My easy day

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Today, I awoke right along with my internal clock at 10:30. I didn´t have many options for hiking today and had already decided I would hike up to the glacier in the morning, take a small break, and return to El Bolson. Since I hadn´t walked the same way into the mountains, I had no clue what it would be like to get down and how I would return to town...nor did I think about it until I was at the bottom, confused and tired.

I did some very stupid things on this day. It was not horrible, but just made my day that much more difficult. When I planned to walk up to the glacier (2 hours straight up), I didn´t think about leaving anything at the refugio and just taking with me say...water and my camera. So, I had all my clothes, etc. with me. The day was almost cloudless and hot as hell. Walking up shirtless gave me one of the worst sunburns of my life (again, a very stupid day for me). The walk up was mostly scrambling up loose rocks and I was careful not to loose my step. As I got close to the top, my water bottle was almost empty, so I scooped some snow from a fairly large patch into the bottle. When I got to the top and took a sip, it was such a treat to have ice cold water!

I am very glad that this was the first glacier I saw, because if I had gone after having been farther south in patagonia, I would have probably been disappointed. It looks like an ice cube shard compared to even the smallest glacier I have seen here in El Calafate and El Chalten. However, it has a beautiful green laguna into which the glacier melts, and is surrounded by rocky crags. The view from the top looked out over the entire valley and out to the next set of mountains beyond.

On my way down, I was doing a great job being careful with my footing, as the descent is always more difficult than the ascent with this type of terrain. I stopped for a moment and was landed on almost immediately by a rather large fly. I made a panicky swipe to get rid of it, and slipped down a bit, bruising my shin. I guess you could say I got lucky...but the fly almost won. I returned to the bottom and talked a bit with a group of Porteños who were headed up to the glacier soonish. One of them had an Atlanta jacket and asked me to take a picture with it saying I was from California...that was very confusing for me. I made some soup and ate a bit of their extra rice and after staying a bit longer than I had planned, started heading down the mountain unsure of exactly how long it would take.

The walk started out flat, but quickly became mostly downhill. I do a lot better with uphill than downhill mostly because I make softer steps and there is less chance of injury. After a while, I began passing people heading the other way, just dying of thirst. I had very little water for myself, but could tell that they really did need it more than I. The first two people I gave water to were very thankful, and the third shouted ¨Dios Aparacio!¨(God Appeared!) after taking a sip.

I tried many different types of wood and of different levels of deadness to use as a walking stick. Finally, I had an epiphany to use a heavily abundant material that I hadn´t thought about using as of yet. I found that bamboo is incredible for a walking aid. It is flexible, light weight, and very strong!

I was keeping a fast pace, just wanting to make it down and get back to town. In order to maximize energy, I was jogging down the steeper downhill areas. On one turn, my foot slipped on the loose dirt and I went down, scraping my chest and arm on the right side, getting covered in earth, but not breaking anything (Another stupid thing, and I got lucky again).

Dehydrated (not horribly) and exhausted, I finally made it to the Rio Azul at the bottom of the hike. I jumped into the water in my boxers, cleaned off, relaxed for a few minutes, and rehydrated. Here is where my confusion began. As I crossed the extremely dangerous seeming bridge (There was a group of two behind me looking very impatient), I came to a campsite. When I asked some of the campers about how far town was or where I could catch a bus, the answers were very vague...try to catch a ride with someone driving into town, and...the center of town? an hour or two, I don´t know...

I saw some hikers walking along the river, so followed that route. I ran into a girl who was from Wisconsin and was working at an estancia near the river as a break during a biking trip she and some friends were doing. She told me where the bus came to (It sounded far) and that she thought the last bus left around 6 (It was 6:15). So I kept walking.

An hour later, I had passed a bar on the river where they were playing techno music and people were drinking, swimming and dancing everywhere. I asked a couple people near the cars if they were leaving...no luck. I kept walking and got to a dirt road that could have gone on forever. I asked a couple I saw on the side of the road if they knew anything about the bus, and, as it turned out, they were waiting for the last bus into town. There was no bus stop sign or anything, and I would have been up shit creek without them. I was so happy, and the stop was right across from a bar. A man in a car leaving the bar gave us the rest of his cold beer that he didn´t finish before getting in his car, and we gladly shared it. 10 minutes later, the bus arrived.

The couple who had given me the pizza were already on the bus...I wondered where they had caught it, but was too tired to care. When I got back in town, I started to think about how to find Refugio patagonico where my friends were staying, when all of a sudden, I saw Leandro and Santiago walking across the street!

What chance...they were on their way to buy meat for the parilla. So I went to get some money from my backpack, check where to buy my ticket to el chalten, and went with them to shop. I really just wanted to get horizontal. I would have been happy falling asleep anywhere even without dinner (dinner was a good idea though).

Lucas was supposed to be getting the fire ready while we were getting the food, but we came back to find him sleeping. As the fire was heating up, Lucas and I played some frisbee, and then I lied down on the grass and looked up. It was getting darker and I knew the stars here would not be able to rival the unpolluted sky from refugio hielo azul.

We had two types of beef, chorizo and pork meats. Everything was great and accompanied by a bottle of wine, some bread, and some blech(blue) cheese that I had bought.

We stayed up talking for a while, then realized how tired we all were. They made room for me in their tent, and I slept in my travel blanket, with no pad underneath me, and I used my frisbee with a shirt underneath as a pillow. It was great.

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Comments

[Avra Heller]

bar w/techno and swimming!!!
i get that you were tired, but c'mon man... that place sounds like perfection!! glad you made it down w/no broken bones... and loving your blogging... see.... you're having ridiculous adventures all of your own!! besos

[an to the d!]

meh!
so you got a lil' scraped up...meh! that's nuts that you ran into that couple at the bus stop AND ran into your amigos when you got into town! props on the Frisbee pillow!