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Published: January 8th 2007
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TED: Travelling by an overnight, piss-soaked bus from Sucre to Santa Cruz, Bolivia, I caught a flight to Buenos Aires to meet Matia. After a week and half of final papers and exams, Matia was dizzy and drugged with schoolthoughts and easily captivated by BA architecture, monster mangoes, frenzied feeding carp, and a foreign meat-centered cuisine.
We visited the wonderful
Museo de Arte Latinoamericano Buenos Aires, found a great vegetarian restaurant, but quickly soured on the city-life. We made for El Bolson in the Argentine Lake District, working for a week on a bio-intensive, organic farm called
CIESA run by the charismatic Fernando Pia and a close cadre of interns. After a week of working and learning about the bio-intensive method alongside Fernando, and interns Jonathon, Vida, Robert, and Santiago, we had filled our bellies on fresh veggies, soaked our skins in unseasonable rain, and readied ourselves for a trek in the nearby Andes.
MATIA: The farm is a lush green jem with many idealistic farmers passing through to learn the secrets of self-sustainability and saving the world from mass starvation. One of the energetic interns tried to burst our bubble about our prize mango by suggesting that it was a GMO monster, but
to no avail. All in all we fit in pretty well, although Fernando did finally admonish Ted (after 2 separate instructions on proper back-preserving ´double-digging technique´): ¨Ted! You don´t learn nothing!¨ (commentary on his poor digging ergonomics). The stay was lovely, but too rainy for our taste.
We made a stab at hiking up the Rio Azul and looping over to Hielo Azul. It must be mentioned that we first prepared ourselves by stocking up on Jauja heladoria´s fabulous ice cream. Then set out into the fuscia- and hummingbird- filled beech forests on our 3-day trek. The first day was idealic. The river-bright clear blue carved through sexy rocks. We stayed at Refugio Cajon Azul, drank hot mate and home-brewed beer with a bunch of Israeli kids. That night was a loud thrashing thunderstorm, but it cleared by morning. We made it up into a snowy pass and got sleeted on a bit, but made it to the next refugio and pitched our tent. Our hike out was a soaking wet mud slide down about 800 meters and a hitch back to our true refuge- Jauja for some more sheep-milk fruit-flavored gelatto.
TED: Matia is a real sucker
for that sheep-milk gelatto gimic! I admittedly, consumed way too much ice cream in El Bolson - but chose to focus my ice cream research energies on that most-revered of flavors: chocholate. Together we shivered away the calories on the Rio Azul-Hielo Azul and subsequent treks.
Running from the rain, we headed north to Junin de los Andes and the nearby Lanin National Park, where we planned another adventure in the shadow of the dormant but moody Volcano Lanin. Our paths took us through blooming forests of coihue, lenga (both southern beech - Nothofagus spp.), cipres (Austrocedrus chilensis), nires, lauras, orocoipos, and michay, with the occasional alerce and podocarpus (two other southern hemisphere conifers).
After 2 beautiful days walking along Lagos Huechulafquen and Paimum - with both missed and missing trails - the rain again caught up with us and we beat a hasty retreat to an over-priced lake-side hosteria. Planning our next escape from the crazy rain, Matia drowned her frustration in obsessive vegetable and fruit consumption. I have coined this new form of adventure travel ¨broccoli tourism¨, where every thought turns on locating the nearest ¨verduraria¨ (a fruit and vegetable stand), and a certain hysteria surrounds
the squeezing, smelling, and tasting of local produce. It is a fervor bordering on fetishism!!!
MATIA: Well that´s a bit more info than a lot of you want to know. But the verdurarias are amazing. Heaps and bushels of lovely glowing fruits and green things are pretty tempting after a few days of soggy crackers and cheese. At least I´m not going in for those bright flourescent-colored ´cream´ filled pasteries like some people we know. So, after getting thoroughly drenched at Lanin NP, we bussed north. First to Neuquen, arriving at 1 am where we squatted in a soccer field and killed the day exploring the city. I can´t say much for their museums other than they were all small and all closed, or out of order due to bathroom problems. We did find a splendid waterfront park, horned in on the locals´scene, and swam in our scivies.
Then onward and northward to Malargue and the desert. This town is small, and just starting to be a trekking, caving, rafting, and horse-touring destination. And several decent vedurarias grace the main drag. Just as we were feeling smug about escaping the sog of the south, what should decend upon
us? A spectatular late-night thunder, lightning, and hail storm. The thing was a serious trash-hanger, flooding the streets and sending the townspeople sprinting for cover. Our tent was awash. By far the best storm yet.
We hitched our way back to town after our latest adventure up to the Valle Hermoso. There we spent four days, including New Year´s, under the scorching blue sky and fat bright moon of the desert Andes. The Valle Hermoso is huge, rimmed with ancient volcanos, mountains of uplifted Jurassic period fossil-filled sea floor, and limestone caves. A turbid and painfully cold Rio Grande braids across the bottomlands and protects sulphur hotsprings from curious campers. We slept out on New Year´s Eve and watched the white spires of Mt. Leñas scrape the constellations as they drifted across the sky.
Although we got up fairly early the next morning, in hopes to beat the sun to the snowmelt-fed river, it was quite full and impassable. So, we enjoyed the hotsprings through binocs and consoled ourselves with a hike down valley. We found; lovely spring-fed and glacial-fed streams, a limestone cave that ate one of them, a herd of glossy horses munching needle sharp grasses,
and two ground-nesting bird clutches. Wild flowers were in full bloom. The hike out was great fun. We off-trailed it over a mountain pass, scree slopes, and glacial fields. And Ted initiated an exciting sled race down a crazy steep snow field. He won.
TED: Malargue´s small-town slow pace, and well-stocked verdurarias were just our speed. And barring, the thunderstorm, it is drier here. The mountains and landscape in the Valle Hermoso reminded me a bit of the Steens Mountains of SE Oregon.
Valle Hermoso was a hard act to follow, but the next day we struck out for the
Caverna de los Brujas, said to be one of the largest limestone cave complexes in the world. Neither Matia nor I had ever been in a limestone cave, and we were both a bit edgy, especially after we learned that the end or bottom of the cave complex has never been reached. But in the end we were both captivated with the sensuous crystalline forms found within.
The next day we hooked up with our new friend Sylvain Maisonneuve, who took us on a short kayak and raft float down the nearby Rio Malargue (with fun class II and III
whitewater). It was Matia's first time in an inflatable kayak and I was excited to share the magic of a southern river with her. Novice and experienced whitewater enthusiasts visiting the area should look up Sylvain, with Tero Aventura ph (02627)15600182 or teroaventura@hotmail.com for fun river trips on the Rio Malargue (expanding to the nearby Upper Rio Atual in 2007).
We contemplated another trek, but with more thunderstorms on the horizon we are now heading back to Buenos Aires. Matia must return to Bushland for school in a few days, and I will be buying a bike and heading to Tierra del Fuego and onwards to Los Glaciares & Torres del Pines NPs for some trekking with my new friend Tobias (a Swiss guy I met in language school in Sucre, Bolivia). A friend has likened my style of travel to a bag blowing around in the wind....maybe it is true!
A Map of Argentina Travels with Matia
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uncle Stuart
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Ted and Matia- Just catching up with your travels after a long absence. Great photos and stories to keep those of us who are closely tethered to the home front, connected. Looking forward to the TDF report. Stay safe! Stuart and Shannan