Patagonia Express

Patagonico Express
Castelano is spoken in Argentina - four types Of Spanish apparently, according to Alexi, the very nice older man that shares his yerba mate with us and is fond of saying, "Deutschland Über Alles" and then conspiratorially "shh, shh!"

He left Buenos Aires for Bariloche, a Porteno but he felt overrun by Peruvians, uraguayans, Paraguayans. More tranquilo in Bariloche and better fishing. He worked for the oil industry in Venezuela, Guyana, Ecuador, brazil and spent a year in Germany learning German and a year in the states. For half an hour he showed us cell phone shots of miami, North Dakota where his son lives and he goes fishing, and finally of coastal venezuela, very green and lush rolling hills. According to Alexi they speak a different language in chile and in Mexico. He graciously encouraged me to speak in Spanish and said if I stayed three months I would be fluent. He is fond of talking with miming and heavy gesticulation. Loves to talk incessantly and share wisdom. Like why he dislikes miami because it is the door to the US and too many foreigners there. Too many blacks for him in the Caribbean. When i asked if the food was good on the train he shook his head. "Food on trains is never good, not anywhere in the world."

Alexi Bakes his own bread which he enjoys eating as evidenced by his belly and uses fake sugar in his 5 o clock mate and drinks diet Pepsi. He tells us to share with others that we are German and not gringos, that we will be treated better. Small evidence of this in Bariloche- spray paint on a wall on Salta street said "Anti-yanqi" and in a heladaria I had a young man purposely withhold the proper change and I had to ask for it - but that could have been merely because I didn't look Argentinian, or was incapable of counting which I can't really fault him for. I point out to Alexi that that his name is Not German but Russian. He shakes his head... "Slovenski - but from a very long time ago."

The train rocks and bucks like an angry horse at times when we pick up speed, thumps into the darkness but I like it more than the buses. Totally different crowd, almost all locals. You can easily walk around, more room, no traffic at all, not passing four semis at once, just pushing onward into the vastness.

Western Patagonia is not rock starved the four hours we have before dark we see dozens of crags, from a dozen meters high to a few hundred. Granite, conglomerate, basalt columns, flowing sandstone... Estancias drift by. pulling into tiny towns and getting to hop off and shoot a few photos in the dust of rusting car bodies, the daisy patches and old water towers, ramshackle houses... The backside of Patagonia most tourists never see.

Blue blinking sign "Hotel" next to the train station in Ingeniero Jacobacci, close to half way across-. We have been stopped a while now. 8 year old and toddler in front of us are jumping around, toddler getting vocal. I think they are waiting for the 9pm dinner seating. The second is at 11pm. Sergio was right to call Argentinians vampires.

8:30 pm and I am worked from the high calorie last three days at Frey and the hike in and out. Maximized weather window and remaining time in Bariloche as well as in the vertical but it took a toll... Had to buy patches for my bulging disk in my back, 400 mg IBU... Spent 90 pesos or nearly 20$ and had to get a taxi to the train station so I could avoid carrying my two packs... I bought a 10 peso cold soda at the hostel whilst waiting for the taxi which was as close to icing as I could get. On one of he cruxes at pitch four before traversing beneath a large roof I twisted into a corner and felt a bang in my back and massaged it back in and it improved. But hiking out with some extra weight added some more recovery time... My attempts to roll out the spasm with the Nalgene bottle managed only minute success. Slowly improving as Maureen's stomach bug appears to be too. Luckily it did not take much convincing to get a taxi from the hostel.

The train is proving positive for injury recovery -provided we can get some sleep, that is if the vampires let us, and the teen ruffians. To my suspicious mind the skinny jeaned bad haircutted ipod listening way too young to be smoking gutter punks appear to be touring the train cars for potential thievery items once their owners have passed out. A little strange to travel with both our large packs - above us, we buckled them in so they wont kill us as long as they don't topple - and our day packs at our feet. Alexi has mentioned several times to guard my camera adding to my growing paranoia. The toddler is screaming more regularly, train is pulling out. Kind of wish I had a sleeping pill... Maybe I have some earplugs... Hmm...

Train system in Argentina was said to be awesome before it was privatized I think in the 1989 and since it had suffered, fallen into disrepair, service disregular.1855, or perhaps a bit before, it got underway. Now the Patagonia express runs once a week from Bariloche and in the last few years there have been a few heinous crashes injuring hundreds and killing dozens but these have apparently been the commuter train around Buenos Aires. Maureen just had the unnerving epiphany that it may be difficult to know, if not impossible, when we pull in to our stop at San Antonio de oeste... It will likely be dark, 4 or 5 AM and they announce nothing... Our bus connection is from San Antonio, not the end of he line in Viedma some 180k beyond.

Viewing the landscape at 3;30 AM I get the sense I am trapped inside my own museum diorama, not really shutting across Patagonia but merely in a swaying, creaking prop. I can reflect with a keen feeling of contentment on Frey. It seems to induce a sense of intensity perhaps from the slim weather or knowing the best climbers haunt the place. Immediately I felt strong and confident soloing up the chimneys next to Frey and the raps from Diedro de Jim. FFA via Jim donini- when I talked to him a few years back he said he had done some 40 expeditions to Patagonia I can see why. Bosco had been climbing just four months and was leading 6b which in Frey is a hell of a feat. Santiago, the other Refugio caretaker was a mountain guide and was "resting" at Frey having summited Aconcagua 10 times. I bought Bosco a beer the after he belayed me and shivered much of the way up a windy ascent of Sifuentes-Weber. He told me how the best, very strong climbers come there. This summer a team simul climbed the 5 piches of SW in 11 minutes. He saw a guy solo it (integral) in just 25 minutes w a rope on his back to rap... Bosco was kind enough to belay me in the last pitch so I could summit just before it got dark even though he stayed at the belay while I cleaned the pitch on rap. His fourth day on for climbing and had to be coerced to do SW, well after 3.30 pm and with the wind made it clear that he may opt to rap before the summit.

Bosco admitted to grabbing gear at the roof traverse and I knew from his tone at the spot,even not knowing the Spanish words, that he didn't want me to pull him off around the blind corner by belaying him too tightly. Once safely across he lit up a cigarette and I blitzed up the final pitch in pure flow mode, and u realized pretty much the whole route flowed. It had to given the time constraints, two ropes, Patagonian wind gusts, route finding on lead/onsight. Nothing was too hard but it kept me totally focused knowing I did not have the luxury to bumble around.

At the belays I could barely make out Mauren at our tent behind the Refugio where she was getting some good shots of us with my 300mm. I had brought the Panasonic but when I pulled it out just after i left the belay on pitch three the battery was dead.

Maureen complimented me saying I moved pretty efficiently, and wasnt slowed down much. Bosco said thickly accented, "you are a very good climber." It was nice things went smoothly, I felt like I had effectively channeled some good Frey juju and climbed honorably bringing my years worth of pitches in Yosemite valley and Joshua tree into "the fray" pardon the pun - even though there had been quite a span of time since I was vertical in either. The stone and how it climbed was reminiscent of both places, the color of jtree monzo granite and usually spaced bolts and runouts to anchors but splitter like Yosemite valley and finer grained like grano diorite... Lots if museum quality pitons I chose to avoid (although some were bomber), opting for thin gear or the odd nut placement. The metolious TCUs were magic and I never felt compromised even when spacing gear.

Maureen had our pasta dinner well under way when I returned to the tent site. I was amazed that just an hour after getting off the climb the sky went from cloud free to fully clouded over in what seemed a 10 minute span. As we pulled sleeping bags over us I could here the first drops of rain spatter the tent, brought in by massive wind gusts that twisted and pushed the tent down at least a foot. It was a hard night for sleeping but I was quite content thinking about the Elysium quality of the stone, M2, diedro (dihedral), good gear just when you needed it, watching the sun light up different parts of the valley below as it moved past the dizzying array if vertiginous spires... Truly a magical place and I felt I had truly maximized the day and half weather window.

I slept surprisingly well, till 3am. Writing this in the pre dawn darkness Alexi sees I am awake and speaks to me in whispered Spanish i cannot understand. He finally gives up and forces his loaded mate cup and thermos into my hands from over the top of the seat.

Sadly we were nearly to the minute of our scheduled ETA pulling in to San Antonio, and had left Bariloche at the stroke of 3. And I thought German trains were punctual. Now we have to sit and wait three hours till daylight and the bus "terminal" is a half hour walking from here. So we sit in the station, our four packs and red hobo food bag sprawled out on the bench with a heavy urine smell from the toilets mixing with the idling diesel of the patagonico express just behind us out the station doors as we swat at flys and stare at the peeling paint in the moldy ceiling water - damaged concrete ceiling where old light fixtures once hung. Climbing ivy has made it across a thin wire spanning the two support columns in the middle of the mezzanine, the four foot tall stoic conductor in starched dark blue uniform buys something from the tiny kiosco beneath the Virgin Mary icon.

Two bus companies operate from here, Los grutas and central argentino but of course not AndesMar. Two Los grutas buses are parked literally on the beach and in tide pools advertising the trip on the photo wallpaper of the sheetrock office housed within the station.

The train was kept quite clean by the small army of attendants, had been remodeled in 1994 but looks to be circa 1950 vintage with its pale pastel sky blue and yellow interior decor. Reminds me of the soviet era trains I rode in Romania. Preserved almost in a state of decay like the ghost town of Bodie in California. Headrest chaises with holes, seat recliner buttons that have dissapeared. Cracked plastic faux marble bathroom walls, windows coated in dust and streaked from the last rain.

the Patagonico Express has its other world charm for sure. When we asked if we could load our luggage in the luggage car they said sure but made us understand we really didn't want to. "Muy sucio." Everything in there gets coated in the fine sandy Patagonian desert pampa dust.

At 6am the train has finally pulled away and I poke my head out of the front of the station. A taxi pulls away into the darkness and I can hear distant roosters and dogs but all else is still. Distant streetlights blaze through scrappy eucalyptus trees but it will still be dark for nearly two more hours.. It's going to be a long stint till 4 pm when our bus arrives, then we have some 24 hours of highway time... I think Maureen hates me for imposing this ridiculous 24 hour travel detour "it just seems ridiculous... Especially while I am on my period."

I suggest asking for a map so we can walk to the bus terminal. "This town isn't even mentioned in Lonely Planet, they won't have one..."

We endure dozens of flys at the andesmar station and I manage to catch moments of sleep while sitting despite the flys. A pack of a dozen street dogs pee on the door, screw, fight, chase bicyclists, run from the angry men at the taxi office next door as they throw chunks of clanging metal at them.

We find ourselves being incredibly critical of the town that for good reason never sees tourists, many of the locals twist their faces at us and one woman in a shop clears who throat loudly letting us know we are not welcome. Garbage is strewn all over, it's dusty, dismally grey with coastal fog and in desperate need of a dog catcher with piles of poop everywhere. We spend an hour in a small park that is filled with weeds and garbage, the climbing structures are falling apart and one of the chained, hanging oil drum "bulls" lays broken on the ground.

The bus is an hour late and we are in near panic mode of the thought of spending a night in San Antonio Oeste... A shrieking screaming toddler is chased the entire lost hour non-stop by his parents and grandmother as he grabs dozens of tossed cigarette butts, dog poop, tossed yerba mate detritus... Neither of us have ever been so excited to see a bus arrive.

Officially expressed out of Patagonia and back from the flat east coast to the skirt of the Andes, now much taller and snow capped. At 18 hours deep a close call in traffic. Our first heavy braking display in several thousand Km worth of bus rides. Our driver almost rear ends a semi at a light - nor sure if he is pissed because he had to follow him slowly. They are singing along to ranchera sounding music in the cockpit and we assume that might be part of the issue. A minute later he runs us aground on the bus terminal curb. The couple carrying the newborn off nearly smash it into the seat. Then, just two minutes later as we leave town we cross a busy intersection and we hear the driver yell from below, "Hola amor!" A woman in tights and tight black shirt waiting to cross the street holds up her middle finger at him. Lots of chuckles from passengers but it makes me a little nervous how compromised our driver might be... There are supposed to be two drivers and they swap out but they could be doing speed to stay awake - often here girls and guys laughing non-stop from the flight deck below... Who knows... Makes wish there was more complete train service here...