Saturday, January 27, 2007

Deserts, glaciers and Ushuaia

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 empaƱadas 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!

The river where Raya and I went rafting!

The border post

Too much steak for Raya?

View from Cerro Campanario!

Street entertainment with beautiful sunset in Bariloche

Zapateria

Sorrentinos

EmpaƱadas

Music in hippy El Bolson!

The dancing dog!

The dancing crocodile!

Vegetable store

Old veggies!


Celestial blue!

The valley of El Bolson

Preparing steaks

The butcher!

Owen el asador!

Brand new bunk!

Village scene

Army town in the desert

Fruit and veg shop

Driving along ruta 40 with some mate

Patagonia desert

Desert sunset

Ruta 40

More desert!

Wild horses

More desert...

Armadillo

Spot the guanacos!

Plants by the river

One of the worst bus companies in Argentina!

Lago Viedma

Juggling in Patagonia

Ruta 40 sunset

Cloudy sunset

Remains of a flag

Photo stop

Medialunas, yum yum!

El Chalten

Rio de las Vueltas

Chilling by the Fitz Roy

Laguna de los Tres

Laguna Sucia

Magellan woodpecker

Tents and trees

The biggest piece of chocolate cake ever

An estancia

Lago Argentina

Rio Santa Cruz

The front of the Perito Moreno glacier


The immense Perito Moreno glacier

The Perito Moreno glaciar rolling into Lago Argentina

Glacier Waterfall

Deep deep crevass

Waterfilled crevass

Rock formed pools


Glacier laguna

Crawling through a tunnel

Glacier Cave

The bulldozer effect

Storeys of ice crashing down

Happy with the glacier trek!

Navigating the Magellan Straits

Ushuaia

Cormorants and sea lions in the Beagle Channel

Lighthouse

Magellan penguin colony

Gentoo and Magellenic Penguins socialising!

Cormorants and sea lions enjoying the sunset!

Rainbow over the Beagle Channel

Flag under the rainbow!

Beagle Channel sunset

La Casa del Marisco in Ushuaia

Tierra del Fuego forest

Andean condor

At the top of Mount Guanaco

Ushuaia and the Beagle Channel

Looking towards the Andes

Lago Roca

Andean rock plant

Remains from a bushfire

Colourul beech tree

Enough flags here?

Menacing wild horses!

Link to the previous post:

Crossing the Andes


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Your making the trip of you life and your letting all of us enjoy it
with you. It's amazing. And you met up with Thomaraya and Milly... Enjoy
it friend, speak to you soon.
Ewout