FitzRoy and El Chalten favs ...

It is amazing how one can fixate, anticipate, dream of, look forward to a vacation for so long, drink it in all at once, in an action-packed week (or month, if you're lucky,) and then be right back in the same funk and monotony of daily life within matter of minutes of arriving home.

We left worriless, star-filled, Fitzroy skies a few weeks ago to discover our fence had been blown down, we owe a boatlad to Uncle Sam for taxes this year and the "dynamic" excitement of my office has not let up one bit! FANTASTIC! I love it.

So, my challenge is this. How to make every day a vacation ... hmmmm.... I know, I know, retire now, live life to the fullest ... as long as I can pull it off on a few pennies a day. Yeah ... I've been thinking about it.

So, I'm still editing, examining and enjoying the myriad photos I took last month while in the mountains down south. Until I can manage the early retirement, I'm just going to keep my brain switched on vacation mode ... at least for few more weeks ... dangerous--I know--but I'm willing to take the risk.

Street dogs, overlanders, food and adventure in El Calafate, Argentina

We hung out in El Calafate several times during our trip, relaxing between backpacking adventures. The town is blowing up with tourism, with population growth of 300 percent in the past five years, there are now 20,000 residents.

We stayed at a couple of different hotels here, both within a few blocks of the main street. There were numerous restaurants, cafes, bakeries and outdoor shops. Tons of great street dogs, overland vehicles and even a big casino. Check out a few snaps from around town.

This old Citroen drove survived the Pan-American highway, 16,000 miles from Alaska to Ushuaia.


This was one of my favs, a pimped out Land Cruiser with a custom box on the back. This thing was so trick and ready for action I am considering selling our home to buy something like it! A beautiful piece of machinery.

This is a Toyota truck with a Hilux 3.0 Turbo Diesel, a sweet vehicle we cannot purchase in the U.S., unfortunately. I would buy one of these in a second, if they were available here. This one is complete with snorkel and PIAAs. Dope.

The Defender appeared to be the local favorite. I saw more Defenders in El Calafate than I'd ever seen in one spot. I spent a day rolling around the nearby estancias, near Lago Roca with a fishing guide in a Defender. We were throwing a rooster tail at 90mph on gravel roads and corner on rails in his ride ... I am glad to be alive. I think he was just trying to make up for the crappy fishing :)

I thought Kermit and the muppets were going to tumble out of this rig -- some sort of vintage Mercedes conversion bus -- ready to roll Ruta 40 to Bolivia.

This little ragamuffin scampered out of a brick shanty every time we walked buy. He was a bit shy, but liked being scratched behind the ears.


I wanted to take this guy home with me. The street dogs in El Calafate were great, plenty around to pet, all seemingly friendly and loveable.

Here I am, enjoying a delicious frozen treat at Acuarela .... our favorite ice cream shoppe in El Calafate.

Annie, snacking on yet another empanada. We could've survived on empanadas alone; they're about a buck each, fresh and hot, filled with chicken, lamb beef, etc. Yum.

Annie, me, Kat and Steve at the Libro bar. We spent five or six days on the trail in Torres del Paine, Chile, with Kat and Steve. Great folks from West Yorkshire, UK, near where my uncle Michael and Aunt Catherine live. Hopefully, they'll come visit us in Colorado soon.

Roasting lambs at the Estilo Campo Parilla. All you can eat lamb, beef and chicken for $10. You cannot beat it. Throw in a bottle of the local vino tinto, and you're good to go for about $25 for two.

More blue water ...

A group of backpackers heading toward the catamarran launch on Lago Pehoe. This was our starting point for our 5 night, 6 day trek in Torres del Paine, NP. We hiked the "W" circuit, which included the Grey Glacier, the Valle de Frances and the Torres Del Paine.

This was our view of the Cuernos del Paine (Horns of Paine) from the Catamarran at the onset of our stay at TDP. Lago Pehoe is among the bluest of the blue lakes, rivers and lagoons we splashed in while in Chile.

Big Ice, Leche de Glaciar

During our Patagonia trip, Annie and I visited many big glaciers, all part of the Southern Patagonian Icefield. The streams, rivers and lakes of Patagonia are filled with pure, azure glacial runoff. You can stick your head right in lake and start drinking. Locally, they refer to the milky blue glacial water as "leche de glaciar" or milk of the glacier, due to its milk appearance. It looks this way due to the high mineral content in the melted runoff.

In this image, Annie is hiking down the valley to the Cerro Torre glacier, where we did a trek on the ice with crampons. We hiked about 3.5 steep hours and crossed one river via Tyrolean traverse and balanced on boulders to cross another, before arriving at the glacier. It was a 12 hour day, followed by about 12 cold cervezas.

And ... here's Annie, getting ready to attack the ice, complete with crampons

This is our guide, Diego, trying to stay dry on a river traverse. The guides enjoy dunking each other on this traverse by pulling the line up and down as someone attempts to cross. It was Diego's birthday on this day, so it seemed appropriate that he should get wet. I'm sure it was all very safe and calculated ...


This is a shot of the Perito Moreno glacier, which puts on a show 24/7 for spectators, dropping thousands of tons of ice into the lake for onlookers. This photos doesn't do it justice, the wall is 80 feet high, towering over a lake filled with ice bergs. When chunks come crashing down, the valley thunders and waves of whitewater rip across the lake.

Patagonian sunrises

This is the old Refugio Pehoe on Lago Pehoe; it's now a park ranger station. I took this photo on February 14, Valentine's day, early in the morning. We'd hiked under gray skies and drizzle for about 10 hours the previous day, so wakening to blue skies was a big treat.

I caught this sunrise near our campsite in the Mt. Fitzroy region, near El Chalten, Argentina. This was literally the view out our tent door. As usual, Fitzroy was acting a bit camera shy.

This is the legendary Torres del Paine, the Towers of Paine, and the namesake of the Chilean national park. While the towers are impressive, I've always found the Cuernos del Paine, much more dramatic peaks, with their starkly constrasting black and white granite.

Anyhow, we left camp in darkness, rain and snow at 4:30 am for the opportunity to see the light show on the Torres, however they were being camera shy. This is one of the clearest shots I was able to capture on that morning. It was an amazing moment as we stood for an hour in horizontal snow, hoping for the summit to clear. The entire valley was aglow with red and orange.