Hello from Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world... We just arrived, after 19 hours on the bus, well, two buses... and we had to have a beer, in the most southerly (everything is prefaced with this here so that´s the last time I´ll use it, until the next time) Irish pub in the world.

We haven´t explored yet so before I get down to the Tierra del Fuego stuff (yup, we crossed the Straits of Magellan... they were straight) I just want to mention the Parque Nacional Glaciares.

From El Calafate we did a couple of trips, the first to the Perito Moreno glacier. This is where the Argentine president brings heads of state when he wants to impress them.

Numbers don´t do it justice but here they are anyway. The glacier is 5km wide and 70m high... that´s a 12 floor building. It´s 30km long which makes it bigger than Buenos Aires. It isn´t retreating, quite the opposite, it´s advancing and losing 2m per day... this means that all the time there are massive chunks falling off. We stood on the mirador (if you haven´t followed the link, do so. The mirador is on the peninsula opposite the glacier) and watched for a few hours. You´d see a piece and think, that´s not so big, then hear a huge crash as it hit the water and realize, it´s the size of a car, or a bus, or a house. Every two years or so, the glacier forms a dam between the two lakes and in March it usually bursts... we saw it on TV earlier in the year but didn´t realize the scale. The photo is taken, without telephoto, from almost half a mile from the glacier.

Unbelievable.

Then, just as we were about to leave, three pieces of deep blue ice the size of trident submarines surfaced, just popped up twenty metres into the air and bounced around for a while eliciting much ooohing and aaahing.
  ¶ 4:02 AM 2 comments

  So, we´re pretty far south now, three days on buses (not counting the stop in El Chaltén) down the route 40. This far south there are very few trees... hell, even grass seems to struggle to grow. The days are longer, like at home, but there´s apparently still a hole in the ozone layer because you can burn in a couple of minutes. We´ve hooked up with a Porteño called Damian so we´ve been practicing our listening (a polite way of saying we can´t get a word in).

Calafate is pretty touristy, which is good because I need to buy a fleece... if I hadn´t discovered that the gulf stream isn´t responsible for our temperate climate up there I´d be thanking it right now. It´s a comfy 18C during the day, feels like more in the sun, but it cools down at night and in Ushuia it rarely gets above 13C.

We´ve been spending the last week watching comet McNaught when we remember... at first it looked like some brightly lit plane & contrail combo but then it didn´t move (this was in brightly lit twilight sky... we weren´t being spectacularly dumb, well no more than usual anyway).
  ¶ 6:42 PM 1 comments

  that would be the town of El Chalten (the indian name for Fitzroy, the mountain in the picture, which means smoking mountain [thanks Martin, smiking means something else entirely... I think]). El chalten exists for two reasons, one, it´s the base for trekking in the local hills, which are fantastic, and two, Chile said a while back that no one lived there and they´d like to own it... there was a bit of a dispute and now busloads of patriotic argentines take the bus up the valley to the Lago del Desertico which is where they feel they won one over their neighbour.

The bus on the Ruta 40 was interesting. The road is unmade for much of the 1200km and it had rained the day we went, meaning that every now and again the bus would slew alarmingly and the windows were quickly covered in mud.

We had a morning walk up to the mirador (viewing area) to see Fitzroy and it was bloomin´ impressive, 3500m and as you can see... steep. It´s busy here though, all the hostels are full so we´re sleeping in a rented tent out the back. Liz slept in all her clothes last night, but claimed toasty warmedness when asked...

Tomorrow it´s off to El Calafate and a trip to see a 4km wide glacier in a lake....  ¶ 5:54 PM 1 comments

  So we´re here in Esquel, about to get on a charter bus to head down the route 40, which isn´t all paved, about 1000km over two days. It´s basically the only way to get south on this side of the country without your own car.

Yesterday we went to the Parque Nacional Los Alerces, it was absolutely stunning. It took two hour-long boat rides to get to the park for a walk. Definite wilderness. It´s cooler here though, at last, with days in the mid 20s and nights in the low teens.

Now we´re all set (there´s water in the flask for the mate, Liz has got fruit) for some desolation and a lot of desert plains....
  ¶ 1:26 PM 1 comments

  We´ve had a pretty relaxing time here, in the beautiful valley of El Bolson, surrounded by mountains and next to the quimquimtreu river (apparently the Mapuche indian name which is onomatopoeic. Think of rocks rolling down the river and you´ll get it).

The hostel is two buildings, the one we stayed in sleeps seven, it was the owner´s house when he arrived here 25 years ago, after he built it that is.

The landscape here is pine forest and dry mountains, behind the closer mountains, which only go up to 2500m there are glimpses of the Chilean Andes to the west (only 15km away) and bigger hills to the North and South.

We took a trip out yesterday and rode on the Old Patagonian Express from El Maiten. It doesn´t run a proper service any more but goes onto the patagonian steppe. It was like riding an train from the old west, and it was this area that Butch and Sundance came to. I was sitting on the step, between two wooden carriages, watching the barren plain and I half expected to see a couple of riders trying to catch up.
  ¶ 4:13 PM 3 comments

  The problem with San Martín de los Andes, or should that be problems, are
a)It was settled by Germans, so it looks like an Austrian ski village
b)It´s full
The second is because the landscape is fantastic. Hot days, lakes, snow flecked mountains, climbing, walking, rafting... lots of other -ings you only do on holiday (buying chocolate by the kilo for example).

We polled up only to find that there was just one place to stay, a three star hotel, not bad but a little more than we wanted to spend for a few days stay.

So the next morning we took the bus via the seven lakes to Bariloche (more stunning scenery) and from there south to El Bolson where we´ll be for the next few days.

The lack of access to internet in the last few days means that my opus about sharing the coach ride from Neuquén to S.M de Los Andes with a reeking bald toothless juggler as he expounded on his hatred of black people, argentines (he was one) and the poor while he ate food recovered from the rubbish which smelled of fermetation products, will have to wait....  ¶ 1:07 AM 2 comments

 

Today we´re in Neuquén, the capital of Neuquén province, the northernmost part of Patagonia.

Up until last night we were in San Rafael. Tomorrow we´re heading back into the Andes to San Martín de los Andes which is apparently a place where everyone thinks they´re Swiss- chocolates and fondue and log cabins.

We stayed in Hostel Caminito in San Rafael, it was run by Jesús and Marta. Very friendly people but with the organizational skills of a dead camel. We did a day´s excursion to Cañon Atuel, a very impressive canyon, it was meant to finish at 7, back at the Hostel, Liz and I, and three Porteñas (i.e. girls from BA) added on a spot of nocturnal rafting. Jesús dropped us at the place for the rafting and hung around, with the other 7 people on the excursion, until 9:30 and, after saying he´d come and get us at 2am, went off with his contracted driver in a foul mood (the driver did a 14 hour day when he thought it would be 8).

We did the rafting and it was great, screams and the like from the girls... I don´t think I screamed... I didn´t want my mouth open too long because I was in front and therefore:

a) soaked and b) paddling like a paddly thing.

When we got back we had a melon filled with wine (because, you know, we´re tourists now) and begged some sandwiches off a reluctant cafe owner who said he was closed (the porteñas were particularly useful). While we were eating there was a phone call saying Jesús was drunk and wouldn´t be coming to pick us up. Apparently they had got back to the hostel and had a party (in the hostel itself the signs saying quiet state "after 2am"). We were an hour away.

Fortunately the last bus was just heading up the valley and the chicas swung into action...They were like a commando unit. After a shouted "vamos" one ran to stop the bus, another grabbed the bags and the third forced the cafe owner to do some lightning fast bill calculating. We made it back.

Despite the complete lack of profesionalism, the hostel was great fun. We spoke a lot of Spanish and one guy there was a big blues fan (and guitarist) so we had a bit of a session which endeared me to a few people.

Tonight we´re in a hotel because Neuquén city is not touristy enought to rate a hostel. We stopped here to go to El Chocón, where there´s a museum devoted to the find of the biggest dinosaur in the world. The museum, by contrast, is not that big but the fossils are. There´s also a really well preserved set of footprints but the lady in the museum said that it was nearly an hour´s walk away, and they were covered by the man made lake anyway. There´s not much else to do in El Chocón, and there are only three buses a day so we came back, relishing the aircon.

  ¶ 9:48 PM 1 comments

 
Currently in Mendoza city ( (googlemaps), Mendoza

Yesterday we took the Alta Montaña tour. That took us up to 4000m and the border with Chile. The mountains were, as expected, absolutely astounding. They dwarf the alps (in a museum later we learned about San Martín, the liberator of Argentina in 1816, crossed the Andes with his army... the highest pass they crossed was 5000m... the museum compared that with the Napoleonic crossing of the Alps, a paltry 3000m). At the border with Chile, after going up a 20 hairpin dirt track where the corners have names like "El Inodoro" (the toilet), you find a massive bronze statue of Christ, one foot in Argentina, one in Chile. He was dragged up there by mule as a symbol of peace between the two countries.

The tour was a laugh, everyone but us was Argentinian so it was great practice. On the way back we stopped at The Lost World, a home made museum which was basically a house covered with a massive painted tarpaulin to make it look like a tortoise shell. We went in and the guide/owner explained it was a time machine (it´s really for kids). We went through different rooms (six or seven) which had been made into dioramas remeniscent of American science fair stuff, starting off with San Martín in the Andes and going back to the formation of the mountains. The guy was very enthusiastc, reminded me of Johnny Ball. As we left one of the guys on the tour with us was helpless with laughter and asked us not to mention this museum to anyone. He said "god help us but this is our disneyworld".
  ¶ 3:29 PM 0 comments

  So to the last day in San Juan (google map link ) and we had another tour with Fabrizio, who, as it turned out, was a bit of a wide boy. He turned up with a girl from the agency, introducing her as another guide. The truth of the matter was, as was evident ten hours later, he wanted the day to chat her up.

We went to the area known as Calangasta, which is a valley between the precordillera and the cordillera (the Andes). Basically it was a day about rock and more rock. The mountains in this area range from grey to bright pink and there are tons of stripes of different colours.

We also wandered onto the Leoncito, a dry mud flat which is 16km long and 4km wide. The winds are constant and about 40mph so they use it for land yachting (and doughnuts in the cars to judge by the tracks).

Fabrizio´s chatting up didn´t go as well as he hoped and we were treated to an hour´s frosty silence between them on the way back, not a problem as it was 11pm when we returned to the hostel after an 8am start.
  ¶ 3:15 PM 0 comments

  So said Fabrizio, our driver for today... well, truthfully what he said was "What´s the name of that actress, she´s English I think, Julie Andrews! she did this tour with me." It was only when I asked if she started singing when she got in the hills that he looked confused and asked which film that was from and that she played Queen Elizabeth and M in the James Bond films... ahhh! You mean Judy Dench. Yes, he said, and I only realized when she sent me a photo later.

This was on the way up to the valley of the moon (Valle de la luna), more properly, if carefully, called Ischigualasto. Unfortunately, the weather was against us and we couldn´t do the complete circuit or go to the massive red sandstone towers of Talampaya because of rain a few days before.

It didn´t really matter though, and in some ways a cool day was better, in summer here the temperatures can reach 48C.

We started with a detailed demonstration of the work of the geologists and paleontologists in the valley (where they found the most primitive dinosaur remains in the world). The have the whole mesozoic to work on (245 million years ago to 60 million years ago).

The valley of the moon is an arid valley cut into a striped rocky landscape. It´s 25Km long and 15Km wide. The photo is from one tiny part, the field of balls (cancha de boliches), which are formed by wind erosion. It´s a pretty impressive area and the guides were really practiced. You have to be accompanied as you go round and there are strict boundaries beyond which they´ll shoot you if you trespass (I may have got that a bit wrong, it was windy and I wasn´t really listening). That´s because every November they so a month´s digging, when the weather is stable, and they keep coming up with fossils.
  ¶ 12:55 AM 1 comments

  We spent the morning being driven from bodaga to bodega by Aldo in his 30 year old Ford Falcon (I´d post a picture but Blogger seems to object... maybe it´ll sort itself out). Aldo works at Hostel Zonda (the 10pm to 5am shift) and also provides the bodega tour. His car is like the one in the picture, but so old most of the panels are matt.

We started in the smallest bodega (wine cellar), where a softly spoken sanjuanino (chap from San Juan) took us through the process before we tasted their Tempranillo and Cabernet (very nice).

That set the scene for the morning, another bodega, another finca (vinyard), another set of wines to taste. In the second there was a Chardonnay, a Rose, a Syrrah, a Malbec and a Dessert wine. And the chap poured almost full measures.

Aldo wasn´t drinking, fortunately.

The last two were bigger and had videos to watch, the last was the biggest in the province and was responsible for the first radio station in the area, it had its own train station. That was the place where we saw photos of the earthquake they had here in 1944, the buildings were all adobe brick and the town of San Juan was utterly devastated. It´s now a modern, if a little soul-less city.

After about a dozen tastings we persuaded Aldo to join us for lunch in a cantina style pizzeria, they do an especial, which is basically a muzzarella with a thick slice of ham on top (and an olive).

Everything is in Spanish which is good, because we´re both understanding it pretty well. The only thing here is the pronunciation. In contrast to BA lluvia (shoobia in BA) is yubia here and Ferrocarril (ferrrrrocarrrrril in BA: roll those rrrrrs) is feshocashil.

Yep, we´re somewhere where rr is pronounced sh.
  ¶ 9:57 PM 0 comments

  Or, happy new year, depending 0n your preference. Last year we were on top of the hills in the Lake District, this year we thought the hills but we decided to let the horse take the strain. We did a cabalgata (horse ride). I haven´t had the benefit of any instruction from Amy (who apparently gave my father very strict instructions), mind you I had the same amount of instruction from the guys who rented us the horses and accompanied us, basically, here you go... vamos.

I can´t even remember being on a donkey at Blackpool before.

The horse, called Lunatico (!) knew what he was doing though and we wandered up steep rocky paths, through rivers and generally felt like cowboys, or gauchos. A couple of hours later we were up at the lake, a man made reservoir that you can only reach by horse or on foot.

Going down was more difficult, there were a fair few steep rocky sections where Lunatico took big steps and slipped and slid, you had to hang on to the back of the saddle to stay on, and lean back so far you were almost lying on the horse... good fun.

As was expected, I´m a little sore today...
  ¶ 2:59 PM 1 comments