The Overpacker

Location: El Bolson, Argentina

Date: Monday, January 3, 2011

Last night, arriving in the rain meant deciding on the place to stay which thus meant finding the closest place that had a free room and could be easily located on a map. Let’s just say it was a rushed, expensive decision.

That is, however, the peril of traveling without a guidebook. I haven’t had one since Bolivia and, here in El Bolson, it actually presented a problem. Usually wikitravel.com or random Google searches ahead of time are enough to get by. Didn’t work out this time because of the last two days were on the bus through a place so desolate that it’s possible they’ve never heard of the interwebs. That little hiccup cost me the day today looking for a place to stay. Randomly calling places, asking for rooms, finding a decent spot, and settling in.

Call it a wash. Call it a lost day. It basically was.

On the upside, I haven’t had to spend the $25 on a heavy guidebook.

GALLERY: No pictures. Really. None.

Mervyn is a traveler who brings too much, eats too much, and writes way too much.  To learn more, read his overwritten FAQ or flip through the archives.

Location: Ruta 40 between Perito Moreno and El Bolson, Patagonia, Argentina

Date: Sunday, January 2, 2011

Okay. We’ve established that Ruta 40 is legendary. What it’s legendary for is less clear, but I’ll leave that call up to those with better judgment. What do I know? I liked Notting Hill and wasn’t that impressed with The King’s Speech.

Ruta 40 has taught me something about Argentina, though: there’s a hell of a lot of it. The country just doesn’t end. It goes to the horizon and just when you think you’ve reached the end, it keeps going. Best of all, here in the middle, it’s flat.

And empty. Rarely a building in sight. For over 400 miles (670 km) between Perito Moreno to El Bolson it’s nearly all plains. It’s the width of Nebraska, but with more dirt roads and almost no truck stops. Nothing. Read more…

Location: Ruta 40 between El Chalten and Perito Moreno, Patagonia, Argentina

Date: Saturday, January 1, 2011

Ruta 40 is such a fabled road that even in non-Spanish speaking countries it still goes by its Spanish name: Ruta Cuarenta (in English: Route Forty). At nearly 5,000 km (3,100 miles) long, it’s one of the longest roads in the world and spans Argentina from its northern tip to the south–from the Bolivian border town of La Quiaca to Rio Gallegos in the depths of south. Like Route 66 back home, it supposedly reminds travelers of a time when traveling on it meant going out into the new, untamed wilds. Mostly unpaved and traversing wide, human-less expanses, it’s also renowned for its natural beauty. For me, it is, the best (the only?) way to get from El Chalten to the Lakes District surrounding El Bariloche further north.

Which is why, to start out the New Year, I’m spending the next two days on a bus. Fourteen hours a day for two consecutive days on a mostly gravel road, on a bus. The first day 663 km (411 miles) of unpaved rock, averaging 50 km/h (30 mph). On A BUS.

It was like a dream come true if that dream involved being stuck in Andy Dufresne’s Shawshank hole–unchanging scenery for hours, the only thing to entertain you is the numbness in your ass and the sound of your mind going mad. It’s sorta like if I’d kept an office job.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. For the first day, the road lived up to the legend.   Read more…

Location: Not Climbing a Mountain, El Chalten, Patagonia, Argentina

Date: Friday, December 31, 2010

Today, no mountains. No wacky weather. No flies.

Some days you have to get back to what you’re good at and if there’s one thing I’m good at it’s doing nothing but eat. So that’s what I did.

Unfortunately, El Chalten is in the middle of nowhere. You’re supposed to go to Laguna de Los Tres and get a closer view of what the hardcore mountain climbers are here for: Cerro Fitz Roy. You don’t come here for the food.

Well I sure as hell didn’t come to climb Fitz Roy and I wasn’t in the mood to see the other side of something I saw yesterday. So I made the best of it.

Which meant having waffles at a waffle place that wasn’t open for breakfast (I know because I tried). Don’t ask me. This is Argentina. They do things differently here. So differently that the waffles came with cabbage and lamb. Again, don’t ask. Read more…

Location: Loma del Pliegue, El Chalten, Patagonia, Argentina

Date: Thursday, December 30, 2010

I appreciate travel. I don’t take for granted that I don’t have to rush back to work after two weeks. It’s better than being trapped behind a desk or drowning in paperwork. Being on the road is a privilege.

That said I’m a little spent on Patagonia. (Side note: Isn’t “that said” a sneaky way of saying, “But” or “However” or “Here’s the part where I poop on everything in the last paragraph”? Gotta appreciate what you learn from four years of college or two hours of watching ESPN.) Really. I’m tired of the cold, the freak weather, the mountains, and the hours on buses just to climb those mountains.

That said (double fake out!) Loma del Pliegue is incredibly beautiful. It’s reported to be the best way to see the famed mountain range that includes Cerro Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre. While most hikers head up to Laguna de Los Tres to see Fitz Roy, Loma del Pliegue tops that hike in this respect: it lets you see all three of the famed peaks at once. Read more…

Location: Road from El Calafate to El Chalten, Patagonia, Argentina

Date: Wednesday, December 29, 2010

After two nights in El Calafate and a day on Perito Moreno Glacier, it’s time to head to El Chalten. And you know what that means: another bus ride!

Enough already, right? You’re telling me. Read more…

Location: Perito Moreno Glacier, Patagonia, Argentina

Date: Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Ice trekking is exactly what it sounds like: just like trekking but frozen. It’s like being told that for the next four hours you’re going to be tortured and your hosts are going to be looping Party in the U.S.A. while they do it.

Why do it, then? Simple. When you’re in El Calafate, going to Perito Moreno Glacier in Los Glacieres National Park is the thing to do. Of course, you don’t have to walk all over it like I did, but me, I’ve never been good at half measures.

Perito Moreno Glacier happens to be part of an ice field that is the third largest freshwater reserve in the world. In fact, it’s part of the same ice field that feeds Glacier Grey. In other words, I’ve traveled 10 hours from Porto Natales to here so I can go to a place I’ve technically been before, except this time, even colder.

After hours of hiking over what must be the world’s largest ice cube I realized that our guides had fitted us with harnesses not because we would be rappelling down ice walls (my hope) but so that our bodies would be easier to recover if we fell into an ice gorge.

This happy realization was accompanied by this thought: there’s a global warming alarmist out there that wants us to believe that we’re all destined for the ice world of The Day After Tomorrow. In honor of that moron and his scriptwriter friend, I present this happy guide to surviving the forthcoming ice age apocalypse. Read more…

Location: Roads between Puerto Natales, Patagonia, Chile and El Calafate, Patagonia, Argentina

Date: Monday, December 27, 2010

This is how you travel in Patagonia. You pray you can find a bus to your next destination but plan for the worst. Yesterday, that meant going to every ticket agent in town and getting told every ticket was sold out for the next two days. For the next few hours I kept wondering if Porto Natales had two more days of surprises left in it. There were stories of people hiring private transport to El Calafate, our desired destination. Tales of people booking tours just to get out of town. Read more…

Location: Puerto Natales, Patagonia, Chile

Date: Sunday, December 26, 2010

Puerto Natales is in the middle of nowhere. It’s 153 miles (274 kms) from Punta Arenas, the closest “city.” Remember that crazy Patagonia weather of alternating rain, hail, sunshine, wind? Puerto Natales is in Patagonia, too. The sun doesn’t hit the sack until 11 p.m. but somehow manages to have enough energy to be up well before six. Here, in the middle of South America’s summer, it’s in the 50s F (10 C) in the day and below freezing at night.

Read more…

Location: Torres del Paine, Torres del Paine National Park, Patagonia, Chile

Date: Saturday, December 25, 2010

To see the torres for which Torres del Paine National Park takes its name you’re supposed to get up at 4:00 a.m. and hike so you can see the towering rock spires at dawn. Yeah, right.

Now, I’d like to say I chose not to get up at 4 a.m. I can’t. The alarm went off, I said some words that rhyme with “yuck” and “not one bit,” and I went back to sleep. At 5 a.m., I crawled out of my bag, ate a camp stove warmed breakfast, and headed up the mountain. Read more…

Location: Hike to Campamento Torres, Torres del Paine National Park, Patagonia, Chile

Date: Friday, December 24, 2010

I should not be in a good mood. When something tries to kill you I think you’re supposed to be scared. Or miserable. Or at least annoyed.

I, however, am not. I am thrilled. Perhaps it’s because this is the first time that man or Nature has ever tried to kill me with wind. Read more…

Location: Valle Frances, Torres del Paine National Park, Patagonia, Chile

Date: Thursday, December 23, 2010

Today we hiked Valle Frances (French Valley, and NOT “Francis” Valley), the most stunning section of the “W” trail. Glaciers hung off mountainsides and melted into ravines, creating a roaring river of the cleanest, freshest water on earth. We traversed hillsides covered in rocks–mountainsides ground up by the pressure of ice over thousands of years. Every once in a while we’d hear a sound like a shotgun blast and look up to see an avalanche cascading down the facing mountain. The sun shown bright and the green of the trees and the brown of the rocks stood in contrast to the sheets of blue and white ice slathered on the mountains. I found myself wondering, “Is there another way to describe this without using the word ‘mountain’ so much?” Read more…

Location: Trail to Campamiento Italiano

Date: Wednesday, December 22, 2010

It’s a foolish man who doesn’t learn from his mistakes. It’s also the cowardly man who chickens out at the first sign of danger.

I don’t give a damn which I am, but I can tell you that at the first signs of rain, I said, “Screw it,” and spent the afternoon huddled in a tent sleeping away the weather. Read more…

Location: Glacier Grey, Torres del Paine National Park, Patagonia, Chile

Date: Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Redemption comes in many forms. For some, it’s a twelve-step program. For other’s it’s a Jew nailed to some lumber. For others, it’s hair extensions, a line about Royale with Cheese, and a twist with Uma Thurman.

For me–here in Torres del Paine’s “W” trail–redemption came in two forms. First, the weather did not spend all day kicking me in the face. Second, I spent all day not carrying the giant backpack. Read more…

Location: South of the “W” trail, Torres del Paine National Park, Patagonia, Chile

Date: Monday, December 20, 2010

I am the master of my domain, an adult who chooses what to do and live with the consequences. I chose to come to Torres del Paine. I chose to strap a giant bag to my back and try to live out of it for six days. I even suggested that, instead of taking a ferry across the lake, we spend an extra day hiking from the Administration office to the start of the “W” trail. Read more…