patagonia2005

Wind swept pampas; wildly rugged mountains; pounds upon pounds of steak, empanadas, and ice cream. Such is life in Patagonia.

Bonus points for you, dear reader, as this travelogue was a tag-team effort between Jules and YT. So sit back, grab a gourd of mate, and enjoy our yarns.

• 1/26 — Southbound (Jules)
  

  i am indeed getting the heck out of here for a few months to pursue eye-popping scenery, winding mountain trails, alpacas y llamas y condors y pumas (y mas y mas), fabulous latin culture, all the fun of communication in a non-native tongue, and so on and so forth.

• 1/27 — Bon jour, adieu (Alex)
  

  I’m sitting here and staring at two giant expedition backpacks stuffed to the gills with the latest technological gewgaws and doodads (but only two pairs of underwear) and contemplating the last time in a month that my lower gastrointestinal tract will resemble anything near normal.

• 1/28 — Safe, Sound, and Sweaty (Alex)
  

  I’ve already made an ass out of myself by attempting to open a bottle with the back end of a pocket knife. The woman watching me came screeching around her counter with a bottle opener and chastising me, saying “cuidado, cuidado”.

• 1/28 — numero uno (Jules)
  

  soy en argentina! que suerte! es un milagro!

• 1/31 — el sur (Jules)
  

  after 2 really f**kin crazy days in b.a., we went to el calafate in southern argentina, but bear in mind i dont remember the correct conjugation of that verb, ir, for the past tense. the insanity that we cooked up in the big ciudad, once we figured out how to hold the map right, is more than i can possibly relate, suffice it to say we got-er-done…

• 1/31 — Out of the Pressure Cooker and Into the Glaciers (Alex)
  

  Buenos Aires is now but a fading and distant memory. We spent a few crazy thirty-six hours painting the town red with our friend from Ft. Collins, Rob Knapik, who is a great guy and one who makes you think, upon meeting him, “Gee, this fellow is going to go places. Like jail, perhaps.”

• 2/1 — 10 Steps Down (the stairs), 3 days back (Alex)
  

  Things have gone a bit awry. This morning, Jules took a nasty spill down the stairs and ended up twisting her ankle. The 40 lb. pack she was carrying surely didn’t help, methinks. Nothing major, but hiking is out of the question for the time being.

• 2/1 — envian esperanza, por favor (Jules)
  

  well, a funny thing happened on the way to the door this morning… no, really… but perhaps “funny” isn’t the word i’m looking for either–not funny ha-ha, at least…

• 2/3 — Waiting to Go Go (Alex)
  

  A TRAGICOMEDY IN ONE ACT (with many apologies to Samuel Beckett)

• 2/3 — el amor encirculo el globo (Jules)
  

  mi tobillo (ankle) is healing, albeit slower than molasses, but i have no doubt your well-wishing, good humor, shots of whiskey in the ankle’s honor, and collective good vibes and love are all working together in one big mushy ball of positive energy towards speeding its recovery.

• 2/9 — aventura! (Jules)
  

  over the past 5 days, we clambered across nearly 50 km of tierra salvaje y silvestre, drank el agua fresca straight out of the streams, powered down some steamin’ pots o hot dinner mush, and laid eyes on some of the more stunning rock piles en todo el mundo.

• 2/10 — Budget Koan’s Diary (Alex)
  

  • Pack weight 3.8 stones (terrible!), blister units 0 (excellent), kilometres 9.5 (v.g)

  • What is the sound of one foot hobbling?
  • Wherein our two heroes experience photographic blue balls

• 2/16 — I know you’re out there, I can hear you breathing (Alex)
  

  We just returned from trekking around in los Torres del Paine. In a word: more frickin’ awesome than sharks with frickin’ laser beams on their heads (or dogs that when they bark, bees shoot out of their mouths for that matter).

• 2/17 — la vida buena (Jules)
  

  strap yourselves down and get ready to partake in the journey, wherein we venture further south, get a new stamp en our ole pasaportes, spend well over 100,000 pesos apiece in the space of just a few days

• 2/17 — Priceless (Alex)
  

  • Somewhat upscale Chilean dinner: $20,000 Chilean pesos
  • Shots of cucarachas: $1800 Chilean pesos (each)
  • Puking it all back up after too many of said cucarachas (and many other drinks) shared with new Chilean and American friends: priceless
  • Finding out the next day that Jules puked three times: priceless x 3

• 2/22 — !sgniteerG (Alex)
  

  The past few days have been idyllic and amazing. The scenery here is ridiculous, what with the mountains coming right down to the sea, and the weather changing more often than Britney’s marital status.

• 2/24 — el fin del mundo (Jules)
  

  get out yer globes and turn em upside down. yo tengo una cuenta de la semana pasada… and it goes a lil somethin like this…

• 2/26 — Royale sin Queso (Alex)
  

  [JULES]
  Coke Light. Doesn’t have quite the same ring as a Royale with Cheese,
  but I guess it makes sense. What’d they call a regular Coke?

  [ALEX]
  A Coke’s a Coke, but they call it “un Coca-Cola”.

• 3/1 — re-entry (Alex)
  

  Watching the poo/tp combination get sucked into oblivion and knowing that even our airplane toilets are stronger than the plumbing of an entire *country* made me feel strangely patriotic. It was all I could do to stop myself from screaming “U-S-A! U-S-A!”.

• 3/13 — Picture Preview (Alex)
  

  I am slowly getting all the pictures online. Between the two of us, we ended up creating 2 GB worth of photos.