It Takes Two to Tango

Aug 13, 2005 – Sat

Today, I decided to take a daytrip to San Ignacio Minì to check out the Jesuit missions ruins. Jesuits from Spain settled in this tri-country region to try to convert the Guaranì people to their religion. Damn religious people! Anyways, the missions of San Ignacio Minì, Santa Ana, and Loreto, to name a few, were built in the 17th and 18th centuries.

It´s pretty easy to get there — just go to the bus terminal and hitch a ride with any bus marked Iguazù or San Ignacio. It was 4 pesos for the one way trips. I hopped on one that said San Ignacio, which brought me to the cathedral there. I had to walk many blocks to the ruins, but it was a nice day, warm and sunny out.

I only went to San Ignacio Minì. It is the most important of the Jesuit ruins in Argentina. Entrance was 12 pesos and included a guided tour. We started out in a building where there was a mural painted by an artist depicting Guaranì images and a display of items used and made by the Guaranì people. We walked through a small museum and saw remains of reliefs from the mission.

Then we commenced the outdoor tour. The grounds of San Ignacio are huge. First, we saw the residential areas, which sprawled and sprawled. Then we came to the main plaza and the church. Much of the ruins are in despair, walls of the church are held up by scaffolding from the inside. However, you can see how huge this place once was.

When the guided tour was over, I ventured on my own on the grounds, weaved my way in and out of the residences and around the stone pillars. It is beautiful there — tall green shady trees surround the area.

I left the grounds and found a heladerìa, ate ice cream, and visited the artisans booths nearby. I walked back to Ruta 12 along the red dirt road to catch the bus back to Posadas.

In the evening, I wanted to watch the sunset over the Costanera, so I walked down to the waterfront. Who knew a river could be so beautiful? I sat where I could see the international bridge. The sky turns pink at the bottom, purplish blue in the middle, and blue at the top. There were sailboats on the water today. I walked down to an area to get a better view of the bridge, and two guys were tying their boat, Mississippi, to a dock. I talked to one of the guys, who was quite surprised I was in Posadas, of all places, for vacation. I told him that I like the smaller cities because they are tranquil.

The kids did not play their drums today. Maybe they´re taking a day off? Many people were gathered at the Costanera to watch the sunset as well. It was a good way to end my stay in Posadas.

Aug 12, 2005 – Fri

In the middle of the night, I changed the alarm to 8am…however, I woke up at 5:55am to some Germans speaking to each other in the dorm, so I got up, got ready, and went to the bus terminal. I was able to get on the bus no problem. It was 23.50 pesos for about a 6 hour journey to Posadas.

I arrived in Posadas with only the information in my Footprints guide, which was not much. I wanted to stop in Posadas to do a daytrip to the San Ignacio Jesuit mission ruins. I went to the info office in the bus terminal to get a map of the city and info about the ruins. The lady told me quite a bit about the city. As I was leaving, she asked me where I was from, so I told her the US. she had an odd reaction, like a grimace of horror. Whatever…

I took a taxi to Hotel Misiones for 7 pesos. They had a single room with private bath available for 25 pesos a night. I went ahead and took it, even though it looked a little ¨dark¨. Posadas is not a backpacker town, that´s for sure. And in non-popular places, it´s hotels. Posadas is a city of about 350,000 people. Not huge, but a decent size. It has a river waterfront along the Rìo Paranà. Across the river is the city of Encarnaciòn in Paraguay.

After getting my bearings, I walked to the Plaza 9 de Julio, ate lunch at a place called Recodo. Pretty cheap — 9 pesos for gnochis a la bolognesa and a licuado of banana and milk (like a banana milk shake). From there, I decided I wanted to see the waterfront, the Costanera.

I walked to the stadium on the costanera, then took a leisurely stroll. I headed towards the International Bridge. The Costanera of Posadas is so beautiful. The walkway is wide. People are walking and jogging for exercise. And there are a lot of Argentines hanging out with friends and family and drinking mate.

Posadas is warm. It´s in a subtropical climate zone. It was sunny out, and about 75-80 degrees F with some humidity. The walk was nice. I walked quite a ways to a roundabout area to get a closer view of the bridge. As I´m walking, a guy yells out, “It´s the American girl” (in English). I turn around, he´s looking at me smiling, and I say, “How do you know?” He says, “You don´t remember me?” I ask him from where and when. He said, “Three years ago” I say, “Belize??” He joked around for a bit and then told me that he saw me in the bus station this morning. He was the guy at the tourist office after me.

I sat down on the bench next to him, and ended up spending the rest of the afternoon to evening talking to him. He´s a 40 year old Italian guy with black curly gelled hair named Fabio. He had been living in Miami for 8 years and had his own tourism agency that he closed in order to pursue a dream of a round the world trip. So far, he was at month 14 and 5 days of his trip, with about 2 months left to go.

Fabio is quite a character. If anyone has travel stories, it´s him. He had never taken a trip longer than 3 weeks before this one. He started in Germany, worked his way through the Ukraine, to Poland, and to Russia where he hopped on the trans Siberian railway to Mongolia. In Mongolia, he took an 18 day tour through the nomadic regions with a company that set up those huge nomadic tents. As he says, there was dust everywhere. One day during the journey, he and the 7 other people on the trip were in the cooking tent. He was the chef for the night. He went to the truck to get a yellow canister of water to add to the pot. He smelled it to make sure it was water, and all seemed fine. He thinks his nose was clogged up with dust and he couldn´t smell properly…because the canister, in reality, contained fuel.

The whole tent blew up. He showed me pictures on his digital camera. Then he showed me picutres of his fried computer. He said that everyone was able to escape unharmed, but the guide had 2nd degree burns as he went to put the fire out.

The story only gets better…(or worse). The owner was furious and demanded damages. He got the police involved. The owner demanded the group pay $11,000 US. the group was held in a prison for 6 days. All their passports were confiscated and they had no idea what would happen to them. For the duration of the 6 days, the police made threats to them and instilled fear. They all called their consulates, but none were helpful. One guy was from Switzerland, and his consolate was able to bargain the price down to $7,000 US. They had to gather the funds via wire transfers from banks. However, the local bank would not give them the entire amount in 1 day, so they had to wait an extra day. They paid the $7,000 and were released.

He had many more stories..which I´m too lazy to talk about. But very interesting. His passport, issued 3 months before starting his trip, was full except for the last 2 pages.

In the evening, teenagers played drums and blew whistles. It was a huge group of teens, like 20-30 playing the drums (boys), and the same amount of girls dancing in unison to the music. It was neat to watch, and added a special character to the city.

A French guy named Pierre, who Fabio had met in Asunciòn ran into us. He´s a teacher in his mid 40´s from the Tolousse (sp?) region, who is going to teach in French Guinea.

We stayed at the costanera till dark, then decided to meet up at 8:45pm to eat at a parrilla. The restaurant was fancy, the food was excellent, and cheap!

Aug 11, 2005

This morning, I changed my accomodations to the Corre Caminos hostel just down the road from Hosterìa los Helechos. Sean was headed back to BsAs this evening.

We decided to check out the Hito Tres Fronteras — where you can see Argentina, Brasil, and Paraguay which are separated by the river Paraná. We visited our friends at Agencia Noelia once again. A guy helped us out and told us we could walk to it. We also discovered that there is more to town! There is actually a town here. We had only explored the immediate area around the bus station.

The walk down to the Hito Tres Fronteras was a leisurly stroll. The landscape — red earth so characteristic of the Missiones region that we had seen thus far. The Hito Tres Fronteras was tranquil. There was only one couple there when we arrived. On the Argentinian side, there is a monument with the Argentinian flag colors, on the Brazil side, the monument is yellow and green, and on the Paraguayan side, the monument is red, white, and blue. It is lush green on all sides, with a few buildings. We enjoyed the sun for a while, then visited the artisans booths nearby.

For lunch, we found a restaurant with an outdoor patio. We split a really yummy cheese, onion, and tomato pizza for 8 pessos — so cheap and so good! There was a crazy guy lurking around, thought, that made me feel uneasy. You could tell he had some problems. He was looking at everyone´s food, pacing back and forth. He took a half empty Sprite bottle from a table that had not been cleared off. He drank the Sprite, paced around people´s tables, paced to the front of the patio, then paced around all the tables. It was an extremely repetative pattern. Crazy man. I just wanted him to go away. After a long time, he finally went away with his Sprite bottle in hand, and walked to a nearby bus stop. There, he paced around the bus stop. But at least he was away from us!!!

We headed back to the hotel to grab Sean´s stuff, then hung out at the hostel. Then later walked to the bus terminal, where we saw the crazy guy again! Sean and I said our goodbyes, and Sean got on the bus to BsAs.

It was nice to travel with him for those 2 weeks. It was his first time in a non-English speaking country. But I tried to make it as easy as possible for him 😉 Gosh, I´m such a good girlfriend :p

Angie and Steve met me at the hostel in the evening. I told them that I had found town, and we went for a walkabout, then went back to the hostel to hang out. We played cards, drank Quilmes, and played pool. It was good times.

I was going to *try* to wake up at 5:55am, so I could get the 6:30am bus to Posadas…

Aug 10, 2005

I was really surprised at how much we were able to do yesterday. Today, we planned on doing the Adventura Nautica — the boat that takes you under the falls, Circuito Inferior, Isla San Martìn, and the Sendero Macuco. We got moving around 1am, ate breakfast at the hosterìa, then headed to the bus station, bought our tix from Noelia again.

This time, the bus bypassed the booth and dropped us off at the entrance, where we all queued up. The 2nd day pass is 15 pesos (half off with validated ticket).

Our first mission was to do the Aventura Nautica boat ride, so we took the train to Estaciòn Cataratas and then walked along the Circuito Inferior. We ran into Angie and Steve, and we planned to meat at the entrance at 6pm. The Circuito Inferior was great. We were able to see the waterfalls in front of us, rather than from above. They are so magnificent. We had pretty cloudy weather yesterday, but today was perfect — warm and very few clouds in the sky. At the waterfalls, you could see a brilliant rainbow from the mist that sprayed up. It is so beautiful there. So many miradors of the different falls.

We went down the path that took us to the Aventura Nautica. We put on our ponchos and put everything else in a drysack that they provided. The wait was not very long, about 10 minutes or so. We jumped on the boat, took our shoes off and put them in another dry sack, as they told us to do. There´s no commentary on board, just a guy taking pictures and video trying to get you to buy it. Our boat driver took us near some of the falls, backed up, went a little way down, then dunked us under the falls. He took us to a few more falls, and the last dunking was under a huge set of falls. Even though I had a poncho on, my ass and back of my legs were soaked. But at least it wasn´t all over! It was such a nice day, so my ass dried pretty quickly.

Since we were already at the boat launch, we decided to take the boat over to Isla San Martìn, just across the river. The boat came and dropped off passengers, but then went away about 50 meters and tied up to a rock. The captain and his mate were taking their lunch break, so we had to wait a bit.

We went over to Isla San Martìn, where people stripped down to dry their clothes from the soaking under the waterfalls. Many people were taking in the sun, some were playing in the river. Sean and I took a snack break and vegged for a while. Then we walked up the many stairs to the pathways along the island. Our first stop was to a mirador of the San Martìn falls. It was so gorgeous. To the left, there was a vibrant rainbow with the lush greenery and waterfalls in the background. Like I said before, no words can describe the stunning beauty of Iguazù Falls.

We walked the rest of the paths of Isla San Martìn, walked back down to shore where the sand is glittery black (basalt rock) and waited for the ferry over. We didn´t make it on the first boat, but were at the beginning of the line for the next one. We were almost squeezed out of the boat by a group of teens who swarmed in and cut everyon off. Annoying little fucks!

We continued on the Circuito Inferior, found Twin Falls, and made our way to an area with eateries. We saw a coatimundi that sneaked behind one of the buildings. Then saw another — it was there because a girl was feeding it crackers. Great. I wanted it to bite her. Her friend was feeding it, too, and the coati climbed up his leg. Stupid people. I took a bathroom break and Sean said that he saw a tapir in the woods.

We didn´t have enough time to do the Sendero Macuco. We found the Sheraton, acted like we were patrons there, and sat on a bench admiring the view they had. We then strolled along the Sendero Verde, where we saw a toucan and three monkeys from far away, then headed towards the entrance. We found Angie and Steve at an eatery having a beer and joined them. We planned on meeting at our hosterìa at 9pm.

The line for the El Practico bus back to town was so long. All 4 of us were able to squeeze on, barely. I ended up feeling a bit claustrophobic and felt like I was going to pass out or throw up. but was able to hold out and got a seat in the front, then started to feel better.

Angie and Steve met us at our hosterìa. We had no idea what to do, and it didn´t seem like a happening place. We visited the artisans down the street and walked around town to find nothing to do. We ended up calling it a night, and I planned to meet them again at Corre Caminos hostel the next evening.

Aug 8, 2005 – Mon

We woke up at 5 am and started walking to the road at 5:30am. We were going to try to catch the El Rapido that left Balcarce at 6:15am. When we got to the house, Mara greeted us, so excited to see us. We thought she would stay at the house, but rather, she followed us all the way out. She refused to go back and stood at our side while w weaited for the bus.

Catching a bus in the dark…is difficult. One El Rapido passed us up. A second bus, don´t know if it was El Rapido or not, signalled like they were going to stop, but went on. We waited a long while, and finally flagged down an El Rapido. We got on, Mara jumped on and Sean had to push her out of the bus (poor dog, probably felt so rejected!). It was standing room only. It must have been the Monday morning commute to Mar del Plata. We had to ride standing up for most of the way (about an hour), then got to the Mar del Plata bus terminal.

That was just the beginning of a long 31 hours of being in transit. We had a layover in Mar del Plata that allowed us to get breakfast and to go to a bakery.

We hopped on our second bus of the day, from Mar del Plata to Buenos Aires — a 5 hour journey. The bus was relatively empty — a few other passengers. Our journey was halted somewhere in the Pampas by police stopping traffic because a rancher was having trouble getting his cattle to cross the road. Yes, there were cows in the road. Some went across the road, and some wouldn´t. The rancher was able to corral them away from the road, and then we were cleared to go.

We had about a 4 hour layover in BsAs. It was a good amount of time to get a few things done, like change money, lunch, find batteries, and get ice cream (Munchis!). We were so hungry for meat after our meals of fruit, luna bars and clif bars, and prepackaged soups, rice, or pasta. Bring on the meat! We ate at a nice restaurant on Florida. We were so grubby — 8 days without a shower, everything dirty. My lunch was so good — chicken with mushroom sauce and mashed potatoes. I was in heaven! In total, our bill was only about 20 something pesos. Not bad for a fancy restaurant!

After internetting and finding batteries, which are really expensive here (9 pesos or $3 for 4 AA´s), we walked over to the Torre de los Ingleses, which was closed. So we headed back to the Terminal de Omnibus. We walked around and looked at the shops there. Cheap bags, cheap shoes. Now I´ve devised a plan…when I come back to BsAs, I´m going shopping! I may have to buy a duffel bag to put my new goodies in! Well, we´ll wait and see how much money I have left over in the end…

We hopped on the Iguazù Tiger Express (part of Via Bariloche) at 6:30pm. It was one of the most comfortable busses I´d been on. Next to us sat a German backpacker who was talking to German backpackers sitting behind us. This guy would not shut up and talked really loud. Sean was headachy, put in the earplugs and tried to take a nap.

The first movie we watched was Million Dollar Baby. I hadn´t seen it, but heard it was good. It was a good movie, but sad in the end. We had dinner which was a full on meal. Best bus meal ever! Then watched a pirated copy of Mr and Mrs Smith. It was a weird movie. But nevertheless was good enough to pass the time (no Predator 5 this time!).

They shut off the lights, so it was bedtime. The seats were amazingly comfortable. I put the earplugs in because there was a baby in the lower level of the bus and people talking several rows behind us. The earplugs worked great. But because I could hear some of the noises, I had weird dreams. At one point of my dreams, I heard clanking of wine bottles on the bus (some people were drinking), but in my dreams it became something else. I had a twilight zone-esque dream — you know the one where the alien thing is on the wing of the plane…well, in my dream, there was a man hanging on to the front of the bus while we were still moving, and he was hitting the front of the bus with a hammer (the clanking sound). Bizarre!

We were woken up to breakfast, which was boring — bread and medialunas. I´ve eaten so many medialunas since I´ve been here! And they put in an awful Argentinian movie. It was so horrible and cheesy. I don´t know what the name of the movie is, but the main character´s family owns a trucking business. Someone sets him up in the airport with drugs, he gets caught, runs from the law with a frenemie and a girl. All of them end up screwing each other and getting their chance to be seminaked on screen. In the end, the frenemie gets arrested, the main character gets applauded by the DEA, and the girl is happy she got to be with the two guys. Horrible, horrible movie!!!

The German guys behind us left at Posadas, so the guy next to us was pretty quiet. We started talking to him. His name is Sebastian from a town close to Hamburg. He was interning in Chile, and now travelling around for a while, but going home soon.

We arrived at Puerto Iguazù around noon — sooner than I thought. I never got a confirmation from Hosterìa los Helechos, so we were going to chance it. It was only 100 meters from the bus terminal anyways, so not that far at all. The neon sign (there are a lot of neon signs in Puerto Iguazù) pointed us in the right direction.

The hosterìa never got my reservation (seems to be a trend here in Argentina!), but luckily had room for us. It´s a 3 star hotel and was 50 pesos per night for the two of us for a double matrimonio room. We figure we could splurge, especially after a week of spending $5-day! Obviously, the very first thing we did was shower. The water was hot and nice. We both showered for a long time, but still didn´t feel clean quite yet. It was nice to have electricity, too. Oh, the creature comforts you miss when you´re away from them for a week!

After getting settled, we ate lunch at Charo (yummy!). We then went to the bus station, went to Agencia Noelia, bought bus tickets to Iguazù National Park (2.80 pesos each way), and got on the next El Practico bus. It was past 2pm already. The bus took us to a booth, where we got out and paid for the entrance tickets (30 pesos, or about $10), then dropped us off in front of the park.

I talked to the lady at the front of the info booth. She gave us an itinerary of things to do — the park closed at 6pm, so activities for today were limited. Upon first impression, Parque Nacional Iguazù seems like a theme park — nice paths, well maintained, souvenir shops and eateries there as well, and a train and boat rides.

A little info about Iguazù…The area of Iguazù was inhabited by the native Guaranì people. The name Iguazù is Guaranì — I = water, Guazù = big. The falls are on the Argentina – Brazil border near where the Rìo Iguazù and the Rio Alto Paranà meet.

The falls have an interesting legend — M´boy an enormous sname, lived in the Iguazù river and ruled with a heavy hand. The people owed M´boy sacrifices — every year, they had to sacrifice the most beautiful maiden to M´boy in the river bed. Naipì was the one to be sacrificed. She fell in love with Tarobà, who rebelled against the tribe and tried to persuade the tribe not to sacrifice her. The day of her sacrifice, Tarobà kidnapped her in his canoe. M´boy, furious, split the riverbed open to form the huge waterfalls where he trapped the lovers. M´boy punished the lovers by changing Naipì into a rock and Tarobà into a palm tree. M´boy dived into the Garganta del Diablo to make sure the lovers did not get together again. However, the rainbow was more powerful and joins the lovers once again. That is the legent of the beautiful rainbosy you can see at the various falls.

Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca was the first white man to see the falls in the 1500´s (I think). There are 275 waterfalls ranging from 40-80 meters tall. In the park lives toucans, jaguars, coatimundi, butterflies, tapirs, and brown capuchin monkeys, amongst many other creatures.

When we entered, there were not many people in sight at all. We hopped on the 3pm Tren de la Selva (free) to Estaciòn Diablo. And there, the people were (on the train and on the 2nd train stop). From there, we went at the crowd´s pace on a 1 km catwalk across the Rio Iguazù to the Garganta del Diablo waterfalls.

The catwalk is a well constructed metal walkway across the expansive river. Closer to Garganta del Diablo, we could see the old catwalk, a rickety looking structure that was destroyed in a flood in 1992. The Garganta del Diablo falls are amazing. No words can describe them. Beautiful, magestic, huge. Wow. The mist from the falls sprays really high. By the Garganta del Diablo — the biggest falls — are a series of many other falls. Across the gorge, you can see the Brazilian side of the park. It is absolutely beautiful and like nothing I have every seen before.

We took the train to Estaciòn Cataratas and walked the Circuito Superior, which goes above the waterfalls. We saw the Bossetti, Bernabè Mandez, Mbiguà, and San Martìn falls from above. We also watched the boats take people into the San Martìn falls. Along the catwalk, we spotted 2 toucans high in the trees.

From ther, we walked back to the entrance via the Sendero Verde, where we saw a few monkeys in the trees. The park was closing, so we had to leave. Everyone was leaving at the same time, so we all packed into the El Practico bus. We were squeezed so tightly, and Sean and I were standing near the front. I had my hand on a waist-level pole, and a guy was sitting on my hand. I just hoped that he wouldn´t fart on my hand. It was already akward enough!

Puerto Iguazù is pretty small, and there´s not much to do. We ate dinner at Pizza Color, which was more expensive than Charo.

Aug 7, 2005 – Sun

I love earplugs! Last night, I woke up to pee at some odd hour in the morning. They Realization group was partying hard throughout the night. All I heard was singing, shouting, and screaming. I love earplugs!

Today was another clear day, but it was cold as hell! I don´t know what the overnight low was, but it was 45 degrees when I woke up. We hit the walls earlier today. We went to Centro C to explore the routes that were taken yesterday. It was so damn cold!

Sean lead a route, one we believe to be a 5.10b. I had to belay with gloves on because I couldn´t feel my fingers otherwise. I followed and cleaned the route. It was really hard. I struggled at the bottom part, but eventually made it up. When I started climbing the route, my fingers were so frozen that I couldn´t feel them…I knew I was on the rock, but couldn´t feel the pressure on my fingers.

When I cleaned the top (taking quickdraws off, setting up the rappel), I tied a loose figure 8 knot in the end of the rope (an extra precaution, just in case the rope somehow manages to work it´s way back up, it will catch). I rappelled down. Then Sean began to pull the rope, with the knot still in it. I yelled at him to stop because I saw the figer 8. It was now some 10 feet or so off the ground. Shit. Now what?

I couldn´t help snickering at the whole situation because it was quite funny – the predicament we got ourselves into. We founda huge tree branch with other branches off of it. Long story short, Sean was able to untie the figure 8 with the branch (after many tries). Then we figured we should both stick to the same routine (he does not tie a knot at the end). Yes, a learning experience indeed!

The weather was unpredictable. It started out really sunny, then the clouds rolled in. It looked like it was raining in the distance, but there were bits of blue sky as well. One thing for sure, it was damn cold!!!

There was a large crack that I wanted to climb, so Sean hiked to the top of the sierra to set up a toprope. He had to sling into a tree to set it up, but only had one sling. So he lowered the rope and I tied another sling to it. While he was setting up the toprope, it started hailing. Not thunderstorm hailing, but hailing because it was so cold outside, ice, rather than rain, was falling from the sky in small pellets. I had to move all of our stuff below a sheltered roof nearby and hid there as well.

Sean hiked down all wet. The hail had let up (it was only a few minutes), and I jumped on the crack route. I really wanted to climb the feature. I was able to use leg jams, foot jams, and hand jams in the crack. It was nice to climb because many cracks are trad only — nice to use those techniques every once in a while.

Sean ended up climbing the right face, rather than the crack. After that, we rapped it up because we wanted to get back to the refugio to pack when it was still light out.

It was our last night at La Vigilancia. We paid our bill, but they only charged us 150 pesos for the both of us for 7 days, so we tipped Mauricio and Fernanda 50 pesos. Still dirt cheap! Most of the Realization group had left. Only 4, irresponsible annoying people of the group were left and a couple who seemed to be on their own. Fernanda had left as well, so there was no one working there. Those 4 people, I described l ike that, because: they clogged one of the toilets with toilet paper (when the sign says to throw the TP in the trash can), one of them was smoking inside the refugio (when there are no smoking signs everywhere), and they were really loud. We had visions of the 4 leaving the place in shambles.

Wow, that situation was overwhelming. Anyways, walked a few blocks to a different place that doesn´t smell like shit (literally)!!! I have a weak stomach when it comes to those things!

I am in Resistencia right now. Found a cute sandwicheria and had the best chicken burger ever. They have internet as well,in the back. Someone broke the mens bathroom and it smells so bad like sewage, it is ruining my dinner…have to find another internet place before I hurl..it is so gross. Feel sorry for the guy cleaning up the mess!

Yesterday, I found my clothes wet from my camelback leaking on it, so I hung a few clothes up and laid the rest out on the dorm bunk, thinking that no one would show up in the middle of the night.

I awoke at 5am to what seemed to be an invasion of headlights. Fuck, about 15 people showed up. I hopped out of my sleeping bag in the frigid 45 degree dorm only in a tank top and leggings, quickly moved my stuff over. It was such a mess. Jesus, what are these people doing, showing up at 5am!!! Not a pleasant way to wake up…went back to bed for a few more hours.

When we were up and about, we saw tents pitched behind the refugio as well. The number of newcomers was around 20 something, all who showed up at 5am. Our tranquility was gone, just like that.

The group that came was from BsAs, and climbed at Realization — ironically, the gym I would have gone to had I made it out in BsAs.

Today was a sunny day – finally! Not one cloud in the sky. It seemed that all that rain the night before pushed a storm system out of the area. We were not sure if the rock would be wet or climbable, but decided to take our gear anyways.

We hiked up to Centro C to find the group of climbers climbing. We looked at the routes they were climbing, and they didn´t look difficult. And watching them climb — it seemed to be a gym outing with novices. I asked one girl which wall and route it was. She pointed me to ask a guy. He asked if I had the topos, so I told Sean, ¨Can you get them out for me¨(in English, of course). The guy told us we were in the bosque in Centro C. It seemed that the topos were old, and there were many new, easier routes.

One girl heard us speak English to each other, and asked where we were from. Her name is Marisa, too, a blonde girl from Michigan studying abroad in Argentina and dating one of the owners of the Realization gym.

We hiked on through a little trodden and overgrown path to the Baticueva wall to look for one route in particular to climb, looked to be about a 5.7 or 5.8. We finally found the route, only to discover it was the only wet route on Baticueva! The water dripped right down it, so we hiked back to Centro C.

The Realization group was hogging many of the routes, so we hopped on a few empty ones. Two of them were about a 5.8. The first one only had 1 bolt at the top. I was pretty worried about it, but the bolt held. The next one, the two bolts at the top were uneven (one was a few inches higher than the other). And the last route we did seemed to be about a 5.9. It was a technical and very fun route.

We wanted to head back to the refugio before the big group, so that we wouldn´t be crowded out of the kitchen. The group ended up having a huge asado outdoors. We talked to Marisa, then kept to ourselves and talked with Fernanda, a girl who works there on the weekends. Fernanda is really sweet and cute. She is the ping pong queen of the refugio. Sean played a few ping pong matches with her.

When it was bedtime, the earplugs came out…

Aug 5, 2005 – Fri

It poured down rain throughout the entire night and didn´t stop till Friday evening. This was a day of doing nothing and vegging around. We hung out with Mauricio and his mom and her friend in the common room, doing much of nothing.

One neat thing was that we could see a waterfall cascading off the side of the sierra — a waterfall that only appears when it rains alot.

Sean, Mauricio, and I hit up the bouldering room and played around. Mauricio had determination to finish this one route. He was wearing sneakers, then changed to slippers and was able to finish the route.

Rain rain rain rain rain!