El calafate`s also in patagonia, and looks a lot like how i imagine old west settlements to be. little wood cabins thrown together on wild plains, windy is not the word. But of course, more snow capped mountains in the distance. To get there from ushuaia required cutting through chilean patagonia and back again, which meant about 6 immigration stops, but the scenery made up for it, plus i saw my first llamas, yey! We also had to cross the straight of magellan, which is the stretch of water that runs through patagonia, connecting the pacific and the atlantic and it`s beautiful and wiiiiiiindy, cartoon windy, blow u off the boat windy. We saw some funny looking baby orca-esque dolphins and turquoise grey waters, with pebbled shores.
The centre, if u can call it that, is gross. Too touristy, all fake wood fronting on the shops and a bohemith casino, blurgh. Plus i got pick pocketed, so double blurgh... I did meet some quality people though. And some tools. Brendan who always eats everyone else`s food and ihas a grant for a fellowship and his thesis is about computer hacking, so he`s basically paid to travel around the world going to hacker conferences and talking all sorts of brilliant people. He spoke to some German ex-SS soldiers who explained thatr cutting someone`s throat isn`t as easy as they make it look in the movies, u really have to get in there with the knife and power through all the muscle in there...nice. And then there was logan from arizona, who`s essentially a decent guy, but grew up with 4 brothers and i`m guessing a super mum, because he never pays attention when a woman talks to him. He listens sort of, but as though ur not saying anything of importance. If it`s a guy, he`s all ears, but i watched him talking to the girls in the hostel and he just doesn`t pay attention, infuriating and bizarre! Though he`s the first person i`ve met ever with a comparable movie mania to mine. It was brilliant, we talked about movies for hours, till someone at the dinner table said we should get married, since we`re so similar, except i said that if we did, they`d find us years later, hugely obese, under a pile of television guides and dvd boxes, because we`s slipped away from society in our movie frenzy, definitely not healthy!
Of course there was giant group of rowdy irish at the hostel, wasted 24*7 and one of them even peed on a sofa in the hostel while a girlw as sitting on it, none of them would fess up who it was, and they wouldn'[tlook everyone in the eye the next day, numpties...
And finally, Matt and Dan, who are sweethearts. They were on my bus to calafate. They`re english guys who were born and brought up in portugal, but u couldn`t tell at all. They`re good fun, and i`m sure dan is always getting them in trouble. When they were in Buenos Aires Dan managed to persuade matt it would be a good idea to `just see` what an argentinian brothel looks like. The moment they stepped in, they were surrounded by a gang of incredibly insistent hookers. Insistent that they hand over all their valuables ; ) With the 2 giant bouncers bound to be waiting in the foyer if they said no, they didn`t have much of a choice. Oh dear. They were going back to BA which was a shame, i wanted to take them with me : (
Of course there was giant group of rowdy irish at the hostel, wasted 24*7 and one of them even peed on a sofa in the hostel while a girlw as sitting on it, none of them would fess up who it was, and they wouldn'[tlook everyone in the eye the next day, numpties...
And finally, Matt and Dan, who are sweethearts. They were on my bus to calafate. They`re english guys who were born and brought up in portugal, but u couldn`t tell at all. They`re good fun, and i`m sure dan is always getting them in trouble. When they were in Buenos Aires Dan managed to persuade matt it would be a good idea to `just see` what an argentinian brothel looks like. The moment they stepped in, they were surrounded by a gang of incredibly insistent hookers. Insistent that they hand over all their valuables ; ) With the 2 giant bouncers bound to be waiting in the foyer if they said no, they didn`t have much of a choice. Oh dear. They were going back to BA which was a shame, i wanted to take them with me : (
i know a trouble-maker when i see one!We went on a night out in calafate, if u can call it that. It was in the community centre, and u had to go through a rather intimidating pool hall to get there. It turns out all the boys who work at the hostel are crazy good drummers, and they were all there, drumming their little hearts out, with dancing and crazy-string, good stuff. There was a boy there who was with this slightly older looking woman, who turned out to be his mum! She[d come out to join him for a couple of weeks, but she was a bit strange and did not like it one bit when he talked to any girls, and got all stroppy. Uncomfortable. The Guys who work at the hostel are brilliant, one of them took a bit of a shine to me, so free tequilla, yey!!!
The main reason people visit calafate, is to see the glaciar. It[s the poor man[s taste of antartica, except it[s breathtaking and it blows your mind imagining what anatarctica must be like. It speeaks volumes abvout the age we live in and the amount of media presence in our lives, that when i saw this fgbulous view, it reminded me of a screensaver. I couldn[t quite grasp how real it was.
U see what i mean right_ it[s unbelievable, and we got to walk across it., crampons and all.. And our guide looked just jason schwartzman. We didn[t walk for long, but enough to jump across crystal blue crevasses and drink the clearest purest tasting water i[ve ever had, straight from the pools that form in the cracks in the glacier.
oh yeah, i got mad ice picking skills yo
That blue is unlike anything else, and at the end of the trek, they take you to a little hidden dip in the glacier, where they have whisky waiting for you, with ice chipped straight off the glacier, with a pick, scotch on the rocks anyone? Unfortunately we were with a group of mexicans weho had come in the most ridiculous clothes for walking across a glacier. who wears pink fur boots to a glacier, seriously... so were walking at a much slower pace than we could have. Still, breathtaking.
Won[t be forgetting el calafte in a hurry...
More photos:
oh yeah, i got mad ice picking skills yo
That blue is unlike anything else, and at the end of the trek, they take you to a little hidden dip in the glacier, where they have whisky waiting for you, with ice chipped straight off the glacier, with a pick, scotch on the rocks anyone? Unfortunately we were with a group of mexicans weho had come in the most ridiculous clothes for walking across a glacier. who wears pink fur boots to a glacier, seriously... so were walking at a much slower pace than we could have. Still, breathtaking.
Won[t be forgetting el calafte in a hurry...
More photos:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=137877&id=222304166&l=7ac5ca24df
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=137880&id=222304166&l=b7c22ce1fa
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