One day I was standing at the bus stop outside of our apartment on my way to the grocery store. As I waited for the bus, an older couple pulled up outside of the boutique across the street. The woman got out of the car, looked in my direction and called out, “A donde vas?”

I did that confused looking around thing that you do when you’re pretty sure that someone isn’t talking to you. But she had to be. I yelled back, “Al mercado,” wondering why the hell this strange woman was so interested in my afternoon plans. She seemed satisfied by this answer and disappeared into the boutique. After she came back out and got into the car, the car pulled up alongside of me. She rolled down the window and said in Spanish, “I’m sorry. You look almost exactly like my friend. Would you like a ride to the market?”

Why, yes I would. I climbed in the back. Continue reading “4 Bariloche Vignettes” →

Our first couple of days in Llao Llao were spent exploring the national park near our apartment. The walks in this particular area weren’t very strenuous—they were more like strolling trails, but nonetheless, it was gratifying to walk along the several miles of trails through the deep cool of the forest pausing occasionally on the beach of a lake. In the middle of one of these trails was a forest of arrayanes trees which have become one of my two favorite kinds of tree. I am absolutely enchanted by their white and cinnamon colored bark The only disappointing thing about the arrayanes trees is that from a distance they look like they would be slightly soft, faintly furry, even, but they are not. I know because I touched a lot of them to make sure. Continue reading “On Top of the World” →

After 34 hours on a bus, we pulled into the city of Bariloche, our last destination in Argentina where we were going to spend the next three weeks. The place that we had rented was about 25km outside of town in a place called Llao Llao which is closer to the park and trailheads. We climbed into a cab and it whisked us down the winding coastal road past snug restaurants, quaint cabins tucked behind walls of brilliant red rosebushes, and tiny boutiques selling specialty cosmetics, chocolates, and handicrafts. As we drove further and further from town, I was wondering if we had done the right thing by booking a place so far away from the city. It turns out that we couldn’t have made a better decision.

Continue reading “A Sign of Things to Come” →

After having to abort our mission to the Piedras Blancas glacier after I put both of my feet into the stream, we took a day to try again. It wasn’t a particularly difficult hike, but it was a long walk mostly over rocks and there were small streams that popped up everywhere along the route. Continue reading “Miss This Place We Will” →

Whoever said that photographs don’t lie is a liar. Photographs lie all the time. A photograph can tell you that the person that you met on Yahoo dating is nice looking, when he has actually been disfigured by an accident. A photograph taken from arm’s length can tell you that I have an enormous double chin which I don’t believe I possess. And a photograph can tell you that Mount Fitzroy is just another mountain that doesn’t have any special features to recommend it. No matter how hard I try, I cannot capture an image of Mount Fitzroy that tells the truth about it. Continue reading “The Fitz” →