Patagonia

So I finally got my vacation. I'll be honest. I don't work terribly hard here so I didn't really deserve a big vacation. It was a vacation, however, not just from work but from the city as well.

Before my trip to patagonia, the name 'Patagonia' to me meant a high quality, but far too expensive clothing brand. Frankly, I'd never known that a corresponding place existed. I thought Patagonia was kind of like Haagen Das, a name created for the way it sounds with no real meaning. But let me reassure you that the Patagonia region of Argentina does exist and it is every bit deserving of its name.

For months, my yoga instructor friend Erica and I have been rounding up people and making plans for a 2 week trip to San Martin de Los Andes, a smallish city in the Cordillero region of Argentina's Patagonia (And very close to the Chilean border on the West Side of the Country). At one point, I more or less dropped out of this planning process and Erica took over. All said and done, she had rounded up 6 other people, booked us a room in a hostel, and made sure we all bought roundtrip bus tickets.

When the time finally came for the trip, I have to admit that I felt a bit of anxiety. I was going to spend 2 weeks sharing one room and bathroom with 5 other adults, 4 of whom I didn't know very well. This would have not been a concern for me during boyscouts or during college, but I have since become a wimp in terms of my travel and comfort preferences. That is, I like my own space and a bit of luxury. Sharing a hostel room with 5 other people is neither comfortable nor luxurious. Cozy is a better description.

The bus trip down was not so bad. It took about 21 hours to get from Buenos Aires to San Martin de Los Andes, but it didn't feel nearly that long. The bus was comfortable, the seats ample, and we were provided with pillows, blankets, and plenty of food and drink to keep us happy. I slept pretty well overnight and a few hours after I woke up, we were at our destination.

The day we arrived in San Martin was a bit brisk and windy. The landscape was beautiful, but it was somehow both cold and hot at the same time. The sun was powerful and bright and capable of burning, but the wind made you wish you had a scarf. Not exactly what I had expected and not so comfortable.

Fortunately, as the week progressed, the weather improved. It turned hot and sunny during the day and just cool enough in the evening to allow for great sleep. On top of that, through meeting and talking with other people in the hostel, our group was introduced to a slew of fun and inexpensive ideas for day trips. The following is a picture summary of more or less how we wound up spending our time:

1. La Islita (the little island) This is a little island that took an hour of hiking through the mountains to reach. It's both within Lanin National Park and on Maipuche Indian land, which resulted in a 2 peso entry fee. But the beach was every bit worth it.

The beach itself was a bit rocky, but the water was crystal clear, pure, and cold, but not so much that you couldn't swim out to the adjacent island. It was one of the most beautiful beaches I'd ever seen with green mountains surrounding on all sides and snow covered Andes in the distance.

The walk to and from the beach was surreal. There were cattle, turkey, chickens, and lamb roaming more or less wild. I guessed that the Maipuche owned all of this livestock, but allowed them the freedom to roam the land and herded them in somehow as needed.

2. Yuco

My group told me one day that we were going to Yuco. I had no idea what that meant. I found that it meant that I was going to be woken early from a great sleep to board a dusty old diesel leaking bus that shuttled us out into the middle of nowhere. The group (or a few err very organized and err assertive women) had begun to play a dictatorial role on the trip. That is, every day, we were basically told what we were doing. I didn't mind this as most of their suggestions were great and better than I could have come up with. On top of that, they planned it all out, let me know how much it was going to cost, and coordinated everything.

After an hour on the rickety bus, we were dropped off on the side of the road near a trailhead. We wandered sleepily down a long slope and after about a kilometer found a beautiful and private half moon beach on a lake surrounded by snow covered Andes on all sides. It was again some of the most beautiful scenery I'd ever witnessed. What was best is that we had it all to ourselves. Gone were the hordes of stressed out Portenos, taxis, buses, diesel, smog. The water was glass and you could see clear to the colorful rocks and preserved logs underneath as seen in the above picture. It was a silence, a stillness that I'd been yearning for after months in Buenos Aires without a break. It instilled in me a sensitivity that I haven't felt for maybe years. I wanted to be quiet and walk very lightly so as not to disturb the peace. Some members of the group I think felt uncomfortable in the silence and tried to fill it by talking loudly and joking around. I walked away from the group along the beach and around a secluded bend and just sat on a rock in the sun with my feet in the water looking out across the breathtaking stillness. I sat that way for almost an hour and a half and then, after feeling as if I had slept for a full day, I returned to the group to eat a snack.

I spent the rest of the day reading the New Yorker with my legs dangling in the water from a secluded spot along the coast. At one point, I decided to try to swim in the water after watching my friend Axel do so. Before I entered, my muscles and bones felt stiff and I was a bit tired. I questioned whether I really wanted to do it. But once in, I felt alive. The water was cold, but refreshing in a way that I've never been energized before. I swam under to look at the colorful rocks, able to open my eyes and see as clearly as if it were the YMCA pool without having to worry about burning chlorine. I tried the front crawl, the breast stroke, I dove down and up like a seal. And the view in the background every time I raised my head was a dream of mountains and snow. Instantly, this activity had become my favorite of all time, better than golf or mountain biking or hiking. It was like falling in love when you thought you'd never fall in love again. An utter surprise.

When I emerged from the lake, I let the sun and wind dry me off. The best way to describe how I felt is Younger. My muscles and bones were no longer so tight. In fact, a giant condor landed on the other side of the beach and upon seeing it, my body responded by sprinting out after it, so quickly that I felt at least 10 years younger, with capricious energy to spare (not that I'm so old man, but I can tell a difference from age 19. I'm more conscience of the way my energy and body are used).

We stayed at Yuco until after 9pm. It was a long day and we'd all gotten too much sun, but at the same time we realized that our day at Yuco was magical, that we might never again have the opportunity to spend the day at such a beautiful place and have it all to ourselves. We collectively agreed that we would never forget this gift.

3. Villa L'Angostura

Villa L'Angostura is a town 3 hours South of San Martin. The bus trip was long, rocky, and dusty, as there are no paved roads between these cities. I had heard that the town was beautiful, but didn't know what to expect or how it could be that much more beautiful than what I'd already seen in the past few days. Once again, however, I was taken aback by the breathtaking beauty of the place. Villa L'Angostura is a smaller town than San Martin and there are 2 major beaches along the main road out of town, as well as an adjacent forest of ancient Arrayanes trees. I didn't have time for a hike out into the forest, but I was able to enjoy the two beaches. Somehow, the water in these lakes was even more pure than in the San Martin area. You could literally walk out to a pier with 10 feet of water below you and see down to the lake floor as if the water were a spotless blue green window. What's more is that the mountains in the background were even taller and with more snow pack than in San Martin. The scenery there was a serious 1 up on San Martin.

Unfortunately, after a half dip in the water at Villa L'Angostura , I had to head back to the bus station to catch a bus back to San Martin. I will, however, be back.

4. El Mirador

El Mirador is simply a look out point at the heart of a 10K round trip walk. The hike up is exhausting, but the view is-you fill in the blank. I don't care how many times you look at a view like this. It never gets old and I don't think it ever fails to quiet and nourish the soul.

The remainder of the trip was more of the same. One day we went to a town called Villa Traful, which is the smallest nearby town, very frontierish and rustic with it's own Mirador which is beautiful, but not quite as beautiful as the one pictured above. In Traful, I ate my first trout dinner. The trout was fished fresh from the adjacent lake and was cooked in butter and fresh herbs. So good that I happily ate skin and all.

On another day, we walked another 5 or 6 kilometers to a beach called Catrita. This particular beach was crowded with people, almost a resort of sorts, but the water was still clean and much warmer and so I swam more on this day than any other.

Another highlight from the trip was a mountain bike excursion up to the base of Cerro Chapelco, or the local mountain for skiing. It's almost 20 kilometers of riding straight up and then the same trip back down. My friend Axel mentioned that he wanted to do it and not one to back down from a challenge, I said that I'd join him. I secretly hoped he would forget about the whole thing, but one Sunday, he insisted we go for it....And so we searched around town and found the one shop that was still open to rent their beaten up mountain bikes to us. I was skeptical about my mountain bike's ability to make it more than a mile. The back rim was horribly bent, the tires wouldn't hold much air, and the bikes were cheap to begin with. But Axel was insistent that we try.

So, with plenty of water and snacks we started the ascent. The idea was that we would stop at various checkpoints to take a break and then decide if we wanted to continue. As it turned out, both of us refused to admit that we were too tired to continue and so we more or less vomited ourselves up the mountain on our shoddy 'Bronco' brand bikes. Arriving at the top of the mountain, triumphant, sweaty, smelly, and dust covered, we took pictures and then headed back down quickly because it was significantly colder up there and we weren't prepared for it.

The trip down would have been blissful if not for the fact that high speed made it that much more apparent that my bike was ready to disassemble. The back rims curvature was that much more noticeable with increased speed and so my descent was an exercise in doing what I could to make sure the bike and myself made it to the bottom in one piece. While the ascent took 2 or more hours, the descent couldn't have been longer than 35 minutes, and that with a stop for pictures. Axel and I ended the day by rewarding ourselves by going out to eat at an all you can eat meat and salad buffet that was actually very tasty.

And that brings me to the topic of food. My goal during the trip, food-wise, was to try trout, deer, and Patagonian lamb. Mission accomplished. I ate trout 4 times. Once in Villa Traful. Once I grilled it during an asado. And twice I got it for lunch from an upscale to-go place. My conclusion. Trout is tasty. I've pan fried a whole butterflied trout the last 2 nights in Buenos Aires in my apartment.

I meant to try deer in the form of a steak, but was never able to make it to the restaurant that specializes in it. As a result, I was only able to try smoked deer, which in any case, was very good, but for me not very distinguishable from beef.

Lamb I love. I first tried lamb at a restaurant called La Casona, which was a restaurant in the first floor of a house built during the original construction building boom of the city in the 1800s. The lamb was cooked with Rosemary and while there wasn't that much meat, I ate every last fiber. It was that flavorful and tender. Lamb I can easily distinguish from beef. I think it tends to be more tender and the flavor is a bit more subtle. The following day, having a new found hunger for lamb, I collected wood from the forest and later bought a 1 kilo rack of lamb with a lamb kidney attached. I was told by the friendly butcher that the kidney is a delicacy, but it looked in its crude state like a ball of cartilidge and fat. I grilled the lamb about 45 minutes on both sides and then tore into it ravenously at the picnic table under the hostel's cherry tree (which i will mention later). Again, for a kilo of meat and bones, there wasn't actually much to be had. However, the meat at the end of the ribs was delicious and the part covering the ribs was fatty but tasty (called a matambre cut). The surprise was the kidney. Just as I thought, it very much was a ball of fat with some meat inside, but the truth is that it was soft and full of flavor that flooded my mouth and warmed my insides. Mmmmm. Lamb kidney. Everyone should try it (Folks with high cholesterol excluded).

Another reason I came to love San Martin is that fresh fruits grow from trees and bushes throughout the city. Cherry and plum trees are on every street in the city and apple trees are not difficult to find either. Patagonia is in La Zona de Frutas or the part of the country where fruits are grown. So it's a great fruit growing climate and the cherries and plums that we ate every day were testament to that.

One cold and rainy day, my friend Axel and I decided to climb trees throughout the city to collect cherries and plums from which to make desserts. After 2 hours of work, we had filled two large grocery bags. From this fruit, I made 5 deserts: Cherry tort with a crushed cookie base and topped with a thickened cherry sauce and fresh whipped cream, cherry crisp, oatmeal plum bars, sweet plum sauce for ice cream, and a cherry-cream cheese cake.

I cooked a ton on the trip in general. I grilled out 3 times including lamb, provolone cheese, veggies, tira de asado, vacio, morcilla, chicken, and trout. I made 6 pizzas one day for a total of 13 people. I made homemade gnocci for 5 one night. I also made a giant chocolate chip cookie for a birthday. A full fat cheesecake. And finally a giant oatmeal cookie. I will mention too that meeting women in a hostel is very easy if you know how to cook.

In the following entries, I will tell the tale of one night of grilling out as well as the overall sensation with which Patagonia left me. It's too much for one entry and this one is getting long and rambling. But please do read on!!