The President

Yesterday, May 25, is a national holiday marking the beginning of the Argentine independence. What is more exciting though, is that the current president of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kurcher, came to Bariloche to deliver a speech and celebrate the holiday. This is significant because Patagonia, despite its rugged allure in there countries, has always been treated as somewhat of a Little Orphan Annie by the politicians and businesspeople of Buenos Aires. More recently Patagonia's green energy production and research, mineral stores, tourism, and agricultural economic productivity has played the Daddy Warbucks between Annie and Miss Hannigan, played by the aforementioned flatlanders. Any politician would thusly concern themselves with both the realized and potential economic capacity of Patagonia. Cristina's actions are less "Miss Hannigan-ish" than a flatlander politician; she served as senator representing Santa Cruz province, which is in Patagonia. Cristina, as she's endearingly referred to, is an iconic leader in Argentina's history because she was widowed by the death of her husband and former President, while in office herself. Like Michelle Obama she is has become a fashion icon and is a human rights advocate. Cristina has also helped bring about some feminization in the macho Latino world; Cristina started her political career in the Peronist Youth (google it). Her appearance in Bariloche was a huge deal for Patagonia, and I was psyched to get to go see her speak. I set off toward town to go hear Cristina, and having forgotten my bus pass, entered Bariloche an hour later. Helicopters were buzzing, bands noising, and people everywhere. That was enough for me. I saw some rocks up on Cerro Otto, the mountain above town, and they were calling, so I left before entering the chaos of society. I followed a winding mountain road for what felt like hours. I got so bored that I started to run. This is saying something because I hate running. I got to a switch back in the road that seemed to sit right over the top of the ceremonies, and I heard politicians' voices reverberating off of the land. It felt kind of like an out-of-body experience, looking down on all of the humans, doing human things, while I stood barefoot on a mountain overlooking it all (my clog-shoe things aren't meant for miles of hiking and running and were painful to wear). After more trekking I finally got to the same elevation as the rocks I had seen, and left the road heading toward their base. White 30 meter high granite cliffs met me. Not having brought my climbing shoes to the political thing, I climbed barefoot. I spent quite some time trying to summit the things, but not being roped up I felt quite exposed for moves that were getting into the 5.10 range, so I retreated time and again, failing at every route I could find, but getting massive rushes of adrenaline nonetheless.

 The rock had some super fun slopey features that made being barefoot an advantage.

After climbing, I was starved. I had forgotten to eat before leaving town. I realized though that the gondola that goes above my house and operates every day all day as a tourist trap, has a restaurant at the top! It was probably only a 20 minute hike up the ridge line and I arrived in a complete fog-out. I could hear the lift station but couldn't see far enough to tell where it was. I felt like 007 again, sneaking around these big metal catwalks trying to not get noticed in what was definitively an employees only area. Finally I saw a guy walking, so I followed him and luckily ended up finding the door inside. I walked in, out of fierce mountain wind and zero visibility, staring six feet up at Michelangelo's Statue of David's nude butt. I couldn't make this stuff up. One simply does not expect to find a Michelangelo museum at the top of a stormy mountain. After pretending to seem interested for a while in order to blend in with the tourists, I found a restroom, washed the blood off my hands from some hangnails that got torn off while climbing, made my hair lay a little flatter, and then followed the stream of people, ending up in the restaurant. At first when I emerged into the restaurant from the stairs below, I thought maybe I was drunk or had vertigo or something. The entire room seemed to spin around me. A few seconds later I realized that I was standing in Argentina's only revolving restaurant. They had hamburgers, german beer on tap, and a the rotating vista of the entire lake district, Andes, and steppe. After dinner I hopped on the gondola and descended to my home.

 View from rotating restaurant

Today I took a bus to the village of Llao Llao, which is supposed to be some cool place. Except for a magnificent hotel which all but threw me out for looking so grungy, it was uninteresting, so I left.