Travel Planning: What to Do – Page 5 – Writing With My Mouth Full

Searching for a Good Taco: Sunset Park, Brooklyn

Look what you did, Jase said as he pointed to the window. It was snowing even though the weather channel reported rain for the day. It wasn’t taco-eating weather but we had work to do: we will find a good taco in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

Sunset Park, Brooklyn experienced its heyday during World War II when the Brooklyn Army Terminal employed more than 10,000 people to help ship to American troops. Like any other neighborhood, it reach its peak and lost its allure to families who wanted to move to the suburbs. All of a sudden, the rowhouses that would remind you of San Francisco were no longer valuable. By 1990, 50% of Sunset Park’s population consisted of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. Today, Brooklyn Chinatown is along Eighth Avenue, while Seventh is favored by Indians from Gujarat and Fifth Avenue by Mexicans. It was this detail that made me drag Jase to the main drag to search for a good taco.

I had a small list and I gave the Jase my usual rules: a chorizo taco is a good start, but we’ll order the weirdest thing they have available. Jase had his, too: No head, no tripe, no eyes, no ears. I nodded to say, Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I know I’ll try my best to convince him to eat them anyway. Luckily for him, the trucks were nowhere to be found because it was the middle of the day and most of the hole-in-the-walls were covered with plywood. We ended up walking from 44th Street to 55th and ducking in each place that didn’t look too fancy.

1. Tacos Nuevos Mexico III, 44-10 Fifth Avenue, 718/686.8151

Where was I and II? This was the first place we spotted as soon as we turned the corner on Fifth Avenue. It was past noon and we were famished. Upon confirmation that they were open for business–no one was inside and the kitchen looked sparkly clean–we sat down and ordered one carnitas taco and one chorizo. Two of each came and all four were slathered with wet guacamole. I like avocados; I just don’t like them in my tacos because they end up hiding the flavor of the meat. I realized I hadn’t done this taco search in a while that I forgot to let the waitress know that guacamole and sour cream were no-nos. In any case, the carnitas were very soft and fatty, while the chorizo was salty and spicy. We devoured them with Diet Cokes and we were very satisfied with everything, guac and all.

2. Tacos Xochimilco, 45-01 Fifth Avenue, 718/435.7600

The lengua, or beef tongue, at Xochimilco tasted like it had been cooking for hours. It was sweet and it fell apart at each prod of a plastic fork. The tripe was surprisingly delicious. I am used to having them a little chewy with its natural offal taste included, but this one was just right. Jase ended up liking the tongue, too: Like Mom’s Sunday pot roast.

3. La Guera, 46-03 Fifth Avenue, 718/437.0232

La Guera had the cheapest of all the tacos we tasted. A small one cost us $1.25 when we thought the $1.50 at Xochimilco was already a good deal. But you get what you pay for: the pastor taco tasted too earthy here; a little bit dry, with only a small chunk of pineapple and a spritz of lime juice to save it. The buche, one of my favorite types of taco, or the stomach, was just a load of flavorless fat.

4. Tacos California, 46-16 Fifth Avenue, 718/439.1661

I usually avoid restaurants that bill itself as “authentic” but we were getting full and the snow had turned to steady rain. We needed to stay dry and warm, so we went in here to take a break while a Mexican soap opera blasted overhead. We ordered a taco that was called an enchilada with “spicy pork” in parentheses. From my understanding of fast foods, enchilada is a bigger tortilla stuffed with anything as long as tomato sauce is involved. I was right, but it was awkward to eat because it was half the expected size. Notes of paprika and cumin were included, two of my favorites spices, but the tomato definitely tasted like it came from a can. Jase refused to try the cabeza, or the head, which was too bad because it was the restaurant’s saving grace. It was fatty and gelatinous and full of flavor–my lips were coated in natural fat soon after.

5. Tulcingo, 55-20, Fifth Avenue, 718/439.2896

By the time we entered Tulcingo, Jase and I were giving up. I felt defeated after just six tacos, but alas, good things must come to an end. Every place we went to had orejas, or ears, on the menu, but only Tulcingo actually had them. The last time Jase and I had pigs’ ears, they were fried, and he wished these were, too, instead of just boiled to death. But I did like the crunchy cartilage even if the skin felt more like Jell-O in my mouth. The chorizo here was mediocre, though I liked how it was spicier than the first one we had.

All in all, we had some good tacos but nothing that blew me away. We split one Negro Modelo to end our late lunch date and toasted to our rainy Mexican day in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Looks like it’s time to take a trip out west to satisfy my taco craving this year.

M & I International Foods

M & I International Foods is the place to go to for Russian imports and other Eastern European produce here in New York City. “Brighton Beach” came from a naming contest that reminded the developers of a beach resort in Brighton, England. In the 1950s, the neighborhood welcomed its first settlers of second-generation Americans from Holocaust survivors. Twenty years later, refugees from the former Soviet Union started calling it their own Little Odessa.

After the long subway ride from the upper west side, we finally reached the Brighton Beach stop on the Q. The weather was damp and gray, but I couldn’t imagine a more perfect setting to stay in one place and eat. And then I realized I didn’t bring my camera! Ack! Good thing Cameron brought hers and it saved the day.

Pickles and Slaws:

I love a good slaw. Take away the mayonnaise and I’ll eat crunchy cabbage with bite. I also couldn’t get enough of their cucumber pickles. I ended up taking home two pints and they were all gone three days later.

Fish:

I love me some herring, but for the sake of pacing ourselves and trying something new(ish), I opted for the trout, the sturgeon and the sardines instead. The trout was smoked and naturally sweet; the sturgeon salted and dried; the sardines icky and fishy. We pulled the guts out and I just couldn’t finish eating it. Somehow, it was very different from a refined slice atop sticky rice and some nori.

Fat and Meats:

I’ve looked forward to the Russian lardo ever since I watched the Andrew Zimmern episode about New York City. Because everyone behind the counter at M & I only speaks English when prodded, I found it painful to ask the surly old lady to slice it for me like prosciutto. Our plastic utensils didn’t help slice through the large chunk of fat when we tried to consume it at the store, but it was so lovely when I got home! One swipe of my Global knife and the Dr. and I were picking at it and drinking it with a bold red wine. It’s still in the fridge, but we’ve been doing damage ever since.

The smoked belly was one of the prettiest things I saw at the store. I mean, just check out the mustard seeds on it! As expected, each small bite was soft and fatty, but very succulent and sweet.

Probably the best thing we ate all day was the pressed beef tongue. You’ll devour it as fast as we did if you could just get past the gristly look of it. Don’t let the appearance fool you, though. The texture is smooth and jelly-like and each slice goes down like a well-cooked piece of beef.

Warm Food:

Upstairs in the small café, we pointed at a few pieces to try: baba ghanoush, bell peppers and eggplants, cabbage leaves stuffed with pork, potato lattkes stuffed with chicken and mushrooms.

There were plenty of freshly-baked breads, phyllo-wrapped everything and interesting-looking pastries made of honey, almonds and apricots. I even drank a coriander soda that tasted like a watered-down Robitussin. (No, that wasn’t good.) Four hours later, we’ve gone up and down the three-level grocery and deli store and have sampled all kinds of familiar and not-so-familiar delicacies from very far away places. All we had to do was take the subway.

M & I International Foods is at 249 Brighton Beach Avenue in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.

Day 4: Trekking on Glacier Perito Moreno

We took the bus back to El Calafate yesterday and said our good-byes to Monte Fitz Roy (Fitzie), Cerro Torre and the whole of El Chalten. Being in a bigger and busier town has its pluses, but walking along the main drag with all the amenities brought me closer to home and reminded me that we’re halfway through our two-week vacation. For the first time in almost a week though, we finally saw the sun set. Here in Patagonia, the sun sets at around 11pm and we’ve missed the last few because we would be indoors, inebriated from too much red wine and comatose from the day’s hike. (Cue in song, With a Little Help From My Friends…)

I fall in and out of sleep while on the bus to Perito Moreno Glacier, only to wake up with the same view around me: big mountain in front, water on the left, forest on the right; but no ice. It’s been more than an hour and I just can’t wait to get out of the bus and stand up. At the park’s entrance, a guide goes around with a small ticket machine charging us $60 Argentinian (about US$20) to enter. A few on the bus only had to say, Nacional, and they get a citizen’s discount at $20 Argentinian. This is the first time my group is charged for any sort of activity in Patagonia and all eyes are on me to make sure the fee is worth it.

Back in New York, I’ve signed everybody up to do a mini-trek on Perito Moreno instead of just a bus ride to view the giant glacier from the balcony. It cost each of us US$100, which we all consider steep since we’re not the kind of travelers who pay for organized tour groups. But there is no such thing as shopping for a tour guide to do the mini-trek. Hielo Adventura has the monopoly to ferry tourists across the lake, suit them up with crampons and lead them on the glacier for an hour and a half before sending them back to their hotels. I later appreciate this because I couldn’t imagine hoards of people on the glacier trekking everywhere if one outfit didn’t control the number of visits to the top.

So what is a glacier? It’s technically a big mass of ice with two zones: accumulation and percolation. It’s constantly snowing in the accumulation zone while the ice is melting in the percolation zone. The ice moves down the slope from where they are situated and ends in lakes or cliffs and forms terminal moraines, or stones and dirt pushed by the glacier.

Named after the Argentinian explorer Francisco Pascacio Moreno, the glacier is popular because it’s one of the few that can be accessed as simply and easily as this. While most glaciers are in very high altitudes and extreme temperatures, Perito Moreno is only 50 miles from El Calafate and only 279 feet above sea level. Since 1917, the glacier has been stable: its surface, width and length have remained the same because the snow increase in the accumulation zone is enough to compensate for whatever’s melting in the percolation zone. Moreno acted as the expert–that’s why he was called perito–when the Patagonian border was being disputed between Argentina and Chile and donated the land for the first Argentinian National Park, but he never saw the glacier that was named after him.

We spend about twenty minutes ooh- and aah-ing at the glacier. It really is amazing how massive and far out it goes. The wind is steady and it’s warm enough to stay at the balcony with cameras in hand, waiting for a small piece to crack and fall into the river. (It’s probably one of the few places where you can hear people beg for the glacier to start cracking.) Whenever there is a crack–and it happens every few minutes–there is a thunderous noise, followed by a loud snap, like a gunshot, when the ice falls into the river. No matter how small, the fallen ice creates a ripple and another loud whoosh occurs. Everyone is on high alert when this happens because they want to capture the action on film, but most of the time, the crack happens somewhere we can’t see. There is always a cheer from people who catch the exact moment and it’s funny how automatic the reaction from the crowd gets after a few minutes.

Two hours later, we board the bus to the pier and then the ferry across Rico Arm. From the boat, we can see the glacier’s front walls and some iceberg channels. Everything is of that blue-ice color. (Oh, why? Snow and ice is white, but when sunlight goes through a glacier’s solid ice crystals, it gets broken down into different colors. Blue light has enough extra energy to get away from the crystals without getting absorbed by the thick ice, so we see that blue that “escapes”.)

On the other side, we hike through a forest and see the contrast of the earth against the blue ice. It’s like walking into some kind of video game: dry land here, water in the middle, ice over there. All you have to do is hop over and you’re in a completely different landscape. One of the guides, after hearing that I’m from New York City, tells me that one of the most important movies shot in the city is also his favorite movie of all-time: Madagascar. I laugh, join in the joke and tell him that the penguins are probably still up to no good. The Dr. remains stoic because he never saw the movie. We put our crampons on.

We see several groups of twenty ahead of us. The guides smartly separate all of us in a timely manner so that we all enjoy the glacier at our own group time. It’s never crowded while we trek and we never come across the other folks. We trek in one line and follow our guide, hunching forward when walking and leaning back when descending. I love the sound of crushing ice and I over-react and march with my knees up to get more of it. I take photos after photos of cracks and crevices and of small pools and trickles. I can’t get enough of the view. Ahead of me, the ripples of ice look like a meringue. It’s like some giant hand came down and whipped the ice to make soft peaks, you know? I know that sounds really gay, but it’s just that everything looked saaawft.

We stop where we drank from the small pond that has formed on the ice. The water is naturally cold and refreshing, but we still manage to convince ourselves that it is the best-tasting water we’ve ever had. For only US$100!

I jump when the guide isn’t looking and we do ridiculous poses when we get a chance to stop. They take us to small caves and let us peek down dangerous crevices. We walk across thin ice, jump over safe indentations and hike up and down small hills to get a feel of the massiveness of Perito Moreno. We end at a table where our guide chips off glacial ice to drink with the Famous Grouse whisky they’ve set up beforehand. Everyone toasts and munches on the dulce de leche candies they distribute. It’s the perfect end to our day.

Later, the group tells me that the money they paid was all worth it.

Day 3: Hiking to Cerro Torre

After hauling aSs down from Camp Poincenot yesterday, G’s foot started to hurt; he opted out of today’s hike. The three of us start our longest hike this week via the path behind the Cerro Torre Hotel in El Chalten. We feel more energized after yesterday’s shower and last night’s sleep on real beds. I am ready to take it easy with just a day pack even though the hike is longer than the others.

After an unmarked steep hill, we hike through a forest. The trees are dry and sharp, like from a Tim Burton movie. The earth itself is very thin and dusty. The ranger the other day told us that this hike is where you can view Cerro Torre and Monte Fitz Roy together, but it’s not worth doing if visibility is zero. A lot of people hike El Chalten and miss the chance to see them at once because of the finicky weather, but it’s looking like we will be very lucky today. I hold my breath.

The hike takes forever and the landscape change from forest to uphills to dry marsh to another forest and then to large rocks. There are a lot of yellow flowers low on the ground which is what I pretty much imagined seeing before getting here. We pass by a swamp with thorny trees before we start walking along the Rio Fitz Roy. Cerro Torre shows itself early and I’m delighted that, although there is a watercolor-like smear of white above it, everything else looks clear blue. We take a turn towards the viewpoint and Monte Fitz Roy also says hello.

So this is what the ranger and the others before us have been talking about. I notice that there is more snow on the Cerro Torre side than on Fitz Roy’s. As soon as we go through the flat plains, the wind immediately picks up and the three of us put on our jackets. It’s like being in a wind tunnel: you push an invisible force forward without looking at where you’re going and you try to block your face from being completely blown away. The gravel makes it even harder to ascend up the hill that reveals Lago Torre.

But oh, as soon as I get to the top, it’s like being transported to a different land; a different country. The wind is howling and there is a heavy feeling about it. It looks like something scary is about to happen, as if there was already a story before time began. I notice right away that Cerro Torre is thinner, spikier and angrier than Monte Fitz Roy. The tips of each spire has a mushroom cap of ice because of the Pacific storms that blow from the Patagonian Ice Cap.

In 1959, Cesare Maestri and Toni Egger supposedly reached the summit, but inconsistencies in Maestri’s account made other climbers doubtful. Egger died in an avalanche during that attempt, and the second tallest spire was named after him, but it left Maestri’s account unverified. In 2005, a confirmed route was put up on the face that Maestri claimed to have climbed by Ermanno Salvaterra, Alessandro Beltrami and Rolando Garibotti. It was only a year ago, in January 2008, when the same Garibotti, with American Colin Haley, climbed Aguja Standhardt, Punta Herron, Torre Egger and Cerro Torre together, accomplishing the first complete traverse of the entire massif with a 7,200-feet total vertical gain.

I feel like a wimp again as we go down the path and to the safe confines of Camp D’Agostini just below it. I try to imagine those who have climbed Cerro Torre to give the sport a good name and people like me a glimpse of the impossible becoming possible. We settle and eat our last camp-style lunch before we begin to head back down to El Chalten.

On the way back, I get to enjoy the view I missed on the way. The river doesn’t look so rapid from this far away and everything around me looks more like the Swiss Alps than Patagonia. I pause after I say this to the Dr. and add, What I imagine Switzerland to look like anyway, because I’ve never been there. Funnily enough, our friend commented of our last trail during dinner: That looked like the time I was in Switzerland.

All that eerie feeling is replace by the Sound of Music. All of a sudden, there are white blossoms and Alpine-style cabins. The starkness of Cerro Torre that’s in my head becomes more manageable and transforms into a panoramic photograph featured on calendars. I can’t say that I like it better, but it certainly makes the end of our Chalten hike more pleasant.

Day 3 itinerary:

Day 2: Hiking to Lago de los Tres and Laco Sucia

It was a very cold night on Camp Poincenot. Our sleeping bags were warm but the Dr. had a restless sleep, wearing almost everything he’d pack to keep extra warm. I was okay in a long-sleeved Capilene and underpants until around 3am when I felt a cold breeze coming from the side of our tent. I had the chills and squirmed inside my sleeping bag to put extra layers on. It was my first time to camp in the woods, and though I liked the process of the whole thing, I can’t say sleeping in a bag so close to the ground is my favorite thing.

Today I wake up first to boil some water and get the coffee ready. I know the boys will need it especially if I want them to be good sports about the vertical hike that’s to come. I send them to the river where it’s warmer to collect some water to drink so they can stretch while waiting for the congee to cook. Here in Patagonia, water from running rivers is potable. We were apprehensive at first, but because everyone else was doing it, we joined in. We never had to use our $50 purification system after all.

From the camp, we begin our hike to Lago de los Tres with only our day packs. We hike through another forest and continue to go up for the next hour and a half. From the highest viewpoints, we see several lakes and never-ending trees. I imagine how white everything would be if it isn’t summer. I remember from the other day when the ranger told us that this hike is easy because of the stairs. There are stairs all right, but they are steep and they keep going up. The sun is out in full force though, and I am only wearing a tank top to keep myself cool.

The path starts to transform into gravel and crushed soil, almost like sand. You sink whenever you take a step, but I know a closer look at Monte Fitz Roy is just ahead. When I walk over the last hill, the last hurdle to the finish line, I gasp because I did not expect to see what’s immediately in front of me: the greenest of the green with the bluest of the blue water, surrounded by boulders spotted with fresh white snow. I want to cry.

At this close proximity, I acknowledge the entirety of the Fitz Roy range. Starting from Fitz Roy’s 12,300 feet going to my left is Poincenot, also our camp’s namesake, at about 9,850; Aguja Raphael at about 8,100; Aguja Saint-Exupéry at about 8,400; and Aguja de la S, aka Aguja Innominata, at about 7,600. The three granite agujas, or needles, are the “tres” in the name Lago de los Tres, or Lake of the Three.

In 1952, the French alpinist Jacques Poincenot fell in the river and died during a trip to conquer Fitz Roy. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, of Le Petit Prince fame, delivered mail to Patagonia via the French airline Aerospostale from 1929 to 1932. His co-pilots are honored with the two summits north of Fitz Roy: Aguja (Jean) Mermoz and Aguja (Henri) Guillaumet.

The entire thing is more majestic and spectacular this close. Of course, a cloud is swirling around the spires, but even with the wind, it’s calm and it’s giving me that feeling that everything around me is older than time. I realize that this earth is truly a place one can’t stop appreciating because at every other turn, it will leave you in awe.

I see people closer to the water and leave my group to walk down. It’s the wrong and dangerous choice because on every step, a few rocks loosen behind me and roll. It’s too late to stop and walk back up; I am on my aSs just trying to slide down gingerly. When I get to the bottom, I lie on a big rock and look up the blue sky. Upside-down, I can see more people now and they’re all sitting at where I was before. Everyone is speechless and staring at the Fitz Roy range. I bask under the sun and get my raccoon tan.

After a few minutes, I decide to walk the opposite way and see what else is around. I see a spike with a yellow tip and realize it’s a trail marker from where we entered. It’s the path I should have taken instead of blazing down the rocks. At least now I know how to safely go back up. I’m alone when I make the next hill over and while I’m thinking that that was the best viewpoint yet, I come across a danger sign to warn me that the trail stops there. I take a couple of steps down and follow the sound of a waterfall. It’s a small trickle, but the sound echoes loud enough as if I was in a cathedral. I laugh to myself as soon as I discover where the water was going. All I can think of is, Where the hell am I?

I unfold my map and realize that I am right above Lago Sucia. Even though the name means “dirty”, there is nothing dirty about the water except for the fact that it has a deeper hue than Lago de los Tres. It’s even more still here because it’s surrounded by Cerro Techado Negro, the range that climbers must pass through to camp on Glaciar Rio Blanco before they attempt an ascend.

I reunite with the group again and I encourage them to take the short trail down to Sucia. I wait for them behind a large rock and borrow a pair of binoculars from two other hikers who were pointing towards Fitz Roy: there are at least four ant-sized people on the snow going up. I imagine what they must be feeling now. I send them good vibes and hope they make it as high as they want to go.

On the way down, we run into more people going up. We don’t recognize them from camp so we assume they have come all the way from El Chalten to do the whole trail as a day trip. Alas, there are people who are stronger than I am. I tread carefully and take care of my left knee. Miraculously, it hasn’t hurt and I am determined to keep it that way.

Back at Camp Poincenot, we all agree to pack up and go back down to El Chalten to escape another chilly night in our tents. We use the other route down via Lago Capri and watch families with children set up picnics by the water. I feel like a wimp for hiking with so much weight only to stay for one night, but the temptation of having a sit-down dinner with a bottle of Malbec is too hard to resist; not to mention a hot shower and a working toilet.

Day 2 itinerary: