February 06, 2004
Photos -- Argentina
Location: Rio de Janeiro
Miles from Home: 31,547
Days on the Road: 414
WARNING! THE FOLLOWING WEBPAGE CONTAINS EXPLICIT CONTENT. IF YOU ARE AT ALL SUCCEPTIBLE TO OBSESSIVE WANDER LUST, DO NOT READ ON. THE PHOTOS CONTAINED HEREIN COULD "TRIGGER" A REACTION IN THOSE WITH A HISTORY OF TRAVEL ADDICTION OR SEVERE ENVY DISORDERS.
Well, with 95% of this 15 month odyssey under my belt, I figured I needed to at least get the rest of my photos and stories out before I land on Terra Firma USA in a few short weeks. The following is a sampling of my travels of the last three months. From Buenos Aires south to Ushuaia, and back north to the border of Brazil.
Street Scenes
Buenos Aires -- One of the great joys of Buenos Aires is just getting out in the warm sun and walking about. No matter what neighborhood to venture through, there are likely to be friendly faces in the doorways, tasty bites in the shop windows, and heartwarming scenes to delight you. Although I spent most of my time walking around the city without a camera, I did manage to snap a handful of shots to help me remember the delight that is Beunos Aires.
Tango a la Punk. Surely, one of my greatest loves is live music. Put together the sounds of live Tango music with the cobbled side streets of Buenos Airesī old San Telmo neighborhood, and Iīm a kid in a candy shop. This band played every Sunday in San Telmo just a block down from a famous antique fair. Dreads or not, these boys could play!
When the "Boca Juniors" futbol (soccer) team won the world championship, hundreds of thousands poured into the streets of Buenos Aires for celebrate. Dressed in Blue and Gold, the crowd pulsed in the city center for a good six hours straight, starting at dawn.
In the old Boca neighborhood, the colors of the famous "El Caminito" pedestrian mall are a Kodak moment waiting to happen.
Future Maradonas. Itīs in cement soccer fields like this one in Boca where the next world champions are born.
Concrete Jungle. The broad streets and lavish two story structures of Buenos Airesī Recoleta Cemetery are something to be experienced. Itīs the only modern cemetery in the world where none of the corpses are embalmed and the caskets remain in the open air inside the mousiliums. To avoid "problems" with pests and odors, all the caskets are hermetically sealed.
Wagging the Walker. With the nearly every Porteņo family having a dog, the dog walker is a long-standing BA tradition.
Parrilla Moment. In Buenos Aires, the Parilla, or grill, is not just a tradition, its a way of life. So much so, that just the sight of that much meat being grilled at once is interesting enough to film for some tourists.
While you canīt always just happen upon scantily clad couples dancing the Tango on every street corner, its common enough that rarely a day went by when I didīt see someone dancing somewhere.
When he wasnīt doing a fabulous Carlos Gardel lip-synch routine, this pillar of the Plaza Dorrego fair was dancing with himself and hamming it up for tourists and locals alike.
Ushuaia Bound
Once I peeled myself away from Buenos Aires, it was Ushuaia or bust. Itīs tradition for motorcycle travelers to converge on the southernmost point of the world for Christmas, and I wasnīt going to miss it.
The first big stop on the way south from Ushuaia was Peninsula Valdez. Known as the best place in South America to see whales, I was hoping to catch a few full breaches, if you know what I mean. Unfortunately, I was too late; the last of the whales had left a week before. But not to worry, the Peninsula had other critters to enjoy...
Although every photo I've ever seen of Elephant seals shows them upright and howling at each other with their enormous snouts flailing about, these guys were a little more docile. In fact, in the 45 minutes I watched them, the most action I saw was two rolling over, one doing a little breakdance routine to move from one place to nap to another, and all of them farting with shocking regularity.
National Geographic once again set my expectations pretty high for seeing Penguins, but these little cute guys didnīt disappoint a bit.
Just before heading into Peninsula Valdez, I ran into Ney and Marcos, two members of the Brazilian motorcycle club BR116 from Sao Paulo. They were on a five week cannonball run trip to Ushuaia and back. Two days before Christmas, Marcos took a digger off the side of one of the many gravel roads on the way south. As you can see, his front rim wasn't quite right for continuing on.
Southern Skies. While Marcos got a lift all the way to Rio Grande, Argentina, Ney and I spent the night in Chilean Tierra del Fuego, camping out and enjoying that endless twilight of the southern summer skies.
Christmas Eve. Instead of being home with their family, Ramon, his son, and a slew of other folks hung out in the shop with us fixing Marcos' bike all day Christmas Eve. By 8:30 we were back on the road, heading south, hoping to arrive in Ushuaia before midnight.
ARRIVED! At 11:30 PM on Christmas Eve, with just a faint glint on the southern horizon, we arrived at the El Andino campground to one of the biggest traveler's parties I'd seen all year -- well over 100 travelers from all over the world, most in their own transport of some kind (bicycles, motocycles, trucks, motorhomes, etc.).
A few days after Christmas, the Brazilans threw a party at the camp for the other motorcycle riders we met in town. While we never got EVERYone together for one group photo this wasn't bad. The owner of the campground came out later with two bottles of champaigne to help us toast making it all the way to the end of the road.
Simon Milward deserves a special mention here. Simon has been traveling solo on his homemade motorcycle for three years already. He's crossed Siberia, rode the length of Japan, gone from Anchorage to Ushuaia, and is STILL not ready to go home. He's raised over $100,000 so far as well for Doctors without Borders. Here, he's tickled pink about finding a sealed battery in Ushuaia, a hot commodity anywhere in South America, let alone at the end of the road. Check out his website at http://www.millennium-ride.com/.
In Tierra Del Fuego National Park, I saw this impressive beaver dam. Just thought it was worth a mention...
ED WENT SOUTH. After one year, one week, and five days, I finally made it to the end of the road -- the southernmost point you can drive to in the world, without going to Antarctica. From here, it's all homeward bound...
Heading North
From Ushuaia, you have two options for getting back north: back the way you came down the long and usually boring Argentina Route 3, or up the westside through the Andes, weaving back and forth between Argentina and Chile. You can guess which was I went.
First stop was in Chile's Torres del Paine National Park. Although my four day trek turned into three when my boots once again proved they are not fit for hiking, leaving my feet a bloody mess, it was still one of the most breath-taking hikes I've ever been on.
At every turn, the landscape seemed to get more and more beautiful.
Hiking up Valle Frances, these horns loom overhead for most of the day.
Back in Argenina again, I made the obligatory stop to see the Perito Moreno Glacier. One of the few remaining actively advancing glaciers left in South America, it "calves" off huge chucks of ice into the river a few times an hour. The sound alone is impressive!
Back in Chile, I ventured north on the Carretera Austral, Chile's southern highway, and one of the most beautiful stretches of road I've ever seen in my life. Some people spend over a month just camping and fly-fishing their way north.
At one point on the first day on the Carretera Austral, I was so overwhelmed by the beauty of the wildflowers, waterfalls, and soauring mountain peaks that surrounded me, I literally started feeling "high." My perma-grin was so big I started giggling and laughing uncontrollably. And no Mom, no one had spiked my spring water...
After 13 hours blazing north on the Carretera Austral one day (I had a pretty important date in Sao Paulo with a special lady to get to in five days), I had a little slip-up pulling into my campsite. While reading the sign at the entrance, I turned right into the driveway. The bike hit some loose gravel, and turned abruptly to the right, sending me off a 10 foot enbankment. It was more embarrassing than anything as within ten minutes there was a small crowd around as I employed two cars to help me tow poor El Cab out of the gulley.
A little further north, the road winds through a wet temperate rain forest. The vegetation was incredible, reminding me of some things I had seen in Costa Rica eight years before.
I'm just a sucker for purty flowers...
Brazil Bound
I have a ton more photos already from Brazil ready to post, but they will have to wait for the next entry. In the meantime, I just wanted to share a little from my most pleasant first day.
Thanks to our President's great methodology for making the rest of the world feel like criminals before they even enter the United States, Americans now get the same treatment before entering Brazil. But instead of flippnig the bird to the customs officials as they took my picture, like that American Airlines pilot, I asked them to take some photos of the process with my camera, as well.
I was the first American to cross the border since the new regulations went into effect, so no one knew what to do with me. They sent me to the Police Station to get finger printed, and I had to wait and hour while someone went to go find a camera to take my picture.
May this be the only Mug Shot any of you ever see of me. Uh, not to imply that there are others or anything...
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Until next time, Adios!
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Posted by Sully at February 6, 2004 09:14 AM