Santiago and it's accompanied "San Francisco of South America"

Iguazu treated me well to say the least. It's views kept me spellbound at every turn. As much as I fell in love with all the amazing Argentinians and their incredible country, I had to continue on to open up a few new doors in the near future. Two of my friends were making there way down to meet up with me in Lima, Peru. I had a flight from Santiago up to Lima so I decided to book it over to chile to get into contact with one of my brother's friends who is now living in the heart of Chile's capital city. 

I was introduced to Santiago with warm open arms. I met my brother and sister-in-law's friend, Amber in her downtown apartment which looked over the city below. Together with her and her roommate, we enjoyed some local eats and she gave me a full list of the top things I could do in Santiago during my time there. Amber had a fouton ready to go along with a cuddle buddy by the name of Darwin. Probably one of the coolest little dogs you'll ever find. 

Meet Darwin, my snuggle buddy. 

I had one week to see Santiago before my flight sent me on my way, so moved quickly. I made my way to all the top spots within the city. The hike up to La Virgen gave me an incredible panoramic view of the entire Santiago area which opened my eyes as to how big this city really was. Its avenidas and calles fingered their way east for miles up towards the impressive skyrocketing Andes, and west towards the coast as far as I could see. 

One of the apartment buildings taking in some nature

A "What is love" board posted up downtown. 

"La Virgen"

One pano of about HALF of Santiago... It was huge. 

The following day, I made my way to Cerro San Cristobal which was a tiny hill located in the middle of thriving city life. The entrance boasted a gorgeous mosaic fountain with Greek gods presenting themselves to the oncoming tourists. Perched atop the hill was an old castle like structure that gave impressive views of the surrounding apartments, office buildings and city life busting down below. 

Part of the fountains with some haughty Greek gods. 

Cerro San Cristobal surrounded by city life

 Along with adventuring through the subway systems and checking out the main governmental building downtown, one final sight that I needed to check off Amber's list was to explore Valparaiso, "The San Francisco of South America." This little port town took me in by the scruff of the neck and amused me at every turn I took. Everything from their hipster cafés to the finger-thin alley ways covered from head to toe with gorgeous works of graffiti and paintings. Whether it was a masterful piece of art or a graffiti rant about the highlights or problems of the world, every street, park, building and sidewalk seemed to have a story of its own that they wanted to share. 

A bit of a San Francisco feel to the town of Valparaiso

Some of the amazing artwork that was scattered throughout the city. This painting was made entirely of dots of different size and color. 

Some fog rolling into the port. 

Buenos aires, Carhue and Iguazu falls make one hell of an adventure

After staying way longer than I was anticipating in Chalten, I ended up taking my return flight back to buenos aires rather than hitching all the way back up. I got back into contact with the family that I had met in Bolivia to see if they wanted to meet up during my time in the bustling city of BA. Not only were they excited to meet up but they ended up hosting me for two weeks. When I got to their amazing apartment in downtown Palermo, a bed was made up for me and dinner was just about ready on the table. Things could not be going better. They ended up showing me around their massive city and then for Easter vacation we all drove down to their home town of a whopping 10,000 people out in the boonies. It was a great change being out in the middle of nowhere after being in a city of millions of people. 

Here's a few of Buenos aires:

The moment we arrived in Carhue, we were greeted with a full asado, or grill, all cooked up. The asado consisted of steak, lamb and chorizo along with side salads, fresh loaves if bread and some amazing bottles of wine from the Mendoza Vinyards. Our fine eating didn't stop there. The following day we went to their aunts house for some amazing pasta dishes and hordourves (I can't seem to spell that right but I'm sure you understand it haha). Then for the Easter celebration, we had a huge asado at their dad's house along with pies and tortas galore, salads and pastries. It was incredible to be able to share the amazing meals with all of them. It was unlike any grill I had ever had. 

Just outside of their hometown of Carhue lies this incredibly eerie town that was flooded and abandoned leaving ruins tracing across the valley. 

 Here are a few shots to give you an idea.  

This is the old slaughter house, El Matadero

The public pool now surrounded with water in and around it. 

After an amazing time with my friends in buenos aires and the surrounding areas, I packed my backs and set out for a world that I knew very little about: Iguazu falls. I knew that there were some huge falls. That about sums up my previous knowledge. I had no idea that they were situated in dense amazon jungles or that they were more than huge. They were gigantic! And it wasn't just one, not two or a few but hundreds of falls coming together falling off of a plateau and surging into one angry river. 

Standing on the lookout over the Main portion of the falls was incredible! The energy and power of the falls took over me and I couldn't help but just laugh at how amazing they were. 

Some light coming in perfectly at the end of the day 

I found Jurassic park 

Garganta del Diablo (the devils throat)

There's a boat ride that you can take to go right up close and personal to the power of the falls to get pummeled by water. I did that. 

Patagonia Video

Patagonia does it again: El Calafate and El Chalten

If Torres del Paine thought that it would be the only site in the Patagonia that I'd be taking in, it was incredibly wrong. The Patagonia just keeps on surprising me with every turn I take. I left Chilean Patagonia to venture north into the Argentinian side of it all. I was not let down. 

First I stopped by the city of El Calafate which is the staging point to go see the impressive Perito Moreno Glacier. The sheer mass of this ice cube is astonishing. It's very hard to comprehend just how large it actually is right up until the moment that it calves off a piece of ice with the height of around a 10 story building and creates a massive wave surging toward you along with an absolute cacophony of sound crashing into your ear drums. 

The front face of the glacier reaches up to sixty meters, just under two hundred feet and let's loose twenty-ton chunks of ice at a time. 

 

The front face of Perito Morenop

10 story tall piece of ice crashing into the crystal blue water below. 

After calafate took me in and showed me the insane capabilities of ice and time, I hitched my way up to El Calafate to do a few days of hiking in the Fitz Roy National Park. A few days was the plan anyway. After the first hike to the base of the massive granite tower of Fitz Roy, I was hooked. The hikes in this park don't compare to any treks that I have ever done. As I made my way through the beautiful autumn changing valleys with a backdrop of cerro Torre and Fitz Roy, I knew that I would be sticking around a while. 

After I had made it back to town from my first few treks, I met up with my friend Reanna for some dinner. After we finished an amazing plate of pasta and salad, she asked me if I wanted to go up to this grill and after party that she had heard about from one of her friends. "Sounds good to me."

As if I didn't have enough of a reason to stay stuck in the beautiful Chalten, I met this group who had the traditional grill and party and I instantly melted in. This group was incredible. It consisted of a couch surfing host who always had an army of cyclists camping out in her back yard. When I say cyclists, I don't mean some ametures who are going around for a nice stroll. These guys a freaking nuts! Some of them were traveling from Alaska for the last 22 months all the way down to Ushuaia (the southern most city in South America... And the world) what?! Needless to say, I stuck around a bit to see what they were all about; I'm very glad I did. 

Every day with this group was something amazing. We went on great hikes through the valleys straddling the city, we bouldered on some amazing rocks just behind Flor's (our amazing couch surfing host) house at the base of the mountains, along with some top rope climbing to top it off... during the day that is. By night fall we were grilling up a huge variety of meats the traditional Argentinian asado style and taking down bottles of delicious Argentinian and Chilean wines. Along with the typical asado, one night we had a mouth watering, fat dripping, smoke enriched, tender ripping Cordero!!! AKA, lamb on a stake sizzling over coals and smoking over logs of local trees. 

Two or three days easily turned into just under two weeks. I'll have to take out a few places that I had on the check list but it was completely worth it!

My first hitch... Pretty pumped. 

On my way to Lago Los Tres, just under Fitz Roy

Mt. Fitz Roy in all it's glory. 

Cerro Torre on a blue bird skied day. 

Relaxing in the hammock (Thanks to Taylor Gillis!) after a long trek through the Park

Bouldering with my buddy Kanaan (One of the crazy bastards (sorry, but that's the best way to describe them) who is twenty-two months deep in his biking adventure from Alaska to Ushaia.)

Part of the group. Our farewell to Andrew (the one who looks like Thor, the thunder god) 

Another partial group shot. Such fun people!!! 

Our traditional Argentinian Cordero asado! So gooooooodddd!!

Now I'm off to catch my flight back to Buenos Aires to meet up with a few friends and then take in the rest of Argentina that's left on my list! Talk to you all soon!

Adios amigos!

Patagonia: Torres del Paine; The Land of Four Seasons in One Day

Wow. Just wow. On the fifth of march I made my way back down to the real world after spending two weeks back home with friends and family. I made my way from Reno to LA to Miami and finally down to Buenos Aires on the 6th. Then early morning on the 7th I flew down to Punta Arenas to meet up with my buddy, Dustin, who was on his spring break from his studies in Santiago, Chile. Punta Arenas was our meeting point to start our adventures in the Torres del Paine National park in the Patagonia. 

Making our way up to Puerto Natales, we gathered all the supplies we needed for the next ten days from cooking equipment to garbage bags (waterproofing) to food that would last us on the trail. Bussing up to the National park was beautiful, or so I heard and imagined, as I was trying to get as much sleep in as I could and pump myself full of vitamin-c packets to kick a cold before the nine day trek. Though I wasn't feeling that great, I was confident that some fresh mountain air would fix me up real quick! And so it did. 

To start off the adventurous trek, we decided to start around the back side of the trek to bust out the back of the 'O' circuit first and then finish doing the 'W' portion of the circuit at the end from west to east. We got to our first campsite of the trek, Campamento Serón, and ran into a group of about twenty hikers or so returning from the pass (our next destination) due to the fact that it was closed for at least the next three days and possibly more. Taking this into consideration and not wanting to get stuck on the backside of the 'O', we decided to turn back as well. This changed our plan to doing the 'W' from east to west now and hopefully catching the pass and Glacier Grey from the other way around. This seemed to work out just wonderfully. We were incredibly lucky with catching the perfect weather every day. We were supposed to be in the shoulder season just before the start of winter which should have been torrential downpours with 100km/hr winds. With the exception of two days, we had gorgeous bluebird skies and great temperatures following us throughout the majority of the trek. The two days that we didn't get "exceptional" weather were quite possibly my two favorite. These days made me feel like I was truly in the elements and part of nature. We woke up with hail and snow dusting down over us. Halfway down the decent to our next location the skies cleared quickly and left us walking on a beautiful sun lit trail with a brisk wind to our backs. About two hours later as we rounded a hilltop, violent winds came smashing in with its lovely friend, rain. Never have I seen rain come in at such a sharp angle colliding into us with a brutal force. As I attempted to put my rain pancho on over my base layers, the wind ripped it to shreds literally peeling chunks off at a time leaving me with what seemed to be a bad Halloween costume. At last it was time to set up camp which nearly bent our tent in half with each powerful gust during the night which continually slapped the side of the tent into my face. When I finally opened my eyes at nine in the morning to see beautiful bluebird skies shining into our tent I was absolutely stunned. They're not kidding when they say Patagonia, the land of four seasons in one day. 

Overall Dusty and I hiked just under 135km or about 85 miles for all you Americans out there reading this. It was quite possibly the most gorgeous 9 days of hiking that I have ever done. As I continued to improve my health and as my backpack got lighter and lighter from eating all my supplies, my smiles and happiness just kept getting greater and greater. No doubt in my mind that I'll be back one day for round two. 

Until then, Torres del Paine. 

A gorgeous waterfall in front of Paine Grande

Los Torres at sunrise

Our beautiful view on our hike on morning 3 

The crazy cool light blue from the glacier water running down. This was the best water I have every drank in my entire life. 

An amazing view of some impressive granite towers within Valle Francesa (French Valley)

Another shot from within Valle Francesa

Beautiful glacier ridden mountain at the mouth of Valle Francesa 

Not such a bad place to set up camp

Lake grey and Glacier Grey 

Hiking up to the viewpoint over Glacier Grey

Dusty taking in the sights above Glacier Grey

Pano of Paine Grande and Los Cuernos

Vicuña chillin out in front of Los Cuernos

Day nine with an impossible-to-remove shit eating grin