Bad Chopper South America Tour Journal Part 3

My flight to El Calafate was delayed, so I got in a couple hours later than I was supposed to. Asked someone at the airport about a cheap place to stay and they put me on a bus that would take me to the center of town and told me to just look around. On the bus I met a couple of Spaniards who helped me out a lot, translating to the driver. Astoundingly, when they found out where I was from, the guy said he was recently in Massachusetts for work, in LOWELL, no less!!! I could not believe my ears. What are the fucking odds? I told him I live two houses from the Lowell line. Absolutely unbelievable. The bus driver dropped me off at this nice place where I got a good room for a decent price. It was much, much warmer down here than I expected it to be. It was cool, but not even cold, really. Washed some socks and underwear in the sink with some detergent CJ gave me.

The lady at the reception helped me sort out an excursion for today, my one day here. Unfortunately I was too late to book a walk on the glacier (damn delayed flight). All I could do is take this sightseeing trip, which I did today. We took a bus to the Perito Moreno glacier, spent a couple hours walking the viewing balconies, had lunch, then took a boat trip up to the edge of the glacier. It was damn cool. I've been up close to a glacier in Iceland before, but this was different. This was a much better and more dramatic view. Hearing pieces, even small ones, break free and crash into the water was profound. Like gunshots and thunderous roars amongst the perfect stillness of the peaceful surroundings.

Heading out to the glacier	Entering the Los Glaciares National Park	First sight of the Perito Moreno Glacier	Views from the first balcony
Views from the closer second balcony	Views from yet another balcony	More miscellaneous shots	Shots from the boat on the Brazo Rico

Got back here with a few hours of daylight left in which to walk around the city a bit. Now I'm sitting in a café drinking some tea with honey to nurse a sore throat that's come on in the past few hours. Trying to tell them I wanted honey proved difficult. I ended up having to make a buzzing sound like a bee to get them to understand. Anyway, I'm waiting for a restaurant to open in a half hour so I have some time to kill. This town is kinda strange. It's kinda run down and dumpy-looking, but there seems to be a lot of nice restaurants and stores among the shabby surroundings. All in all things are going really well down here so far. Hopefully this sore throat doesn't develop into something more debilitating. It's definitely very cool being down here on my own. I'm really excited about Ushuaia. Hopefully it goes as well as here. My room here is really nice and is only like $40 a night. It has everything except soap, so I unfortunately had to use the bar I took from Hotel Los Angeles as a memento. Amazingly, it did not ooze blood, bile, or some other vile humor upon use. It remains to be seen whether I become afflicted with some mortal rash or flesh-eating virus. Stay tuned.

Shots around El Calafate

Stopping in a cozy café for some mate

The restaurant I wanted to eat at

The restaurant I ended up eating at

My hostel in El Calafate

The one restaurant I wanted to eat at, which had live tango shows, was mysteriously closed all night, so I ended up getting a decent meal of Patagonian lamb at another nearby place. Took the shuttle to the airport the next morning and caught my flight to Ushuaia. Arranged a hotel at the airport and got a taxi there. Again, it wasn't really cold here either. Amazing. Either this is some kind of fluke or there's some natural mechanism at work here, like the jet stream, making the climate milder than one would expect. Also, the city is much bigger and more extensive than I expected. I expected it to be a pretty small, remote outpost, but there are over 50 thousand inhabitants and a pretty strong tourism infrastructure. My hotel here is about $20 more expensive than in El Calafate, and it's really fucking nice. It's almost like an apartment, with a kitchen/bar area and a sleeping alcove and guest bed. Certainly way, way nicer than I was planning on. I told Mariano I wanted to stay as cheaply as possible down here, staying at hostels or whatever. Now, though, I'm opting for a little comfort and cleanliness. The tour took a lot out of me, so I don't know if I could really rough it at this point. Especially now that I've become sick, it appears I made the right choice.

Heading to the airport

The angular airport in El Calafate

Touching down in Ushuaia

My spacious hotel room

I got into Ushuaia a lot earlier than I did El Calafate, around 13:00, and was determined to make the most of the extra time. The weather was good when I landed, so I took a taxi up to the chair lift up towards Martial Glacier. Only while actually on the way up, sitting next to a snowboarder, was I informed that there is no glacier. They just call it that for some inscrutable reason. It's just a snowfield in a mountainous valley. The lift services a ski area. I got off at the top and walked maybe another mile up past the tree line to try to get some good views. It was OK, but not at all what I hoped/expected.

My hotel and environs

Riding the chairlift up towards Martial "Glacier"

Shots from my highest point

The cool little café at the top of the chairlift

Punto Panorámico in the center of the city

Came back down and visited the Maritime Museum which is housed in the old prison that operated down here from 1902 to 1947. The museum is primarily about the prison, but also about the history of ships in the area and local wildlife of Tierra Del Fuego and Antarctica. It was very interesting, but too much to take in in the couple hours I had. For me the most impressive thing was visiting one of the prison wings that were left in their original condition. Pretty stark.

The main street San Martin

The naval area around the prison/museum

Inside the prison/museum

The unrestored section

Left there around 20:00 feeling like shit and vowing to just get something to eat, get back to the hotel, do some writing, call home, and get a good night's sleep. Didn't quite work out like that. While walking down the main street trying to decide where to eat, this punk kid and his girlfriend notice me wearing my leather jacket and start talking to me. They don't speak a word of English, though, so I have no idea what they're saying. I'm just astounded to see punks here. Soon, a third punker comes bounding over, decked out in a leather jacket, Misfits patches, Ramones shirt. I can't believe this. This guy, Mario I think his name was, speaks a little English and tells me they're going to a show at a nearby club. Despite my better judgment I decide to go after dinner. I just have to see what goes on here.

I get to the club to find a bunch of assorted rockers/punks hanging around outside. One, very drunk, pesters me for a dollar for some wine. I go in the club and am immediately arrested by the sight of literally dozens of people in Ramones shirts. They were everywhere! I tried telling Mario, the only person so far who spoke really any English, that I had just finished a tour with CJ Ramone's new band, but I don't think he understood what I was saying. The place was pretty hopping for the local, opening band, but when the headliners played, the crowd went fucking apeshit. I was incredulous at this scene. I never expected anything like this down here. I expected a bunch of salty old fishermen and tiny little hovels, not a lively punk rock scene where you could throw a stone in any direction and hit someone wearing a Ramones shirt. We should've fucking played down here! Who would've known?!?

As interesting as this was, I was really regretting my decision to go to the show. I had hoped that the people I met would be more chummy, but they just kept to themselves. I don't know if it was my physical state, but the headliners seemed to play FOREVER! I kept thinking, "OK, this has to be their last song," but they just kept playing and playing and playing. I wanted to hang out to the end of the show in hopes that the people I met might want to exchange information or something, but I couldn't stand it. The band just kept playing, it was so hot and smoky in there, and I was tired and sick, but the crowd just became more and more frenzied. I went outside for some fresh air and was just about to leave when the show finished, around midnight. I waited for the people I met to come out. When they did they just sorta walked away from me without saying anything. I just went back to the hotel dreading the damage I did to my health by going to this show.

Woke up around 8:00 and got down to business. Showered then went to book some trips. I was able to book 3 excursions for today and tomorrow. I tell ya, I am absolutely making the most of my time here!

Man, I've really run myself fucking ragged. Took a cruise out into the Beagle Channel yesterday, then went on a little venture up into the mountains north of town. Took a bus to a winter resort, then we rode dog sleds out into the woods to this big teepee-like structure where we sat around a bonfire, ate, drank wine, and sang songs. It was fucking awesome, man. Anyway, on the way back, it was just me and two other people walking back to the resort on snowshoes. The night was nice and clear and I finally got to see the southern sky away from the city lights, in all its stupendous glory. It was unreal. I've never seen anything like it. I actually saw the Milky Way for the first time. It was very faint. I thought it would be more prominent, but it almost looked like it could've just been a wispy cloud in the sky. But the profusion of stars was just amazing. Had to be a least 10 times more than I've ever seen gazing at the night sky in the northern hemisphere.

Boat trip on the Beagle Channel	The first island, Isla De Los Pájaros, full of seals and birds	The second island, Isla De Los Lobos	Faro Les Eclaireurs, the southernmost lighthouse in the world	On the boat
Heading back to Ushuaia	The lodge	The dog sled trip	The campfire	My two companions on the walk back to the lodge

Got back to the hotel pretty late, after midnight, but strangely feeling not too bad. Certainly much better than the night before. Woke up feeling like shit, though. Barely able to get up and take a shower and be ready for the bus to pick me up to go to the Tierra Del Fuego National Park at 9:00. This excursion included a ride on a reconstruction of the last 7 km of the infamous prisoner train which brought prisoners into the woods near the Chilean border to cut lumber for the town's construction and power and whatnot. Like everything down here it's referred to by its extreme southern location and called the Train At The End Of The World, the southernmost train on Earth. The small, old-fashioned, steam-powered train ground it's way slowly through what they refer to as "the tree cemetary", where stumps of trees cut down by prisoners as long as 80 years ago still scar and define the region. The rail runs along the meandering Pipo River, a languid, sickly-rusty-pale-yellowy river that doesn't so much run as ooze through this somber landscape. The music playing in the train further set a tone of gravity and unpleasant nostalgia. The hot chocolate they served us at halfway point Macarena Station didn't really soften the mood.

The train station and environs

On the train

Views along the route of the tree cemetary

Stopping at Macarena Station

Back on the route

At the end of the track, the bus was waiting to take us further into the park, all the way to Lapataia Bay, Lago Roca, and basically the border with Chile as defined by a seemingly-arbitrary longitudinal line. All were breathtakingly beautiful, so I'll just let the pictures do the talking. I was dropped off back in Ushuaia by the bay where I was told I could find beaver served at restaurant Volver. Not able to resist such an unusual offering, I inquired, only to find out that it's only served raw, carpaccio style. I wasn't feeling that adventurous, so I had a great big plate of king crab that was excellent. My final stop was at the Yámana Museum. The Yámana were the indigenous people in the region before the Europeans came. Unlike pretty much all of the other indigenous tribes of Patagonia, the Yámana weren't ethnically cleansed out of existence, but rather killed by European diseases and attempts to "civilize" them. Amazingly, they lived way down here near the Antarctic without clothing. They managed to pretty much always be near a fire, and used seal fat to coat their skin, keeping them dry.

Lago Roca	Walking to the nearby campsite	Back on the road, heading toward the bay	The absolute end of the road. This road (route 3) runs all the way from Alaska and ends up here at the tip of South America!
Lapataia Bay	Heading back to Ushuaia	Down by the naval base	Substitute for beaver dinner

It was a lot colder yesterday and today than it was the day I arrived. Not really a welcome change given my sick and weakened condition. Thank god this was all I had time for, because I needed to stop and just go lay down in the hotel to await my taxi ride to the airport. I can't believe I'm still conscious. Now I'm at the Ushuaia airport and my flight to Buenos Aires has been delayed. So instead of getting in at 1:15, it'll be more like 2:00, which means I probably won't be able to actually go to sleep until around 3:00. Fucking great. Just what I need.

Enjoying a hot chocolate before leaving for the airport

Finally boarding the plane

The flight from Ushuaia to Buenos Aires was only supposed to be delayed 45 minutes, but it ended up being 2 hours, so instead of arriving at the inconvenient time of 1:15, I got in at the ungodly hour of around 3:30. Given my physical state this was exceedingly hard to bear. After an hour or two on the flight my discomfort progressed to heretofore unknown realms of sinus pain. Imagine my horror when, after all this, I got off the plane to find no one waiting for me. Mariano was supposed to pick me up and drive me to some local fans' apartment who, several days prior via email, offered to put me up for the night and show me around the city on my final day in South America (I didn't know these people but couldn't resist the offer). Of course, Mariano did show up to pick me up at the original time, but couldn't hang around until after 3:00 to receive me. Before leaving he arranged a taxi to take me to the girls' place, but I had no way of knowing this. After about 15 extremely miserable, frustrating minutes of trying to reach him and figure out what the hell was going on with no one speaking English (and my own voice reduced to a pathetic croak at this point), someone finally came over from the taxi service and I was whisked way into the city to the girls' apartment.

It must have been after 4:00 by the time I got there. I felt, looked, and sounded like absolute shit and was convinced as I rang their bell that this was a mistake. I was not going to be any kind of remotely good company for these good-natured fans. I never expected when I took them up on their offer that I would show up in such a demolished state, not to mention two hours later than the original, already late hour. The girls, Fernanda and her friend Virginia, proved to be supreme hosts, making me feel welcome and comfortable despite everything. I must've looked and sounded like I had just washed up on some beach somewhere as we sat and chatted and had some drinks before finally turning in around 5:00. It was definitely one of the most grueling nights I've ever endured.

I dragged my tortured, sickened body out of bed around 11:00 and took a shower. After a quick breakfast of coffee and pastries we set out into the city to make the most of what little time we had. Just to add to the misery, it began to rain soon after we got on our way. So ebullient and uplifting, though, was the girls' company, that it took the edge off of the sickness, exhaustion, and general shittiness I felt. I began to think this was a good move after all. A very nice cap on the end of the trip instead of grinding down in solitude in some hotel somewhere.

The girls took me to some historical sights and just generally important places in the city that I had never had the chance to see the three previous times I was there. They even bought me lunch and some snacks. Just incredibly nice. We unfortunately didn't have time to check out even close to all the places they wanted to show me. My flight to New York was at 20:15 and I had to meet Mariano to get all the rest of my luggage he was holding for me. He met us at the apartment and before long it was time for me to go. I bid fond adieu to everyone and got a taxi to the airport. In my condition I was naturally dreading this 10-hour overnight flight, but all I could do is sit there with a resigned thousand-mile stare when they announced, after we had already boarded, that there was going to be a two-hour delay. Somehow, thankfully, I made it through with less agony than the previous night's flight.

Fernanda & Virginia on the subway	Sights around the city	Enjoying a fabulous lunch	Group shot
The incredible Metropolitan Cathedral	Group shot back on the subway via vandalized mirror	With Mariano back at the apartment	On the way to the airport

Now I sit in the airport in New York awaiting my 16th and final flight back to Boston. Time to reflect on the whole trip, I suppose. It's a bit hard to think beyond my beaten and battered condition, the inevitable result of burning the candle at both ends for 3 weeks straight (not to mention all the fucking crazy stress and insanity in the weeks and months immediately preceding the tour, but that's another story entirely), but this has definitely been one of the most incredible experiences of my life. A whirlwind, to be sure. Chaotic, exhausting, sometimes miserable, but well worth it in light of all the incredible shows we played, great people we met, and amazing experiences we had. These are the kind of memories and experiences that stick with you for a lifetime. I hope I get the opportunity to do it again. I just need like a month to recuperate. Unfortunately, I'm only back home for 5 days before I leave for Greenland for 3 weeks. Hopefully I can recover in that narrow window. Man, I am fucking beat!!