After a breakfast of sopapillas (deep fried bread) which had been temptingly fried by the door of the bus station, we took a bus ride through lots of green pastureland to Castro.














Castro is on the island of Chiloe and the only way to get there is by boat. As we made the crossing on a barge, I thought how just crossing water to get somewhere else creates this anticipation of approaching someplace very different from where you are coming from. I could see rolling green hills with trees and rocky beaches. The air from the water was cool and refreshing mixed with the warmth of the sun.

Castro is a laid back place. The first thing we saw as the bus rolled into town were rows of colorful houses on stilts by the waterfront called palafitos.
The town itself is a series of a few main streets with businesses, a main square, the waterfront and more of the palafito houses. The main site in town is the San Francisco Cathedral.




From the exterior it is a rather uninteresting building covered with corrugated metal sheets which seem to collect the dirt in the air. However, the inside is amazing.







The entire inside: domes, arches, vaults, columns, decorations (stations of the cross, saints and their niches), and towers are all made from beautiful golden wood. There are sections that are carved but a lot of the beauty is found just in the arrangements of the panels of wood and the warmth they give the light shining through the stain glass windows.

We found a residencia (home hotel) run by a very kind couple. The rate included breakfast which featured home-made jam from local fruit. I noticed some musical instruments around and asked if someone in the house played. Our hostess replied both her son and daughter were musicians. Her daughter, a music professor, had a band that happened to play the traditional music of Chiloe. Unfortunately she was on vacation so we weren't able to meet but we did buy her CD.

Another thing I realized today was how important having a good (cheap) meal can be. We were rather disappointed with food in Argentina (except for a couple really nice vegetarian places we found). Big hunks of meat are the specialty there. We prefer lighter food but it seemed when people weren't eating big hunks of meat, they go for fast food: hamburgers, pizza (with more greasy cheese and not enough sauce) and sandwiches made from tragic "Wonder" type white bread and a slice of processed ham and cheese.

Today we had a meal consisting of noodle soup, salmon in a vegetable sauce, potatoes (or rice), a little bit of salad, drink and dessert for less than $5. This made us both very happy and we decided we like Chile a lot.

Even though some of the houses and buildings are run down, for the most part the town is a quaint, friendly fishing town, where you can walk along the beach admiring other islands and peninsulas in the distance. It reminded me of small fishing towns in the Pacific North West and Alaska: a bit weathered but warm.

For some reason the buses used for the 28+ hour bus trip from El Chalten to Bariloche are pretty low on the Argentinian bus quality scale. This is surprising since they exist for tourists. The seats aren't even semi-cama (something like a slightly cushy airline seat) and the bus serves no meals and shows no movies. Instead the bus made a couple meal stops in odd backwater places with minimum food options and no bus terminals. The bus was warm at night but sizzling during the day--I guess the air conditioning didn't work. However, unlike a bus built without air conditioning, the windows didn't open. For the privilege of riding up famous route 40, a gravel road with some nice views of mountains but mostly seemingly endless views of flat brushy steppes occupied by some cows and sheep, one must shell out $90.


As an added bonus, our bus broke down during the lunch stop in Los Antiguos. The drivers attempted to get it running by prodding something in the engine with a broomstick. This didn't work so the passengers attempted to push start it. This didn't work either... but at least it looked humorous.

Finally some mechanics arrived and commenced to work in a manner where one guy worked and the other guys all watched...perhaps giving advice. More likely there just wasn't anything else to do. Eventually something was fixed and the bus started when a group of passengers pushed it backwards.

Sometime in the night there was another breakdown scare when the bus driver couldn't start the engine while at the gas station. After a few tries though, it started up.

We arrived in Bariloche early in the morning. Rowshan and I decided that though the location was beautiful--mountains surrounding a huge lake, lots of green trees-- we had tasted perfection in El Chalten and Bariloche is just too popular. We were sick of being around vacationers and tourists, so we opted for another 5 hours on a bus to get to Chile instead. The drive was beautiful --past mountain rivers, lakes and forests.




The border seems to be located on the top of the mountains. We were lucky to be the first bus through the border as it opened in the morning.




The Chilean side was greener and damper.




We arrived in Osorno around mid-day, checked into a grungy hospedaje and had a look around our first Chilean town. The buildings were definitely more shabby--lots of wood with peeling paint or corrugated metal siding and roofs. There were lots of supermarkets but also lots of street sellers. People in the town seemed a bit more laid back than in Argentina. We were also pleased to discover we were back in the land of cheap set lunches. There were also quite a few street performers: a guitarist, accordion-guitar duo, clowns, a theatre comedy duo. However, we didn't spend too much time exploring, opting instead for going to sleep early.

The photo of the town of El Chalten which was on the brochure from the regional tourist office did not do the area justice. The place that many referred to as "paradise" just looked like a dingy town with dry hills and no green. In reality it is paradise, a sometimes windy and rainy paradise but paradise none the less. It is surrounded by impossibly spiky mountains, green hills and turquoise lakes and rivers that have water so pure you can drink it directly. All this and camping is free!



After arriving we walked against the wind across town to what was supposedly a more "private" campsite than the one closer to where the bus dropped us off. It was fairly packed but we staked out a patch of land for our tent next to a wind abused tree. We fought against the wind to get it up, worriedly remembering the words of the guy in Buenos Aires who sold it to us, "Poles are not guaranteed. However they are strong enough to do OK under normal conditions. Now if you pitch your tent in a strong wind, that could cause problems..."

We got the tent up and walked across town where we realized the other campsite was not windy at all and had less people. We grabbed a sheltered spot by a lightly forested area and then dragged our bags back across town.

For a little while I had the chance to just lie in the grass, looking up at the rocky mountains and listening to music. I haven't felt so tranquil in ages.

By the time we got the tent up it was raining. We hid out in our tent until the rain stopped and then went for a short hike up a path to a lookout above the village. The mountains by now were mostly hidden by clouds but the closer hills were beautiful and the base of the mountains, including a glacier was visible.

After breakfast the next morning, we set off on a trail towards Lake Capri and several viewpoints of the valley and mountains. The weather was windy but pleasant hiking weather. The trail starts out through dry hills speckled with dandelions and a few gnarled trees. It turns around various hills revealing spectacular views of the river snaking below towards a mountain range and of the other mountains and hills in the area.







The path forked: one path going to the lake and one to a viewpoint. We opted for the viewpoint and were met with a splendid vista of the Fitzroy range. The top, was cloaked in clouds making it look like a puffy mushroom.







We watched the clouds swirl, seeming on the verge of dispersing only to shift slightly and remain obscuring the peak. In the distance was a blue glacier stretching down a mountain's side.




We walked towards the glacier, passing through forests of small twisted moss covered trees shading delicate green ground cover and yellow orchids hanging from the tops of long slender stems.




It is the type of forest that beckons you to run in and dance around elf fashion. We didn't go close to the glacier but as we were eating lunch, we heard the loud explosion sound of snow or ice crashing in a small avalanche.

We took a longer trail back through forests with woodpeckers who made the sounds of children pretending to shoot guns. Rowshan found a tiny frog on the path and when he tried to move it to safety it shrunk itself into a ball. We passed shaded meadows and a couple green-blue lakes. By the time we reached the trail back to town, we were tired but found ourselves underneath another mountain, Cerro Solo, with a thick layer of snow smoothing out the slant of the side facing us. Another small avalanche occurred as we were admiring it.




Fitzroy was still covered with clouds as we got back to town. We had dinner around 9. As we walked back to camp, we noticed that with the sunset, the sky had become completely clear. Looking up we saw the clouds on the mountain top had disappeared and the last light of sunset had touched the top. A crescent moon was above it.




WOW! All the mountains were out: white capped peaks carved against a dusk blue sky.

The first thing we saw as we got up in the morning was a little owl perched in the tree behind our tent.




The mountains were still out, so early in the morning we climbed a trail that gave us a panoramic view.

Then we took the same path we'd walked up the day before to see the Fitzroy range on this beautiful clear day. As we admired it, it seemed the clouds were on the verge of sneaking up to cover the peak again, but this time they didn't. We sat on a hill with a cold wind blowing, amazed at what a spectacular range of mountains were in front of us and amazed that we were fortunate enough to see such a day during our 2.5 day stay here.










We walked to the lake we had skipped the day before. It was calm and beautiful dark blue with the mountains rising dramatically behind it.




It's strange how nature invites long sessions of just sitting and looking. With other things you end up looking at quickly then moving on... but in a place like this, once considers just spending a day watching the light and clouds change the appearance of the mountains, the repetitive lapping of crystal waves on a lake, birds circling, listening to the quiet creak of a tree, of gazing at the uncanny blueness of glaciers.