Buenos Aires to Puerto Natales

I spent two days in Buenos Aires with Mom and Dad, living large. We went to a tango show, ate at fancy restaurants, and stayed in a hotel next to the Cartier and Louis Vuitton stores. Then Mom and Dad returned to the U.S., and I was forced to relocate from the air-conditioned hotel to a $10/night, 8-bed dorm room in a hostel.

Later that night I met up with Kelly, a friend from high school who was living in Buenos Aires teaching English.

The next day, a friend from college, Caitlin (best pronounced with a thick Scottish accent: KHET-lin), arrived for a two-week stint. We wandered around the city for a couple days.

One of the neighborhoods we walked through was San Telmo, famous for its antiques. Because a lot of Nazis fled to Argentina after the war, whenever I see the displays, I always wonder how much of it had been stolen from Jewish families. There's no way to know.

We patronized an English bookstore.

All over BA, ads promoting the final season of LOST taunted me.

Argentines love mate so much that the mate selection fills an entire aisle at the supermarket.

Argentines are also most adamant about the Islas Malvinas belonging to Argentina, not the UK, as noted by this banner in the Plaza 25 de Mayo.

And by this sign at the Chilean border.

After Buenos Aires, Caitlin and I flew to El Calafate, Argentina, where we very nearly got hosed. January/February is high season for Southern Patagonia. As such, bus tickets to Puerto Natales, Chile, the town at the entrance to Torres del Paine National Park (a five-hour drive from El Calafate), were sold out for the next morning. Luckily, we scored tickets on the evening bus, which would arrive in Purto Natales at 10:00pm. Bus tickets purchased, we set out to find a hostel in El Calafate, lumbering in the classic backpacks-on-backs, pregnant-with-daypacks manner. First hostel: full. Second hostel: full. It started to rain, and we became desperate and disheartened. Third hostel: full. Finally we found a room, and promptly enjoyed a much deserved artisinal beer.

Chile is, understandably, super uptight about bringing into the country produce, meat, or anything that could mess up their agriculture industry. They tried to steal our food at the border, but we wolfed it down instead.

I was delighted to find that the street signs in Puerto Natales inexplicably have Ghost Busters silhouettes on them. Later we discovered that they weren't Ghost Busters ghosts at all, but some extinct bear from the region. Lame.

We stocked up on dried fruit and nuts for the hike.

I like to take pictures of sign fails, like this one for UV-protective underwear.

Or this one for TIT, the flavor of Patagonia.