Climbing Mount Tronador

So post Spanish school in Bariloche I hunkered down in the Marco Polo hostel with my buddies Sean and James from Colorado to plan our ascent of Mt. Tronador. The peak you see below in the front right foreground is Pico Argentina, which is actually a little shorter then the international peak to its left. However, because of increased rockfall from melting glacial ice during this hot summer, we had to choose to summit Tronador's Pico Argentina.

It ended up being all we could handle. On the first day we hiked up to a refugio, a mountain hut, at the base of the huge glacier that covers Tronador. We ended up forming a summit team there with a very nice couple who were park rangers at Yosemite in the US. The five of us started at 5 in the morning and traversed across the glacier in rope teams until around 10 when we reached the saddle between the two peaks. The glacier was gorgeous and we saw some huge crevasses to remind us why we were tied into ropes.

The only technical part came during the last 20 meters of climbing. Here is was a nearly vertical wall of loose rock and ice mixed together. Not great climbing conditions. A guide who was taking up a client that day turned around in front of us unwilling to take the risk. Chris, the husband in the park ranger two-some we had linked up with, was willing to lead this section of this climb and set up some protection by using some ice screws. We were all able to make the climb without falling but the shear exposure was terrifying, ice screws or no ice screws protecting us.

We all peaked out, repelled down the ice/rock pitch, and then traversed the glacier back home. It was an amazing climb, an a totally unique experience to be surrounded by such an alien landscape as a glacier. I was super lucky to have a great group of friends willing to take me.




A view of Pico Argentina, front right, from the glacier below



Climbing up to the saddle between the two peaks

Chris leads the way climbing the last vertical pitch


James and I celebrate on the summit

The beginning of the repel down from the summit

Some steep snow, but so much easier coming down

Crampons help, but you don't wont to slip . . . the drop off is pretty sheer to the right


A last stop on the snow before reaching the refugio


Let me introduce you to the staff which had a hot meal waiting for us back at the refugio.

Spanish School Bariloche, Argentina

Bariloche has been an amazing experience and as such I have not update my blog in nearly five weeks. Here is the whirlwind tour though the past month !

First to orient you guys check out the map below of Argentina, where you will find Bariloche in the southwest in the Lake District of the Patagonia along the border with Chile.




Looking down from the Cerro Otto hill to the town of Bariloche and the giant Lake Naheul Huapi

I spent the first three weeks attending Spanish class 8:30 to 12:30 Monday through Friday at the A.I.E Patagonia Spanish language school. For those of you wanting to improve and live in an awesome place check out the school at http://www.patagoniaspanish.com/. Class for the first week was one-on-one and for the second two weeks there was only one other student.

Learning Spanish with my teacher Carina

While I was in class I was living with a family. My Senora was an incredibly nice woman who has one grown son and two beautiful grandkids. Her granddaughter Delfina was always at the house and was a wonderful three year old playmate and Spanish teacher for me. We were fond of watching Discovery Kids in Spanish together, with our favorite program being Backyardagins. I had my own room in Teresa's house, got a homemade dinner every night, and even got to join in on a festive asado (BBQ) at the lake side house of a family friend of Teresa's.

Delifna rolls her father down the hill at the asado while Teresa looks on at her son and grandchild at play.

During the weekends Bariloche offered tons of opportunites for play. We had a great core group of students that got along really well. There were my two mountaineer buddies from Colorado, James and Sean, and the adventurous Allesandra from Italy. The four of us did lots of activities together including trekking between Mountain huts, rockclimbing, relaxing at the many lake beaches and even wakeboarding.

The whole crew of Sean, James, Alessandra, and Me before our two night three day trek through the mountain refugios (huts) of Bariloche

The view from Refugio Frey looking out at the Cathedral Spire

James, Sean and I before hiking down from Lake Jacob

Working my way up the rockwall

Sean and I pose with our wakeboarding local friends German and Mario

A glimpse of relaxing on the beach of Lake Nahuel Huapi

Six Days in Santiago, Chile

My flight to South America is out of San Jose, Costa Rica and arrives eight hours later in Santiago, Chile after a quick stop through the airport in Lima. All of a sudden my travels feel like an adventure again. Left behind are the American familiarities always present in Costa Rica- our 51st state ? Starting this new phase of my adventure, I feel a bit alone, like no one knows who I am or anything about me, and I like it. I look forward to getting lost and seeing which way things take me in South America. But, of course, the first stop is a familiar one in Santiago.

I am staying with Jane Hong. Jane and I, besides being connected through my sister, have also shared parts of both high school and college together- so she knows me pretty well. She also knows the city after 6 months there and has an amazingly comfortable couch, so I was perfectly content for my six day sleepover.

I explored some of the local city neighborhoods-barrios- during the day while Jane was at work. One day I tracked down the famous Casa Roja hostel that had been started in a an old run down mansion. I snuck in to read my book by the swimming pool hidden in the spacious open air quadrangle behind the house.

I spent that gorgeous afternoon finishing War and Peace, which I had been working at assiduously throughout Costa Rica. At first I had struggled to find the connection between early 19th century tsarist Russia and traveling in tropical surf hostels, but eventually Tolstoy’s universal relevance won me over. By the end, I felt no other book could have possibly been more relevant to my current time and place. Tolstoy gets to the heart of what we seek in life and explores our often unarticulated conceptions of happiness, purpose, duty, and hope.

Jane and I had a great time during our week. We ate out every night and had a great time bonding over delicious, though certainly American priced, food. We also had two nights out one the town. The first, we were joined by my former Princeton OA compatriot Alisha ‘the wizared . Though we went to a dance club in search of 80s music, we ended up primarily finding extremely strong Piscolas, local grape liquor mixed with coke, that had us staggering for a cab well before the dance floor hit its groove. The second night Jane and I flew solo to a jazz club and made up for lost time listening to covers of Bary White, Elvis, and that song from Ghost. We were the butt end of many of the crooners jokes which somehow made us popular with the local Chilean crowed and led to late night dancing and a generally good time.

Santiago seemed a very modern city. The are of Los Condes where Jane lived is the financial center and is dotted with skyscrapers and bankers in suits walking in between. It really seemed not to much unlike NYC. Since I am just getting my feet wet on the South American experience, Santiago made a good place to start



View of the pool in hostel Casa Rojo

Looking down a main street in Los Condes

A chilean BMX biker in a bark in Barrio Brasil

Out on the porch with the Wizard at Janes

Jane and me out at the bars


Dinner at a Chilean Italian place, I of course was wearing my one outfit which I purchased there to augment the wordrobe of boardshorts and t-shirts i had brought from Costa Rica

Puerto Viejo and Goodbye Central America

I took the bus north with my buddy Ryan from Bocas del Toro, Panama back across the border to Puerto Viejo on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast. We left on January 8th giving us roughly a week before my flight to Chile out of San Jose on the 14th.

Ryan and I stayed at the Cabinas Tesoros right on Cocles Beach where we scored our own private dorm room for just 9 bucks a night. It was a sweet set up because it was only a 2 minute walk to the beach break which we planned to be surfing every day. We got good surf for our first two days in Puerto Viejo but as the waves died out the partying, live music, and late night reggae bar scene quickly moved in to take its place. Joining us on this Caribbean party bender were: my old traveling buddy Tim from Holland (see Nicoya Peninsula entry) who I re-bumped into at Rocking J's hostel, his buddy Lawrence, and two fellow traveling Americans- Vicky and Liz from Vermont. We got great weather for our 5 days which kept everyone in great spirits after having endured the Caribbean rain the past few weeks in Bocas.

The beach break at Cocles in Puerto Viejo

My final two days in Central America were spent in San Jose at the Tranquillo hostel. Here we linked up with our friend Jason from Bocas and continued the theme of lazy days and late nights. We watched the NFL playoffs and gambled at the infamous Del Rey Casino, drank cocktails poolside at the Mariott- thanks Jason's grandparents- and even spent one night attempting to penetrate the San Jose dance club scene. At the advice of our buddy Kenny, a Norwegian surfer, we were told to blow air out of our lips with a 'ssssssssing' sound to attract the local chicas. Needless to say we were lucky to escape with our lives.

It was a great time with a great group and a memory filled way to end my 3 month journey through Central America. The next stop is Chile to visit Jane for a week then on to language school in San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina for a month.



Ryan, Lawrence, Tim, and I in a pool grudge match at Rocking Js


Tim and I reminiscing about our previous travels


This picture only cost me 3,000 colones

Kenny, Liz, Ryan, Vicky, Me, and Jason all enjoying the Mariott

Aqua Lounge Bocas del Toro

I rang in the start of my solo travels and the first week of 2008 in Bocas del Toro, Panama. Added to the week I spent there with my sister, my stay was 17 days.

The Bocas Archipelago has five main islands, but I spent the majority of my time on Isla Colon, which has the biggest town, and on Carineros, which is where my hostel and the surf break were. While Carineros is very small and has limited food options, you can take a water taxi to Colon and be in town in under a minute. Two Brazilians and I swam across one morning to provide some entertainment- i.e. something to gamble on- and won 30 dollars by making it in under 4 minutes.

The hostel on Carineros was called Aqua Lounge. It is one of those amazing yet simple ideas dreamed of by young people everywhere that usually go to die when explained to ones lawyer and insurance agent. Luckily things are not so in Panama. Aqua Lounge is a genius combination bar and hostel right on the water, that sleeps 22 people, and sells dollar beers and shots right next to an eight foot diving board going off the roof into the Caribbean. There are hammocks, a BBq, a deck for partying and porch for hammocks, and even a huge water trampoline for laying out. Everyone parties to Spanish Reggae music and slips and slides around the crowded dance floor/deck during the day. I mostly surfed, but it was amusing to come back to the hostel and find 60 Panamanian revelers grinding on your front porch.

There was a core group of foreigners who weathered the Panama City invasion over New Years, and we did our own fair share of partying and often ended up mixing it up Reggae style with the locals.

I hit the waves with most often with two buddies; Ryan, a San Diego State grad, and Guillerme, a Brazilian surf event organizer. You always took a boat to surf so it was much more fun and economical to head out with a friend. We surfed a reef point break that generated quick, sometimes barreling lefts. It was not the easiest wave, my feet got cut on the reef, but it forced me to work on getting down the line faster on my backside.

Some highlights from the 10 days at Aqua Lounge

10. Playing poker and blackjack with a pack of Portuguese gamblers who reminded me of gypsies
9. Watching Jason, the lounges longest staying guest, try to take a live kitten to bed with him after his completion of the 23 bar challenge
8. Ripping gainers off the roof diving board into the Caribbean
7. Grilling fresh fish on the BBq speared by our Brazilian friends
6. Racing the Brazilians in the much gambled on inter-island swim
5. New Years Eve: shooting vodka at the lounge, watching the fireworks in town from the bar, and promising to speak only in Spanish all night
4. Roberto who folds your boxers and makes your bed; not bad for a hostel
3. Jumping off the top deck of the party boat and swimming home after realizing we were the only partygoers on it
2. Tanya, the Iguana bartender, who looks like a Victoria Secrets model but take waves like Kelly Slater
1. Aqua Lounge’s free breakfast of pancakes, bread, butter, cheese, coffee, sugar, jam, milk, and chocolate sauce.

My home for ten days

The dorms, my bunk is the top left

Aqua Lounge owner Christian and bar tenders Andrea and Fabio

The Brazilian spear fishermen enjoy their feast . . .

. . . and the gypys Portuguese scavenge the leftovers

Party on the deck

Our new years party crew

Bocas seemed like a great place to be young; like camp

Ryan, Guillerme, and I watching surf videos



Guillerme and I about to jump in for some surf; luckily the water is warmer than the rain

Surfing my backside on a characteristic left

Christmas in Panama

Laura and I hopped a flight from Liberia, Costa Rica to Bocas del Toro, Panama for Christmas in the Caribbean. Bocas del Toro is actually a collection of four or five islands just off Panama’s northeast coast. We stayed on the main Island of Colon which has a cool Latin/Caribbean combo vibe- about half of the native Panamanians are latin, brown skinned and the other half are black skinned with Carribean/Jamaican features. Lots of Rastas, lots of surfing, snorkeling and diving, great Christmas decorations, and lots of fun cheap restaurants.

Unfortunately, it poured rain the first five days Laura and I were here. I could still surf but it meant Laura got a little bit of cabin fever at the hotel. She made the decision to head back to Houston after Christmas to enroll in school to get started fulfilling some nursing school prerequisite classes. It is amazing that we have now done almost 5 months of brother/sister traveling together.

It poured rained on Christmas and Laura and I watched the rain dump through the stained glass windows at a small catholic church where we went to a morning service. Since the services was all in Spanish, I found myself watching the rain a lot. The last two days we got sun and toured over all the islands on motorcycles and then on a chartered boat. We got to snorkel on some remote island reefs and had a whole mile long beach break to surf ourselves. With the weather looking better and some good swell coming, I am going to stay on for at least another week.



Map of Bocas- we are in Bocas town on Isla Colon

Laura painted our Carribean Christmas Card

Solitude on the beach

The main street of Bocas town

Little houses with big christmas spirit


Taking the little boat taxis between islands

Javier our boat driver and some of his buds

Bocas waterfront

Laura on our wet motercycle tour