OWEN AROUND THE WORLD: January 2007

The never ending Ruta 40 in Patagonia

Things are going well here in Argentina, with my idea of the place gradually expanding beyond the likes of Maradona, Diego Simeone or Maxi Rodriguez! The last couple of weeks have involved lots of bus journeys, totalling some 5000km to get all the way down to Ushuaia, the southernmost town in the world! Luckily the buses from Argentina are incredibly comfortable, so you can get seats which look like they have been taken out of a First Class airline cabin.

In Bariloche I managed to meet up with Tomaraya, who was passing through on his round the world trip in the opposite direction! It was good to great to meet up with someone from home in such a far away place, and we had a great time in Bariloche which really is one of the most beautiful places I have been too. We fitted in some beach time, some walks, but most of our money went on our rafting trip. The rafting itself was not exactly the biggest thrill of my life, but it was fun and the scenery was incredible, not to mention the all you can eat steak at the end!

One of the highlights in Bariloche was a little bar a group of us stumbled into after hearing the guitar music pouring out into the street. It was a basic little place without any sort of decor, but it was brought to life by the two gauchos sat on high stools in one corner playing some local chacarera, and the dancing locals. It was fast flamenco like guitar music, and everyone now and again it would stop, and around the bar locals would stand up to say a short poem, a proverb or tell a little story. All this was watered down with lots of the Quilmes beer and plenty of empañadas which the place was churning out at light speed. The atmosphere was incredible!

The next stop from Bariloche was a very quick one in El Bolson, a little town centred around a hippy market and an "alternative" atmosphere. It is a really nice place set in a beautiful valley and there is a great feel to it - the day I was there half the town was sat in the park enjoying the live music. It was a mission down to El Chalten along the Ruta 40, a never ending journey through the Patagonian desert spiced up by the odd sightings of guanacos, roadrunners, armadillos... The only hassle, apart from the limitation of a day sat in a bus bouncing along dirt tracks, was the Chalten Travel company which had the most unfriendly people I've come across in South America working for it!

Chalten and El Calafate are both tourist focused towns, which do not really have much local spirit to them, as almost all the people there migrate there just for the tourist season. The natural tourist attractions on hand in both places are incredible, with some incredible day hikes to the Cerro Fitz Roy and the Laguna de los Tres in El Chalten, and the magnificent Perito Moreno glacier near El Calafate. The photos below do not really do them justice. The glacier hike did not come cheap, but having lunch in front of a glacier laguna is something I won't forget, and I bumped into one of my future work colleagues at Bain which goes to show what a small world it is! Hopefully I didn't make a bad impression as she could be my manager when I start working!

The journey onto Ushuaia from Calafate is quite a long one, made even longer by the four border posts and the ferry trip across the Magellen Straits! Because of the historic Chile-Argentina border agreements, you have to cross into Chile and then back into Argentina to get to Tierra del Fuego. When hundreds of tourists have the same idea, you end up spending alot of time sitting around at the borders, but the ferry was a good change from the bus and enabled some dolphin sightings!

Ushuaia probably was not the most stunning place I had been too but it felt great to actually be there and there was some beautiful scenery, not to mention the sealife on the Beagle Channel which included penguins, sea lions and lots and lots of birds! They did a great fresh crab dish!