Hello Argentina! This morning started out with a reasonable time to wake up. We’re staying at the hotel Las Lengas closer towards the airport with more of a local feel to the building. I spoke a bit about the building in yesterday’s post, but today’s sentiments are renewed after last night. During the night I heard dogs barking, people talking, construction activities and people blowing their nose in the hotel last night. We left the windows open at night to cool the room down a little bit and make the temperature more manageable. It’s hard to go from the cold of the Antarctic, to the spring heat of an Argentine hotel room. Breakfast this morning was provided by the hotel. This breakfast isn’t the same as our other experience… it was sugar and breads. The buffet had breads, ham, cheese, croissants, Dulce de Leche, fruit, and assorted sugary pastries for breakfast. Brad and I were preparing for our journey to Tierra Del Fuego at 8am so we grabbed some food to tie us over for a while.
Geraldo – our tour guide- picked us up from the hotel at 8am. It was already overcast and starting to rain, but we made our way over to the end of the word steam train which was about a 30 minute drive. As we drove the rain started to come down a bit harder. As Geraldo drove, I spent most of the time looking at the buildings along the route. It’s striking to see the difference between America, my other travels, and Argentina. The biggest difference would have to be the non-uniform buildings. In the US, houses are typically built in sub-divisions so there is a strong sense of uniformity among the buildings as you go from one subdivision to the next. In Argentina, on the other hand, each building appears to be unique. I love checking out the different buildings as we go along. Most are multi-story houses, but occasionally you see several houses which are one story, uniform in appearance, buildings. The exterior made me believe that they could perhaps be government assisted housing, but I can’t be too certain.
When we arrived at the end of the world train, we were surprised to see so few people at the train station. Geraldo ushered us inside and began speaking with some of the staff there. I mentioned how I work on trains, and the team lit up! Geraldo helped us to secure a tour around the maintenance facility and the yard area where they were working on the trains; I was stoked! During our tour I asked several questions about the maintenance facility and the crews there. The tour guide explained to us that the same crew who operates the trains, also is building the next fleet of trains so it will take a year or two for them to complete one engine. After the tour, we walked back inside the train station and were greeted by several hundred tourists about to enjoy the train experience as much as ourselves.
When the doors opened, we had originally planned to head into one of the first rail cars but the lady working for the company stated “There are Italians in this car, they are loud” while politely ushering us to the car behind. The rail car is an extremely narrow gauge car. The inside gauge is 50 centimeters, and the rail cars can only seat 3 people side by side, pointed in each direction. At first Brad and I thought we had all 6 seats to ourselves, but shortly before the train left, three more people joined our seats. I joked with Brad saying that if the train stopped too suddenly, he would become soprano. The train ride moved through the mountains, and a Spanish speaking announcement came over the intercom for the duration of the ride. We assumed it was speaking about the history of the rail cars, but we were never too sure. The ride lasted for about one hour, with a stop 15 minutes into the ride. The stop was to allow another engine to travel in a pocket track around our train and back into the station. By this time, the winds and rain had picked up a little too much for my liking so I snapped a few pictures of the steam train and the area surrounding the park before heading back into the cramped train.
The train ride was a little too “kitsch”, even with my enthusiasm for trains. The train overlooked a lot of logged areas, some hiking trails, and hugged the mountain. When the train ride was over we were ushered back into Geraldo’s van. Geraldo spent a while describing the different plants and animals along the route. I enjoyed looking at the trees and mountains through the fog filled windows. We stopped off at a side road to take some pictures of a beaver dam, and look at some plants along the way. Gerlado went out of his way to show us the different berries available in the park such as wild strawberries and a berry with air pockets which reminds me of cranberries. At the end of the road, where all of the vehicular roads stop in Argentina, Brad and I popped out of the van to take a photo of the sign stating the end of the roads. We also walked to the end of the walkway which extended out another 500 meters or so to grab a quick photo of a lake (the reason the road ended there). By now it was sprinkling again so we ran back into the car. I had gotten pretty cold walking around outside, so Geraldo stopped off at the visitor’s lodge to use the restrooms, etc.
We jumped out of the car and headed up towards the front entrance. To my surprise, jokingly holding the door shut… we see ANJA! We hug and say hello, and joke that she’s starting to follow us around a little bit before she goes on her way. As she walked away, my thoughts were immediately drawn back to the thought of all the friends I had made on-board ship and wanted to hear from again. The visitor center is a new building with tall, angular ceilings and a warm but sterile feeling to it. Upon entry, to the left-hand side, is the cafeteria, behind the entry are the restrooms, and if you walk up half a step of flights to there right, there’s a gift shop. I was tired and cold, so we chose to purchase two café’s con leche with a pollo empanada for myself, and a beef empanada for Brad. Those were impeccable. I did have to laugh because the flavor of the empanada is a similar flavor to a frozen burrito I used to buy in college when I was low on funds. The biggest difference is that this one had real meat, and no cheese. After enjoying our empanada’s we checked out the gift shop, and decided that there was nothing worth purchasing there. Then we were off!
Next stop is a beautiful lake near the Chilean border. Geraldo stopped off on the side of the road while Brad and I took photos of the lake. The water is crystal clear with tall mountains on either side. At the opening of the lake way far in front of us we could see storm clouds overhead which made a the scenery all the more beautiful. Brad and I took a few photos both individually and together to prove to family that we survived our experience in Antarctica. After we finished with the lake, Geraldo drove us over to the post office at another lake. The post office wasn’t your usual post office, it’s a building on a pier towards the side of a lake.
When we arrived at the lake/ post office, I was surprised at just how beautiful the lake is. To the right hand side of the lake there is a small walkway down to the waters’ edge. The shore isn’t covered with sand, as you might imagine, but rather some good sized rocks. I walked about 500-600 meters along the shore of the lake to grab some more pictures. The scenery is incredible here. I could have walked more, but I didn’t want to hold up our tour operator so I quickly walked back. When I arrived back at the post office, Brad was already enjoying the inside of the office so I chose instead to walk along the other side of the beach which was open for about 100 meters before coming to a 10 meter rock face with no further paths. At the far side of the rock face I bent down to see what appeared to be muscles growing on the rocks. From here, I inspected what looked like an old demolished pier being taken back into the water. When I was finished walking on the beaches, I went into the post office. The pier- post office is a wooden building with a wood stove/ heater on one side. I could smell the wood burning stove from the water’s edge away from the pier. When I entered the structure I was taken aback by how warm it was inside. I enjoyed the warmth and looked at the photos on the wall for a few minutes before ultimately deciding that I wanted to save my remaining Argentine money for tonight and tomorrow’s trip to Peru. After rustling us back into the car, Geraldo drove us back to our hotel. Along the way he highlighted some of the birds and trees we had seen along the way. His car is set up with a tablet of some sort at the front, and 22 inch monitor in the back seats where we could see everything he was describing from his tablet.
When we got back to the hotel, Brad and I decided that we were too tired to venture out to the city for lunch but instead chose Bar D’Pizza’s again for lunch. This time it was empanada’s only followed by some red wine we had purchased previously in our adventures in Argentina. After a quick nap in the afternoon, Brad and I walked into downtown to find a restaurant with good seafood, according to Geraldo. The restaurant Geraldo recommended to us is actually a place that Brad and I had perused on our first excursion to Ushuaia before our trip to Antarctica. The restaurant was nearly empty with only two or three people patroning this place. Our first thought was that we had been duped, however we are always up for a new experience so we ordered ceviche, a fresh fish platter, and some red wine. The meal started with pita bread and hummus. In case you were wondering, the hummus tasted only of chickpeas… no other flavoring. The ceviche was INCREDIBLE. SO GOOD! When the sea food platter came, the food was piling off on both sides of the plate. This plate had everything from salmon, eel, shrimp, prawns (in shell), clams, mussels, and other extremely delicious things. Between the two of us we still couldn’t finish everything. After dinner we stopped off at Freddos for ice cream one more time. I tried my Spanish, and Brad got his mocha. We walked back to the hotel very tired but ready for the next adventure.
