Don't cry for me, argentina!

Well, so much has happened since my last blog entry. I would have written earlier but I was so busy getting stuff done before my Patagonia trip that I didn´t really have time. So this blog entry will be catch up.

First of all, I´m currently in El Calafate, right next to the National Parque de los Glaciares and it is unbelievable amazing. My flight left at the ungodly hour of 5:40am and so I had to get up at 3:30am, if that even counts as any sleep. But that all went away the second I landed and saw the Patagonian landscape. Its so barren, wild and windswept and its beautiful. I got into my hostel fine and was pretty impressed at the level of service. I´m staying at the Hostal del los Glaciares Libertador and its pretty nice for a hostel. I'm staying in my room with a couple of older women and they seem to be very nice. Actually, I've noticed a lot of older women traveling on their own. All in their forties or fifties after their kids are gone and now they have some free time for themselves. I think its pretty great.

Anyway, I went to see the Moreno Glacier. I took a shuttle bus in and then took a boat ride when I got there. It was pretty amazing to see the glacier that close up but the glacier itself is interesting. It looks like a river between 2 big mountains that just froze where it was. Its a lot shorter than the surrounding mountains (though still quite large). I just pictured glaciers to be like huge ice mountains but this one isn´t. Still pretty impressive though. I think I took a gazillion photos of it. I will post them as soon as I get to a computer that I can hook things up to. The glacier was this intense white and blue color and parts of it would break off and fall into the water. The falling pieces looked pretty small but you wouldn't know that by the resounding boom when it hit the water. Mother nature at work!

And tomorrow I take a bus to El Chalten to start my 3-day ice trek. Well, the ice trek is really just 1 day but I get to be at camp for 2 nights around the ice trek. I heard the hiking near the Cerro Fitz Roy is pretty amazing so I'm really looking forward to it. I first need to get to the hostel, take a shower, pack and get to bed at a reasonable hour! Sorry, I would add more detail but I´m pretty tired. But I promise to update better next time.

What I wanted to write about was my last few days in Buenos Aires before leaving on my trip. First, I went to a polo game, which was pretty interesting. First of all, its obviously quite a high class activity judging by the people who came to watch. Right now, is one of the big tournaments of the year so the who´s who of polo are playing. Argentina has some of the greatest polo players in the world so its pretty exciting to see them play. But there´s this whole culture around it. The game we saw started at 4:30 but everyone got there starting in the early afternoon because its a big social scene. Inside the polo field, they have this huge champagne bar setup and also all these corporate sponors giving out free things and selling stuff. It was pretty funny to see all that just for a polo game.

But apparently the polo game we saw wasn't just any polo game. The two teams are some of the very best and were actually the teams in the finals last year. Just by luck of the draw, they played each other at the very beginning of the tournament. One of the teams actually had 2 players with 10 handicaps, the best a polo player can get and there are only a handful in the world. Unfortunately, I had no idea what was going on or how the game worked so some of the significance was lost on me. Even so, it was pretty exciting to see these guys trying to whack the crap out of that little ball on top of these huge, powerful horses.

The night before I left Buenos Aires, I also went to a tango dinner show, called Señor Tango (no joke). Seriously, it was the campiest, cheesiest thing I´ve ever seen in my entire life. First of all, the show started with a mock fight between dancing indians and spaniards. The spaniards were actually in the middle of the stage on HORSES. Really! What that has to do with tango beats me but it was part of the show. When they finally got to the tango dancing, it was pretty amazing. All the tango dancing I´ve seen has been street performers so it was really nice to see the real deal. It really is a beautiful dance and pretty intricate so its nice to finally be able to appreciate it. They also had a few tango singers. The guy singer was really Wayne Newton-esque with his cheesiest jokes and lounge singer voice. There were also 2 women but for some reason they were always dressed EXACTLY the same, from the wigs on down. So they had this weird twin thing going on it was just creepy. What made it worse was that how perfectly in harmony they were. Great singers but so weird! And then for the finale, all the dancers and singers come out and they start singing "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" with such emotion, I was afraid they would burst into tears. I just started laughing. Especially at the very end when this huge Argentinean flag dropped from the ceiling and the confetti started to fall. I´ve never seen anything like it but it was pretty awesome. Cheese and all.

Anyway, I gotta go. My eyes are getting droopy. I promise a less scatter-brained entry last time. Just wanted to catch people up! Ciao ciao (as they say here)!