Computer Sensei

I love El Calafate, Argentina. After our awful experience at the Estancia Maipu, walking into the Miyazato Inn here was so restorative. The charming hostess graciously ushered us in, showed us our immaculate, serene (bug free to boot!) rooms, and then offered us yummy caramel apple cake and jasmine (Japanese) tea at no cost, just to welcome us.

It was quite amusing to hear her and her husband (both Japanese) speaking fluent Spanish. She said there is only 8 Japanese people (including their family of four) in the town of 18,000. Joel was asking her about wi-fi in the B+B, and she said she wasn’t sure how to set up the modem, etc. When he quickly diagnosed and fixed the problem (ridiculously easy for him, though impossible for her), she deemed him her Computer Sensei.




This town has exploded in the past decade, in 2001 there was only 6,000 people, it has tripled in 6 years. There’s one street (Av. Libertador) full of shops and elegant restaurants (the trio of Casimiro places are fantastic). But beyond the façade of Libertador, the rest of the town is haphazard dirt roads without signs, containing a random assortment of homes and businesses. Outside of our B+B I can hear roosters crowing, birds chirping, dogs meandering and this morning I saw an old car drive by slowly on our dirt road, while the passenger held on to a lead for a horse that was trotting beside the car… You know you’re in a ‘third-world’ town when…

It reminds me of my time in Kyrgyzstan, a lot of raw, unpretensious beauty without development. It’s good times. There is a gigantic glacier here, called Perito Moreno, that we are going to visit. There are options to hike on it, sail up to it, or just to drive as close as possible to check it out. We’ve talked about fly-fishing, horseback riding, or other options for our two days here, so we’ll see what we choose.