didn't stop, I'd just come back down. No way I was doing rain + heavy winds on top of the highest mountain in the park.

    My fingers froze as I took the tent down in the rain. I ate a cold breakfast in the cooking shelter and again considered staying in my tent for the day. The rain wasn't slowing at all. But everyone else was up and getting ready to go, so I packed up and got an early start.

    As I was leaving camp, the rain turned to snow. It occurred to me that my friends from the Murphy campaign were on a cruise ship in Mexico, likely laying out in the sun and sipping champagne.

    The snow on the mountains was gorgeous. It was a quiet soft snow that blanketed everything and got deeper as I climbed higher. It was one of my favorite mornings.

    When I reached the pass, the weather looked awful. The clouds were rolling above me, the wind was picking up, I couldn't see the trail very well. I sat down under a big tree to see if I could wait it out.

    After about 20 minutes, Yannick and Christian showed up.

    "what are you doing? Are you all right?" Christian asks.

    I tell him I'm turning around. The weather is terrible and I can't see the trail.

    "You're not turning around. Come with us. Yannick and I talked last night. We were planning to pick you up, but you left too early. You cannot go over the pass alone in this weather." Christian tells me.

    It was so sweet of him. I was touched.

    "are you sure any of us should go over in this weather??" I ask, "I can't see the trail markers!"

    "Helen, we live in the Alps. The weather is like this all the time. I will go in front, you will be in the middle, Christian will go behind. You will not get lost." Yannick assures me.

    "I will just slow you down." I protest.

    Christian smiles. "Yannick is slow too. We will all go together."

    I agree.

     Slow is a very relative term when you're a 7 foot tall alpine German. I forgot my fear and concentrated on keeping up with Yannick, who somehow never lost the trail in the snow.

    At the top of the pass, like a present unwrapping the clouds rolled back and the sun came out and we could finally see the mountains. The view on one side of the valley and the craggy peaks against the sun was incredible, and on the other side was or first view of Glacier Grey. The Glacier stretched as far as the eye could see, massive and sinister against its mountain backdrop. Glaciers don't photograph very well, but in person they are just the coolest thing. They're not flat, they have all these ridges with little slices of blue or gray visible in the gullys. When you look at them it's like hearing a long low chord on an organ.

    The boys went ahead of me on the way down, but the dangerous part was over. The trail going down was hours of walking right along the Glacier, and I was obsessed with it. I must have taken hundreds of photos.

    As I neared camp that night exhaustion hit again, and my knee was bothering me. I also hit the part of the trail that was possible to reach by day hiking, and people kept stopping me.

    "hey! How far is it to the Glacier? Omg, are you coming off the circuit? The WHOLE circuit??"

    I hated them all, with their light little packs and their fresh knees. The Glacier? The Glacier is over windy mountain tops and through blizzards after days and days of walking!!

    But I didn't say that. I pulled a smile out of my back pocket and told them yes, I had hiked the circuit, and the Glacier was just around the corner.

    That night at camp, one of the Americans got out a whiskey bottle to celebrate surviving the pass. I remembered Josh Wolf's story about drinking whiskey with Glacier ice at perito Moreno. I told the story, and the Americans dashed off to the nearby beach to cut us all Glacier ice cubes for our victory whiskey. We toasted Josh Wolf.

    Day 5 - Rain

    In the morning it was sprinkling and I figured it would stop soon, so I didn't start with any rain gear. I was making such great time on the trail, I now had the option to do the entire Torres del Paine circuit. The hard part was over. I had a day hike up to the Frances Valley and then a flat hike along a lake and then I was done. However, my knee didn't feel so great, and I knew I'd been pushing it a lot, going too many miles way too fast.

    In the end the weather decided for me. My rain poncho completely failed, and my pack and clothes were getting soaked. At midday, the rain showed no signs of stopping and I started to shiver. Fog covered the view and my knee was on fire.

    When I hit my planned stopping point, I stopped, and left the Frances Valley for another trip. To exit the park from that site, you take a boat and then a bus back to town. I had hopes of getting to town early, doing some laundry, taking a long shower, and eat a giant hot meal.

    What I didn't realize was that the buses leave twice a day, after the first boat and the last boat. I took the 2:30 boat, and was stuck in the visitors center cafeteria waiting for the 7pm bus. My clothes were still soaked.

    The bus was late, and I didn't get back to Puerto Natales until 10 pm. I didn't have a hostel reservation until the next night, because I was a day early, and when I showed up at my hostel... They were full.

    There I was, wet and cold and smelly and without a place to stay at 10 pm. I tried three different hostels, all were full. I felt very sorry for myself. But then I squared my shoulders and told myself I would knock on the door of every Goddamn hostel in the city until I found one. I found one that would give me a last minute room for $60 USD, but that was too expensive.

    I finally found a very basic hotel whose owner took pity on me and gave me a room for $30 USD. this was still a lot more expensive than a hostel, but I took it. I had a private room with this amazing radiator that emitted a dry heat. I laid out my wet clothes and sleeping bag and gear all over the room and took a a shower until well past midnight.

    I tried on my poncho in the shower to make sure that it was indeed leaking. The water came right through. I don't know how I'm supposed to do this backpacker thing without any working rain gear.    Weiterlesen

    Übersetzung anzeigen
  • Helen SmithSouth AmericaHelen Smith

    Bad Weather

    15. Dezember 2016 in Argentinien ⋅ ☀️ 18 °C

    I traveled from Puerto Natales to El Chalten by bus. El chalten is a small town in Argentina next to a playground of mountains and glaciers.

    However, I've fallen into a patch of bad weather. Yesterday I hiked to what was supposed to be a gorgeous viewpoint that was actually just a mass of clouds. The winds are incredibly strong, and if rained on and off the whole time. Today, when the weather looked the same, I holed up in the hostel all day with a couple of girls from New Zealand and played poker.

    During a brief period when the rain stopped we walked to a nearby waterfall, which was beautiful, but we're all disappointed about the lack of visibility. I'd walk in the wind or the rain, but what's the point if the clouds are blocking the view? I feel bad because this was my other big camping and outdoor activity site, and it's fast turning into a series of rainy days.

    There's three New Zealanders I've fallen in with here in Chalten, two girls, Chrissie and Caz, who've been very kind and welcoming to me, and Mark, and absent minded PhD student here who is a very serious backpacker. Today, he insisted he was going to camp despite the weather. He walked back in the hostel at a 10:30 pm looking like a drowned rat.

    "I could've camped, it was still a fun day, " he protested.

    According to the weather forecast, I will only have one day of good weather here in chalten. I could either base hike mount Fitz Roy, or go ice climbing. I'm very torn.

    I ended up base hiking Fitz Roy, which was beautiful. I still didn't get to see the entire mountain but it was the best day all week. The next day was again terribly windy and rainy, so I beat a bunch of aussies at Risk and watched game of thrones.

    Today I took a chance and tried to go ice climbing, but they canceled the tour due to more bad weather. It's frustrating because I doubled down on El Chalten when other things fell through, and the weather has just been completely incapacitating. It's gone beyond cloudy, it's foggy. The winds are hurricane level winds. The rain is a constant dull cold sprinkle that becomes icy and sharp in the wind. Every day the locals say it will be better but it's just worse.

    Tonight I leave and I couldn't be happier to be leaving bleak El chalten.    Weiterlesen

    Übersetzung anzeigen
  • Helen SmithSouth AmericaHelen Smith

    The Bus

    20. Dezember 2016 in Argentinien ⋅ ⛅ 9 °C

    I made quite a few friends I didn't mention before in El Chalten. Cooped up for a week of bad weather, I befriended the hostel owner, 20 year old Salvador, who made his money smuggling iPhones from the US and selling them in Argentina, then invested in and was running a hostel. He was a mean poker player. I hung out with an endless stream of Australians, a Scot who looked out at the weather each morning, chuckled, and said, "looks like home," and a quiet but friendly Belgian girl, Anne.

    The day I left was Salvadors birthday, so I bought cake mix from the supermarket, and a couple of us mixed the cake. Salvador had to cook it in his house in the oven, which was out back.

    For dinner we all sat around and had birthday cake. One guy took a bite and said, "this tastes like space cake, Salvador, did you sneak weed in this cake?" Salvador shrugged and winked and we all laughed. I didn't think he was serious.

    When I left for the bus, I struggled to put my pack on, which was strange, I've put the thing on like 100 times now. Salvatore laughed at me and asked, "do you know where the bus station is?"

    "I've been living in this small town for a week, of course I know where the bus station is." I replied.

    I got on the bus early. Twice I was sure the bus had started to back up, but when I looked, it hadn't moved. The Belgian girl, Anne, got on the bus with me. When the ticket taker came by, he told me I had to get off the bus because I hadn't paid the El Chalten bus tax. I bought a round trip ticket from El calafate and didn't know about the extra tax in El Chalten. There were about 5 of us who made the mistake. I got off the bus and ran to the kiosk. I was so worried the bus would leave without me. By the time I got through the line, I was sure the bus had left, the line had taken hours. But when I ran out, the bus was still there and the ticket taker hadn't even finished checking everyone's ticket.

    Anne grabbed my arm as I made my way to my seat.

    "I am freaking out. What is going on?" she asked me.

    "nothing, I forgot to pay the city tax, everything's fine." I told her.

    "what are you talking about?? HELEN. THERE WAS SOMETHING IN THAT CAKE." Her grip on my arm tightened and her face was wide and scared.

    "are you sure this isn't placebo effect?" I asked as the bus stretched out into a long hallway and Anne's voice dropped low and metallic.

    In response, Anne collapsed into the seat next to mine and started crying. "I HATE WEED," she cried loudly. People turned and looked at us. "Why would Salvador do that without telling us?? That's so RUDE."

    Ok, so there was weed in the cake. And I was stuck on a 3 hour bus ride with a girl who was obviously going to have a very bad trip.

    Anne alternated between quiet crying and fits of giggling with me about raindrops or the color of her sweater or other stupid stuff. Two hours in she found a pound cake on her bag and her whole face lit up with joy.

    "these are SO GOOD!! and I have one! Helen do you see it??" she waved it in front of my face. I assured her that I did.

    We arrived in El calafate at 11 at night. Knowing we had a late arrival, Anne and I had both booked hostels a couple blocks from the bus station. Anne gripped my arm as we got off the bus and made me promise to walk her all the way to her hostel.

    El calafate is pretty safe, but in an unfamiliar city, trying to find a hostel at 11 at night while high as a kite was no easy task. Paranoia set in, and I drew my knife with one hand and my mace with the other. Anne and I crept through the streets like ninjas, carefully checking around every corner for danger.

    A taxi driver slowed to see if we needed a ride, which is a reasonable assumption when two girls are walking out of the bus station at 11pm.

    "GO AWAY!!" I yelled at the taxi driver, brandishing my knife.

    "YEAH GO THE FUCK AWAY CREEP!" Anne yelled from behind me. The taxi driver sped off in a hurry.

    I dropped Anne off at her hostel and she begged me to stay there instead of venturing back out alone to find my own hostel. I had already paid for my hostel, so I said goodnight and walked four terrifying blocks to my own hostel. I stopped before I went in to put the knife and the mace away.

    It was quite an adventure.    Weiterlesen

    Übersetzung anzeigen
  • Helen SmithSouth AmericaHelen Smith

    Perito Moreno

    21. Dezember 2016 in Argentinien ⋅ 🌙 28 °C

    My last day in Patagonia I went to see the Perito Moreno Glacier. It's the third largest glacier in the world, and clocks in at 70 meters high.

    It's fantastic. And thank God, I finally, finally escaped the weather at El chalten and got a sunny day with very little wind. The game at Perito Moreno is to sit and watch for big bits of it to crash into the water. The glacier is growing, but at this part of the glacier it's slowly breaking apart. The Glacier cracks like a gunshot and grumbles like thunder, and a couple times a day, a massive piece of ice falls into the ocean. I got lucky, the biggest piece of the day fell about 20 minutes after I got there and I saw the whole thing!

    I met a lot of my El chalten crew at Perito Moreno and had lunch with Ben, an American from San Francisco, We had more whisky with glacier ice.

    I'm so sad to be leaving Patagonia. I wish I could stay another month, and it seems like there's so much I left undone. I'll have to come back.    Weiterlesen

    Übersetzung anzeigen
  • Helen SmithSouth AmericaHelen Smith

    Iguazu Falls

    22. Dezember 2016 in Argentinien ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C

    I was sad to leave Patagonia, but it was made all the worse because I woke up feeling sick as a dog. I started my emergency course of antibiotics and geared up for a day in airports. I tried to convince myself that it was basically a rest day, all I had to do was get on and off airplanes all day.

    Yeah, traveling alone when you're sick is hard. I slept on both my flights and had to be woken by the flight attendants at landing. I could feel that I was flushed with fever. I had a layover in Buenos Aires, and I got off the plane when I was just supposed to wait on the plane, it was the same plane flying to iguazu falls. I had to exit the airport and rush through security to get back on.

    But it all turned out fine, and when I got to iguazu falls, another late arrival in an unfamiliar place, I had the complete opposite of my first airport experience. I just followed all the people with backpacks. We let an Israeli haggle a price, and a minute later a big van arrived to take all the backpackers to their hostels for 1/4 the cost of a taxi. The Israeli took one look at my fevered face and made the driver drop me off first. I love the Israelis so much. Sure, they are loud. They snore. They leave messes in the kitchen and seem to take joy in breaking every rule they can. But they are useful and nice and they fucking watch out for all travelers, not just their own.

    The next day I felt better, but not great. I went to the Argentinian side of iguazu falls anyway. 10 minutes after getting there I had to sit down, I was shivering with a cold sweat. Luckily it passed, and I wandered the rainforest paths thinking... Oh look, I'm back in Florida. The everglades and the rainforest are very similar. I even recognized some of the bugs and plants. A bunch of people were exclaiming over a gator and I was just like OH LOOK, MY 236TH GATOR OF THE YEAR.

    Then the monkeys showed up, and everything got a lot more interesting. Iguazu falls is gorgeous. It's a natural wonder. It's impossible to have a bad time watching gallons and gallons of water crashing hundreds of feet through the air, and I didn't. It was a fantastic day. I took the boat ride into the spray of the waterfall and screamed with delight. I saw rainbows and brightly colored birds and did I mention it was hot?? Gone were the high winds and sudden rains of the arctic tundra, I was back in the tropics. It felt good.

    At iguazu, there are a bunch of easy walkways overlooking the falls, and one short three mile hike. I skipped the hike, and I beat myself up about it. It's the type of thing I would have done if I weren't sick, but I was totally exhausted by about 3pm. Oh well.

    When I got back to the hostel I napped, then got up to take myself out to dinner. The electricity in Puerto iguazu is spotty, and as I walked to dinner entire blocks would black out and suddenly come back on a minute or two later. When I arrived at the restaurant the lights were out. I ate there anyway. They brought me a candle.

    As I sat there sipping wine from mendoza and buttering homemade bread by candlelight, I felt a warm happiness stealing over me. The night was young, the wine was good, and the steak was cheap. What more can anyone really ask for?    Weiterlesen

    Übersetzung anzeigen
  • Helen SmithSouth AmericaHelen Smith

    Riding the Metro in Sao Paulo

    25. Dezember 2016 in Brasilien ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

    When I landed in Sao Paulo I was scared. I was in a huge city in a new country, with new money, a new exchange rate, and a new language. My flight got me there at 9 pm, and I knew the airport was a good long way away from downtown, where my hostel was. Oh, and it was Christmas.

    I ran into trouble immediately. I was trying to take a bus to the metro center, at which point I planned to give up on public transportation and call an Uber. Uber is huge in Brazil. The woman at the bus kiosk understood that I wanted to buy a bus ticket, but she kept saying "no," and trying to explain something to me.

    Portuguese is a weird language, similar to Spanish sure, but it's like Spanish with a the spelling garbled and the pronunciation is totally different. People who speak Portuguese often understand Spanish, but they speak back in Portuguese, which I do not understand. My Spanish, while undoubtedly much better than when I started, is very limited. I know almost no grammar rules, but I have memorized entire sentences about ordering food and buying bus tickets and talking about where I've been and where I'm going. I know a lot of vocabulary. I've been getting by. But I really struggle to understand Spanish. I usually get about one word in three and divine meaning via context clues. Shake up the pronunciation, and I'm lost.

    I am utterly baffled by Portuguese, and it is particularly frustrating to be able to speak to them, but not understand what they say back. It's like being back at step one in Argentina when I passed my phone back and forth to people so we could use Google translate app.

    Anyway, someone who spoke English intervened with the bus lady. She wanted to put me on a coach for $5 more that would get me much closer to my hostel. I said yes. The kind English speaker took me all the way to the bus, and told the driver to point me in the direction of the metro. On the bus I met a Brazilian backpacker on her way home from Africa, who told me the Metro was very safe, and she was going the same way, so she babysat me onto the metro. From there I took an Uber. Sao Paulo really is huge.

    This was the first hostel I really hated. It's hot in Brazil, and this place had no ac. Additionally, there were about 5 mosquitoes flying around the room. I really can't sleep in a hot room, and to make things worse, I knew I had to put on leggings and long sleeves to protect myself from the mosquitoes. Zika, y'all. I sat in bed sweating and occasionally swatting at a mosquito buzzing in my ear. I don't think I slept much the whole night. The bed shook when the guy on the bottom bunk swatted mosquitos. I couldn't get comfortable because of the heat. When I woke up, I was shivering in sweat soaked clothes with little lines of mosquito bites on my feet, hands, and face. And I had a fever again. This cold will probably hang around until I can get myself a lot of water and a lot of rest. Neither is forthcoming.

    Sao Paulo does not have a good reputation among travelers. Almost everyone told me to do one day there and move on, even though it has a lot of famous art museums and hosts some of the best restaurants in the world. I had a plan for Christmas day. I would walk around their central park and a couple other famous places, I would go to church, and if I could, I would try to find an open restaurant and buy myself a nice meal. I'd leave the 26th.

    None of that happened. I looked online for a bus ticket and found that the only bus not totally sold out to Parati left at 3pm. But the website was an English tourist version, so I decided to go to the train station and check things out.

    It didn't work out. The only bus was 3pm, or on the 28th, and I had no intention of staying in Sao Paulo in that shitty hostel for 3 days. I rushed back to the hostel to grab my stuff. When I did, they had made a lovely Christmas lunch for us. It was free and I was starving, so I scarfed some down.

    I planned to take an Uber all the way to the train station instead of the metro to save time. when I tried to order one, it kept telling me it couldn't use the card I gave it to pay for my last Uber. I had to pay in cash for both trips in order to book any future ubers and the estimate for the cost of last night's Uber plus the train station was *just* over the amount of cash I had. No worries, the hostel told me there was an atm in the metro station.

    I Ubered to the metro station. No atm. There was a bank across the street. It was closed for Christmas. The guy at the Bodega next to the bank was trying to give me directions to a third atm, but I didn't understand the Portuguese at all. It was so, so frustrating.

    I looked at my watch and realized that by the time I untangled the Portuguese, found the third atm, got money out, and called an Uber, I would miss the bus. I was dead in the water.

    Depressed, I took my third metro ride of the day to the train station, wondering what to do. Maybe I would go somewhere completely new. I could just take the next bus that left and not look at the destination. Or maybe I would just skip Parati and go straight to Rio.

    "I missed the 3pm bus, could I please get a refund?" I told the guy at the bus kiosk in Spanish.

    "Portuguese Portuguese Portuguese," he replied. Then he waved his magic wand and showed me there was also a 3:30 bus to Paraty. Why on earth he didn't sell me that ticket originally, I don't know, but I pushed away my annoyance and told him I wanted it. It was 3:20.

    I ran and this time I made it, so now I'm on the bus to Paraty, where I hear the primary tourist activity is cruising around in a boat drinking. Sao Paulo can go fuck itself.    Weiterlesen

    Übersetzung anzeigen
  • Helen SmithSouth AmericaHelen Smith

    Paraty and Trindade

    27. Dezember 2016 in Brasilien ⋅ 🌙 30 °C

    Paraty reminds me of Key West and Bethany Beach. It's a family place like Bethany, with a slightly older historic old town, the bars of Key West, and the bikinis of Miami Beach.

    When I arrived in Paraty, it was late, I was tired, and my phone was almost out of battery. I had no hostel booked beefier I was a night early, but I planned to just go to my hostel for the next night and ask if they had a free room.

    However, I met a bunch of German girls on the bus who were going to this fancy hostel called Che Largarto. I knew that I was supposed to go with them, and not wander the streets by myself. They smelled like fate.

    Che Largarto is not a real hostel. It's half hostel, half hotel, and its a whopping $22 USD a night in a market where most hostels are $9-$12 USD a night. But oh. The mattresses are thick and squishy, the pillows are substantive, the sheets smell and feel clean, and the bathrooms are ensuite. They have a beer garden and a pool out front.

    Most of all, they have air conditioning. On high. I slept fantastically and woke up feeling refreshed.

    The first day I went on the boat, which provides free drinks and cruises around to all the islands. It was gorgeous. The rainforest covered mountains in the background, the bright blue ocean... It was a fabulous day. I met a couple of other English speakers traveling alone, and we met up for a samba party later in the evening.

    Like always, people are very confused by my ethnicity. Many seem to think I'm from Argentina, which I'm flattered by, because it means my Spanish is getting good and I speak with an Argentinian accent. In Argentina and chile, when people struggled to pronounce my name, I often became 'Alen, or Haylen. Here, I am Elly. They can't do it. It's OK, I can't pronounce a single word in their language.

    The next night I moved to my $9 hostel I had already booked, and what a difference. The thing that made it intolerable was the lack of AC. I woke in the middle of the night in the 14 person dorm because all the bodies were producing so much heat there was steam in the room. It was like sleeping in a sauna. The next day I booked back into che lagarto.

    Today me and my Paraty crew took the bus to Trindade, the nearby beach town with "much more beautiful beaches than paraty."

    They weren't kidding. The scenery took my breath away. We hiked through the rainforest to a natural pool, took a boat across the bay, and basically tanned and swam all day. We drank coco Gelado, which is when a coconut sits in ice water long enough for the water (milk??) to get very cold and icy. Then the seller takes a giant knife, carves a hole in the coconut, sticks in a straw and hands it to you. It's so refreshing.    Weiterlesen

    Übersetzung anzeigen
  • Helen SmithSouth AmericaHelen Smith

    Waterfalls

    29. Dezember 2016 in Brasilien ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    This morning at breakfast, which is served outside, three small monkeys joined us to beg for food. And by beg I mean grab off your plate. Also, they didn't just want any food. They showed no interest in toast or crackers or even bananas. They wanted cake. It was pretty cute.

    I had a day to myself today, and I decided to go see the waterfalls. This is a thing people are always doing in Paraty, and I've been very skeptical. I just came from Iguazu, one of the biggest waterfalls in the world. I also just came from Patagonia, where there were waterfalls all over the place. And now I was supposed to pay for a tour to see some more? Please. But I was talking about options for the day with a hostel worker and he told me I could get to most of the waterfalls on the tour by renting a bike.

    So that's what I did, and it turns out that "waterfall" is really code for "freshwater swimming hole" they are all over the place, and they each have features, like little caves to explore, natural water slides, jumping rocks, and more.

    I spent time biking (walking the bike) up steep hills in the blazing heat, then plunging into cold fresh water at each waterfall. It was a good way to spend a day.

    The last waterfall I was supposed to visit was up the 12 millionth hill of the day, and I noticed a bunch of people going into the woods by a sign that read "house of Tarzan" so I just followed them instead. House of Tarzan is a swimming hole with a rope swing and a bunch of different heights to swing off of. It was very fun, and I did all the lower ones.

    The local boys didn't bother with the lower ones. They went straight to the highest swinging point, where your forward swing takes you higher than your jumping off point, so you have to swing once, swing back, avoiding hitting any of the rocks, then on your third swing, you are low enough to drop into the water. The local boys were gorgeous to watch. They had ways of controlling the swing so that they could flip upside down, back flip, and all sorts of aerial acrobatics.

    I had to do it, but boy was I scared. One of the local boys helped me up the rocks and showed me the rope. He wasn't so sure about me.

    "you have to be very strong. It is a long time to hold on to the rope, " he told me.

    "I AM very strong, " I replied.

    I thought about explaining about crossfit, but I didn't think he'd understand me.

    "you have to be very brave. I have never seen a girl do it." he warned.

    "I am very brave."

    His girlfriend called out, "you have to be a little bit crazy."

    "Not a problem." I answered. Then I swung, and it was exhilarating and terrifying and very, very high. Hey, I survived. The local boys all cheered for me.

    In Paraty, it is a common thing to leave your bag on the beach and go into the water. This made me extremely nervous, so I kept hiding my bag in the jungle. At the last waterfall I visited, there was no good place to hide it, so I went ahead and left it near everyone else's on a rock.

    My stuff was fine, but I saw a stray dog sniffing it and rushed over, thinking it would drag the bag off, but instead it peed on my bag.

    It was not a lot of pee, but it was still so gross. I had to wash my clothes out in the river and the bag to the best of my ability. Most of the pee got on my shirt, and I just biked back in my bikini top.

    That evening I read my book in a hammock, looking up at the stars and eating chilled grapes like a goddess.    Weiterlesen

    Übersetzung anzeigen
  • Helen SmithSouth AmericaHelen Smith

    Adventures in Rio

    2. Januar 2017 in Brasilien ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

    Brazil is a incredibly beautiful country. All of its forest is rainforest, which is incredible on its own, but it's surrounded by majestic cliffs, rolling hills, jewel bright water and white sand. Then you've got random shit like iguazu falls lying around. If you can't tell from the pictures, the aching amount of beauty in that place with all of its rainbows and sunshine is so intense it's cartoonish. It looks like the living embodiment of something out of Avatar, or the Lion King. It's the vision of what European explorers wanted to find in the Americas.

    In Rio, I was able to stay with a friend of my father's, saving me the terrible New Years prices in the hostels. They were very kind, and access to my own bed, home cooked food, and air conditioning was luxurious and heavenly.

    Rio must be an incredible place to live. The food is excellent, the beaches are some of the most beautiful in the world, and there's tons of wild rainforest nearby to explore, not to mention nearby islands to visit. My first day in Rio I went to an art museum, walked around downtown, visited this incredible modern style Cathedral, and went to see big Jesus, which was incredible. Packed, but incredible.

    The second day I went hang gliding. This was actually my second time hang gliding, but I was my first time doing it in tandem, where the guide takes you up high and you peer over this extremely high cliff and he explains to you that you're going to run off of it, and if you slow down or stop at the end of the ramp, you will definitely die. That was the scariest part, one you're in the air it's like flying.

    That night was new years eve, and my host talked me into buying a cheap ticket on a party yacht to watch the fireworks. I was very eager for the fireworks, they are one of the main reasons I came to Brazil. I was very curious what makes them such a big deal. Fireworks are cool, sure, but surely there's not a lot of room for improvement?? Turns out there is. On copacobana beach, at exactly 12am, over a mile of beach erupts in fireworks. What makes it cool is the scale. Never before have I seen a fireworks show stretch a mile. The whole horizon lights up. It was incredible.

    Party boat was pretty great too.

    However, the whole time I was in Rio. I was fighting a deep exhaustion. I begged myself to rest. I told myself to lay on the beach, and I just couldn't do it. I couldn't let myself stay inside or sit still when there was a city to be explored, even if that meant exhausting hours staring at maps, sitting on the subway, and waiting in line in the hot sun. Everything was overwhelming. Going from small little mountain towns to cities twice the size of new York is a big change. I had to be ridiculously alert for pickpockets. At night I slept soundly and woke late, but I was always tired.

    On the edges of my exhaustion came a frustration with Rio and myself. Myself for being whiny about visiting one of the most incredible cities in the world, and Rio for being too big, too crowded, and way way too hot. I had done most of the major tourist attractions, but I had a whole 10 days left in Rio. And I missed Patagonia. I missed getting up every day and preparing for a hike, then coming back to the hostel and playing cards for half the night. I missed the day in Torres when I went over the pass, and everyone kept asking each other, "how's your day going?" with big shit eating grins on our faces, because we knew we'd survived a blizzard, climbed into the clouds, earned a view of the glacier, and it was the best day.

    One of the ideas for this trip that died in the planning stages was to go to North Brazil and camp in one of its most famous national parks, Chapada Diamintina. The trek requires an expensive guide and the timeline was really tight, so I decided I was going to chill out and spend a almost two weeks in Rio instead.

    But.

    I was tired in Rio, even after days of sleep. I would be exhausted if I did Chapada Diamintina. But if I was only going to be satisfied if I was hurtling around the world at breakneck speed, might as well sprint to the finish and tight schedules be damned. Sleep is for the dead.

    The minute I booked it, it was like a cloud passed. I calmed right down. I had a great last day in Rio. I went to an amazing samba club and danced all night. And then I packed for one last big adventure.    Weiterlesen

    Übersetzung anzeigen
  • Ende der Reise
    9. Januar 2017
  • 2025© FindPenguins
  • Start
  • Über uns
  • Gruppen-Tracking
  • Presse
  • Nutzungsbedingungen
  • Datenschutz & Cookies
  • Hilfe-Center
  • Impressum