Treking Down To The Bottom of The Globe

Hola again.  Its been a while since my last post but today I have somw free time and a good internet connection, which is quite rare in these parts.  One of the most exciting things about going to Patagonia is "being off the map" but it doesnt sink in that doing that includes no wifi, no internet, pretty much todos los dias haha.  Anyways I did a little bit of journaling during my recent trip down to El Chalten.  I'm going to copy what i wrote onto this for you guys.


'I woke up ion the second deck of the omnibus i was taking from zapala tto san martin de los andes. I peer out my window to see a steady swarm of people mobbing in a slow walk across the bus' path down the entire cross street.  After 5-10 minutes there is a gap in the people enough for the bus to pull forward and part the sea.  I look down the road and the people seem to go on for many blocks.
Fifteen minutes later I have arrived at the bus station in San Martin and look for a bus that will take me to Bariloche, the launch pad place for the one bus that will take me south to El Chalten.  All the kiosks are closed until 10am tomorrow except for one.  The one kiosk that is open tells me all the buses to Bariloche are sold out for tomorrow.  So I decide to walk outsie and come to find I am very close to the epicenter where all the people are heading.  I decided to see what all the commotion was abput.  I walk towards the mariache/tango/rock music and take in what I see.  Not much is going on, it seems everyone is waiting for something....
I continue to walk and see in the shadows a large group of people standing and facing a darkness.  I approach the edge of the crowd and post up at the base of a tree, standing on its roots to get a better view.  In front of me are thousands of people pearing out onto a lake.  I hear two girls next to me talking in spanish about the new year.  After about 15 minutes the crowd is becoming a little restless, there is clapping and cheering and a boat begins pointing its search light into the crowd.
Then it begins, fireworks start shooting out from the side of the lake above everyone like a misty storm of lights.  They are really cool.  Bright, loud, and ones with long long tails that stay lit all the way until they hit the water.  It was very nice, and quite calming compared to firework shows i have seen in the usa.  The grand finale was what was really special.  The sky was overloaded with the long streamer fireworks and it was like watching lava falling from the sky.  But not scary lava from a volcanoe, but cotton candy lava splashing into the lake a lighting up the entire crowd and surrounding area.  What a night, and how unexpected.  Tomorrow should be just as interesting though, it lloks like i will have to hitchike through the lake district to get to Bariloche on time.'

The pictures are of the lake and San Martin de Los Andes, where the fireworks were.  I ended up hitchiking to Villa La Angusturo about two hours away from Bariloche the next day.  There were many young Argentinians vacationing in the area, so there were a lot of hitchhikers out which made it difficult to get a ride.  There are seven lakes between San Martin and Bariloche, many Portenos, people from Buenos Aires camp for a couple weeks, spending a couple nights at each lake and hitchiking to the next lake until they have done all seven.  When I got to Villa La Angusturo, I then took a bus to get to Bariloche at midnight.  The bus station was closed so I camped out overnight at the Bariloche bus station.  The last picture is the sunrise I woke up to there.