The Hobo Diaries. likes. The Hobo Diaries is a fictional comic book series following the adventures of Larry, a local legend.
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The quite delightful powdery snow that greeted us in the morning turned into more of a freezing sleet and rain through the day. Trudging to the next campsite, we were absolutely drenched to the bone, with similar trouble finding somewhere to set up our tent — the only places we could find that were not under inches of water were beneath some decidedly sketchy looking old trees, with far too many fallen branches around to have us feeling very safe in this wind-scoured valley.
This was the point at which we also discovered that the path we were following was now officially closed. Given we had been planning to loop all the way around the back of the mountains and back to town from the other end, this meant we had two options. We could either turn back the next morning, or have a bit of an explore around the area, see how far we could get down the path and then return to the same camp that night.
This meant we would at least avoid having to pack up a wet and muddy tent and carry it all day, but I think we would have all quite happily carried heavier packs as a trade-off for it to stop raining. We opted to stay out and explore, winding our way through some pretty glades and crossing back and forth over the stream, looping back to camp before nightfall. On day four the weather improved just enough that we were able to walk back to town a little more cheerfully.
We had originally planned to stay in Ushuaia two more nights, seeing in the end of the year at the end of the world, but the paucity of buses out of town meant we had to actually leave on the morning of December 31, sadly dragging ourselves away while the hostel was already bouncing into cheerful, all-you-can-eat-and-drink party mode. We were let in by the sleepy, muddle-headed but friendly co-owner of the hostel — getting sense out of anyone in this district is impossible before 10 or 11 in the morning as the city life revolves around late evening, rendering mornings a veritable graveyard.
Taking our cue from our surroundings we endeavoured to kick back a notch or two, enjoying a slow breakfast, many cups of coffee and finally dropping our bags in our room before heading out for a day jam packed with Buenos Aires delights. In typical form, our first forays involved substantial amounts of walking. BA has a brilliant, if at times confusing, public transport system where trips cost about 25 cents each. But to properly orientate yourself, nothing beats walking. BA is a city of contrasts. Our morning was spent sightseeing in a rather haphazard way.
Our goal for the day was to buy another tent to see us through the raging winds of Patagonia. Along the way we would divert down side streets, cross through parks and venture past monuments such as El Obilisco, a 67 metre high obelisk plonked in the middle of 18 lanes of traffic it was built in to commemorate the th anniversary of the founding of the city. Thanks to the many Italian migrants in Argentina, finding a delicious cafe is simple and you can rely upon decent coffee and hope for a tempting cake or pastry.
Our tent hunting turned out to be far less successful than our sightseeing. We could find plenty of super cheap tents, a good range of super sturdy but outrageously heavy tents, yet nothing like what we were after. We eventually settled for an ugly red number, managed to talk the owner into allowing us to set it up in the store and promptly discovered it was missing parts.
We did manage to get back before Sallly, just. The night was spent catching up over a long meal accompanied by a bottle of Argentine wine. The next morning, the three of us set off to explore the city, dropping by the excellent Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Recoleta. A somewhat quirky mix of paintings, we discovered a few fun Impressionist works, a scattering of Goyas, photos that showed both the old and new of Buenos Aires and some playful contemporary works by local artists.
Although we could have spent several more hours there, hunger drew us out. We found ourselves scouring the streets of Recoleta for restaurants. In true sightseer fashion we were ravenous and struggling to agree on somewhere with which we were all happy. Finally a small corner pizza joint, with only a few spare tables, beckoned. We discovered the best empanadas of the trip though to be fair, not a shadow on the wonderful street snacks of saltenas to which we had became addicted in Peru and Bolivia.
Ordering first one then another carafe of wine and an ambitiously wide selection of empanadas we munched on, considering the relative merits of blue cheese and onion versus the standard beef empanada. Although the various vegetarian versions stacked up well, the juicy, spicy beef empanada won the day. We moved on, not wanting to miss a visit to the nearby Cementerio de la Recoleta. The monuments ranged from the fading and decrepit through to the sparkling and ostentatious. For some you looked through cracked windows, seeing through the layers of spiderwebs to coffins that had slipped and opened their lids.
Others had gleaming bronze plaques, richly coloured, stained glass windows, and sturdily lock doors staunchly protecting the illustrious inhabitants — a veritable who was who of Argentine history. Other than the many tourists and tour guides, the only other living regulars to the cemetery were the teeming cats. You could not turn a corner without discovering yet another cat … possibly a friendly black and white one, perhaps a scary and scowling tortoiseshell tiger wearing its battle scars with a proud, defiant air.
For history buffs the cemetery provides a fascinating memento of the illustrious families of Buenos Aires. Anyone who was anyone would fight for their right to finish up in the cities most desirable resting place. However the living delights of Buenos Aires tempted us away and so we went out into the noisy, green, bright streets of Recoleta. This time we were exploring the wide boulevards, window shopping amongst the clothes stores, wine shops and restaurants.
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A small ensemble of live musicians were warming up as we got there. While tango is of course about the dancing, it is very much about story-telling. This story is not particularly complex — boys fighting for girls. Exploring the streets the next day, we were treated to another taste of the tango life. South Americans are party people. They get away with it by being liberal with the dancing but restrained with their drinking — although nearly always with a drink in their hand, finances mean they sit on one or two drinks across the evening.
We had already warmed to the young, friendly, helpful people running the Sandanzas hostel. The owners had decided to get everyone together to celebrate Christmas Navidad in Spanish. We were bitterly disappointed that we would be missing out — our flight out was scheduled for early Christmas Day. So it was to our joy that we discovered Christmas celebrations in Argentina tend to actually take place on the evening of the 24 th with plenty of food, drink and endless fireworks.
Dinner kicked off about 10pm, everyone throwing in a helping hand to produce the laden table. The food was perfect, fresh and interesting, with many different types of salads, dips, pastries, fruit and so much food that it became a blur of yummy dishes. There was plenty of wine and we had fun chatting to the diverse range of people at our table. By the time we were fed and exhausted by conversation the music was turned up and the room turned into a dancing venue, with people forming a conga line that twisted and twirled its way around the room.
Midnight hit and we were deafened by fireworks. For those who venture out on the streets it is necessary to dodge the missiles, and doctors from Argentina tell us they hate that time of year and all the injuries it brings. We were content to watch from the safety of the hostel — hearing far more than we saw but being too content and comfortable to venture out.
Besides which there was talking to be talked and dances to be danced. We finally quit the party long before it was over — heading in at 3.
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We were heading about as far south as it is actually possible to travel before hitting Antarctica: On arrival in Cafayate we bumped into Peter and Sue from our Spanish school in Quito, joining them and their decidedly crazy overland tour group in hiring bikes and riding out for a late afternoon visit to the outlying bodegas wineries. Somehow they seemed to be holding it together, but there were horror stories about the other half of their group.
On bikes with good brakes but no helmets, shonky gears and mismatched sizes mismatched to the rider that is we made our way in a decidedly Von Trapp family fashion, smiling as we wove our bikes through the sunshine and mottled shadows cast by large, languid and leafy trees. Some of the bikes wove more than others: We embarked on the long, scrambling walk up the Rio Colorado, crossing back and forth over the cascading water.
Ben went for a swim in a small pool over lunch, floating in the cooling embrace of the fresh stream and staring at the clouds puffing overhead. The deep canyons and chilling cold water were decidedly Kakadu-like with sheltered pools in which you could float whilst gazing up past the huge cliffs to the blue and white sky above. The downhill walk and ride were much easier heading back towards town.
It turns out that riding hired mountain bikes uphill along sandy roads in the height of summer is pretty exhausting, but downhill was not so bad. Our route back into town was rather roundabout as we swapped directedness for tastiness: Throw in a visit to a chevre-making operation on the edge of town, a chat to the goats followed by a taste of their cheeselicious wares, and one is left considering that life could perhaps be worse.
This was the night of perhaps the barbecue of our lives, ridiculously thick steaks selected with the help of the friendly butcher then cooked to perfection over coals on the gigantic rooftop barbecue, enjoying the views out over town to the grapevines from which our wine had been made and to the looming mountains beyond.
The fact it was a small friendly town surrounded on all sides by wineries of course had little to do with it. The stunning, layered landscape of Quebrada de Cafayate featured carved out formations in super-rich colours from various mineral deposits — reds, yellows, oranges, greens and purples, either in layers or in various patterned, wavy formations. It was one of the strangest landscapes we had ever come across, yet another unforgettable South American natural formation that had to be seen to be believed.
After a few hours of exploring the folds and rain-carved features, including a towering natural amphitheatre and Garganta del Diablo, we hopped back onto the mini-bus. Driving back towards the hostel we noted the previously bone-dry river bed was now a frothing, surging brown beast.
We rounded another bend and found the road was abruptly cut off by a powerful flash-flood, the causeway now a torrential river tumbling trees and giant boulders in its wake. Changing from our mini-van to a small bus we too made the crossing, the water still coming up well over the wheels, arriving back to the hostel just before 9pm, more than ready to try some more of the finest local fare.
Staying another day was tempting, but BA beckoned. We were still about km away though, so decided to travel via Cordoba, a mere km trip. Of all the South American countries, Argentina is the one in which we most keenly feel a kind of European air. The architecture, food, people and outlook on life all have a certain familiarity that is a blend of Spanish, Italian and something uniquely Argentine as well.
Our first night was spent catching some good live music in a friendly little space, while the next day we wandered the town and saw some reasonable art in a great old colonial mansion turned gallery. We had seen there was due to be a free concert on that evening that sounded quite good so planned our day around making sure we got there. Thus it was a little disappointing to line up and then once we reached the door to be told that while it was free, you still actually had to have already come by tickets, which we had not.
A lovely, matronly woman overheard our plight and came forward with a couple of tickets she had spare. We found ourselves seated right near her and her grandchildren and found out her son was singing that night, not merely as part of the choir but was actually singing solo as well.
The next day was another wandering day, with a visit to the grand Museo Superior de Bellas Artes Evita, a neoclassical Beaux-Arts museum with some interesting work. This visit was soon superseded on the enjoyment front, however, as we headed back towards the centre of town. We saw someone emerge from an ice-cream parlour with a huge tub of ice-cream and proceed to lift the lid and get straight into it.
The look of anticipation and then delight was enough of a sales pitch for us, so we headed in and made our own selection. Cheap, delicious and no doubt highly nutritious. We were all set for snoozing when the stormy weather outside decided to make its way inside, rain pouring through the roof and all over Serena. Luckily there was one spare seat left on the otherwise full bus so we were able to settle in for a relatively dry ride to BA.
Passing from the bumpy not-really-a-road-at-all experience of Bolivia to the smooth black tarmac of Chile, we realised just how accustomed we had become to being in countries where any form of public infrastructure was an unexpected bonus.
Winding down from the freezing heights of the Bolivian plateau to the vast, open, toasty Atacama Desert, we were struck by the beauty of this desolate landscape. Spread over , sqkm in northern Chile, the Atacama Desert is the driest place on the planet — there are weather stations here that have never detected rain and valleys that have been dry for at least , years.
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We began with an afternoon trip to the hauntingly beautiful Mars-like Death Valley, moving onto the dramatic salt caves of the Valle de la Luna valley of the moon , finishing with sunset over the incredible landscape, watching from an enormous, wonderfully wind-sculpted sand dune. The next afternoon saw us return to the towering sand dunes of the Death Valley, this time with sandboards in tow. For the next two hours we trudged up the dunes and sent ourselves hurtling off the edge with our waxed boards, invariably tumbling into the sand which found its way into every square inch of our clothes, body and hair.
That night saw a trip out of town to the desert observatory of kooky French astronomer Alain Maury. The heavens were certainly putting on a show for us that night, with no moon in sight and not even the merest hint of a cloud. They had been set to focus on various night-sky highlights, from the rings of Jupiter to spectacular strings of nebulae. All this was topped off with a fool-proof lesson in using the night sky to ensure a lucky night with the ladies, followed by a disgracefully delicious hot chocolate, and we were thoroughly won over by the joys of Atacama in particular and Chile in general.
But it was already time to make the first of our countless Chile-Argentina border crossings and re-crossings, setting off for the northern Argentine town of Salta. Climbing high into the heart of the Andes, the otherworldly red, pink and blinding white colour-schemes of the last day of our Bolivian salt plain adventure had returned, with mineral streaked rocks, strangely glowing marshes and pink flamingos making each corner reveal something entirely new, all with a blemish-free azure sky as a backdrop.
We climbed and climbed for hours, before finally levelling out and then beginning the descent down the other side of the mountains, our first taste of Argentina. It is hard to even explain exactly what it is, but there is something about Chile that feels long and narrow and stretched, hemmed in by sea on one side and mountain on the other, while Argentina feels remarkably different.
As we crossed the mountains and began our gradual, winding descent, the landscape felt immensely open, almost never-ending. Dwarfed by neighbouring Brazil on a map of South America, Argentina is nevertheless an enormous country — at 2. So as soon as we were gazing out over her vast plains, we get a sense of this size, of the emptiness and the extra breathing space.
The trip continued for some time, passing into wonderful canyons of beautifully coloured rock before finally opening into lush farmland that could almost be rural France. We finally pull into Salta, a pleasant, small city with a lovely square at its centre. Despite arriving on a Sunday evening, there were plenty of people everywhere, enjoying the warm but not steamy weather. We soon had our first taste of Argentine time, with families out strolling at 10pm on a Sunday night, not to walk off their dinner but actually on their way to a meal.
After a nibble of our own we were pleased to discover that the museums and galleries scattered around town were all still open and would be until at least midnight. This somewhat bitter green leaf tea is not simply a drink in Argentina, but a way of life. Not a day would go by that you would not see people on the bus, in a store, in a park or simply walking down the street with the silver straw between their lips and a thermos of hot water in hand.
So we said farewell to Salta and boarded the bus to the heart of the northern wine country, Cafayate pronounced Cafa jjj atay in Argentine Spanish, a whole new linguistic beast for us to attempt to tame. Our love of overnight buses in South America does not really extend to Bolivia.
We had originally planned on using the day to organise a trip out into the salt-plains the next day, but discovered that provided we were willing to take off without dragging our heels we had arrived in time to head out that very morning. And so began our three-day journey via Landcruiser through the incredible, vast and other-worldly landscapes of south-west Bolivia.
Our first stop was not far out of town, a graveyard of abandoned trains rusting away under the baking desert sky. The dusty golden terrain soon gave way to the salty edges of the Salar de Uyuni, a remarkable, smooth plain of blinding white as far as the eye could see. There were no longer any roads or even tracks, simply faint tyre marks that led us onwards to the horizon. Here a rocky path took us past towering cacti that are all hundreds of years old, the oldest chalking up more than years.
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After lunch we swung around to the south and stopped for some time to mess around on the salar, before heading to our accommodation for the night in a building made almost entirely from salt. We stopped at a lagoon for our first up-close encounter with pink flamingos, just about the only sign of life up here. Having spent long enough driving ancient fall-apart cars and knowing all the hallmarks of trouble, we were fully aware our Landcruiser was on its last legs, our increasingly grumpy driver nursing it along from place to place.
Our third day, however, was the most visually arresting, which was just as well given the 4am start.
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The geysers are m high, bubbling like crazy with thick sulphurous mud and enveloping us in clouds of stinky steam. It was beautiful in the early morning light although still bitterly cold. Thawing recovery was soon at hand though at the wonderful Termas de Polques, a small hot spring pool where we stripped down in freezing conditions and plunged into the best bath of our lives. From here we passed above the m mark for only the second time on our trip before dropping down to the Laguna Verde, a green lake at metres sitting beneath the monumentally imposing Volcan Licancabur m.
Another hour of driving delivered us to the border, where we sadly bid farewell to Bolivia and got our first taste of Chile in the strange but delightful desert outpost that is San Pedro de Atacama. After the tranquil, beautiful Isla Del Sol and magical atmosphere of Lake Titicaca, anywhere was going to inevitably suffer in comparison.
Yet La Paz was certainly one of the more vibrantly appealing cities of our South American time to date, although reminded us that it is the natural beauty of the continent rather than the hectic, complex cities that we enjoy the most. And indeed in many ways La Paz is like a massively overgrown village, the only capital in which we have seen so many people still wearing traditional cultural dress. The city has sprawled through, up and over a deep canyon, with the more affluent areas, unusually, downtown.
Climbing up the steep canyon walls are thousands of makeshift brick homes, housing many of the rural poor who have come to the city in search of opportunities beyond subsistence living. We were treated to a snail-paced city tour thanks to our bus into town arriving just in time to be caught up in a huge street demonstration, supporters of one of the political parties vying for election that weekend marching slowly up the road from La Paz to El Alto.
They would take it in turns to perform a bracket of three or four songs, the first playing some enjoyable original numbers while the other performed popular traditional songs, the small audience joining in and singing what were obviously the shared songs of Bolivian life, singing with far more aplomb than I think we would find at home. Around 5pm on our final day in La Paz, Ben realised what the date was and mentioned to Serena that perhaps some form of occasion-marking may be in order — given that it was our fifth wedding anniversary. Finally deciding on a couple of cocktails and placing our order, the waitress informed us that due to the forthcoming weekend presidential elections, nobody was allowed to serve any alcoholic drinks as of noon that day.
So over a passionfruit juice and a Sprite, we toasted five years. The sheer drop off the side is, however, a long, long way down. We raced across steep cliffs, many corners littered with crosses marking the point where one of the scores of drivers to have plunged off the edge had perished.
If he was still in good shape after all that time, surely the eleven of us would be fine to do the trip once unscathed? The day starts with a light breakfast in a La Paz cafe, the 6. Eat, Pray, Love Elizabeth Gilbert. Walking the Woods and the Water Nick Hunt. Into the Wild Jon Krakauer. The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath. Conquistadors of the Useless Lionel Terray. Inside Vogue Alexandra Shulman. Desert Flower Waris Dirie. Yes Please Amy Poehler. Birding Without Borders Noah Strycker. Setting the Table Danny Meyer. Letter to My Daughter Maya Angelou. Natural Born Keller Amanda Keller. Out of the Depths Israel Meir Lau.
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