Pictures!

I figured I should get these sorted before the crazyness of being back in Calgary catches up to me. My favorite ~180 photos of Argentina and Chile are now up on facebook (silly place, but easy):

Argentina Part 1 - Iguazu, Salta, Mendoza and Bariloche
Chile - Puerto Montt, Torres del Paine
Argentina Part 2 - El Calafate, El Chalten, Puerto Madryn and Buenos Aires

Eating Our Way Through Argentina

One of the best parts of our trip through Argentina was food. It’s evident by the snug fit of our pants that we enjoyed the coffee, pastries, steak, wine and chocolates a little too much. For those of you who just went back to re-read the steak part of that - yes, we do eat steak now. Along with lamb, chicken and in some cases seafood (although I don’t think I’ll keep that up).

For the first time ever in our travels, food became something of an attraction. Part of how much we enjoyed a town was due to how good the food was. Barlioche and Buenos Aires moved to the top of our lists as places to visit for food while Puerto Montt and Mendoza were less favorable.

Our favorite meal was our first steak dinner in Iguazu – great steaks and our first taste of salsa criolla, a spicy tomato onion sauce for steaks. We got a taste of the good steak and from then on we found anything but the top cut of meat to be “too chewy”. The worst meal was Jon’s foray into the world of Mr. Dog panchos (hot dogs) where he ordered the “pancho Mr. Dog” and was served a bun with lettuce, cheese and two “dogs” in it. Hard to choke down!

In between we dined on spicy chorizo sausages on crusty buns, liberally dosed in chimichurri (herbs and olive oil mix), fries in paper cones with mayo and ketchup and ice cream in more flavors than imaginable. Almost every morning started with a café con leche or submarino, and most afternoons included one as well.

I actually miss the eating, although my waist line is in better shape now that I'm not munching away. The food is one of the reasons you should be going to Argentina (if you haven’t been yet). The scenery is spectacular, but some of my best memories are of us eating!

Jonny enjoying cafe con leche in Puerto Madryn while watching whales in the ocean.
Rice with seafood - I didn't eat the guy on top but my dining companions did!
Typical bus breakfast.
A much better breakfast in El Calafate. Submarino, media lunas and cafe corado. The best part about this subarmino was that the chocolate bar came in a submarine shape.
My lamb dinner after finishing Torres del Paine. Simple presentation, but a huge amount of amazing lamb. The man who runs this little restaurant has a good thing going.

We're where?

Just 33 hours after being picked up by our crazy taxi driver in Buenos Aires we were shivering in the cold of another Alberta winter. How quickly you can move from travel mode to real world mode. Cafe con leche and confusing spanish speakers seem so long ago already.

Trip summary? We had an amazing time in South America. Not necessarily better, but just different then our last trip. Looking back, all I have to say is go to Argentina now before the peso makes a come back and steak stops being less than $6US! Experience it all for yourself, just bring your own sleeping bag and spend as little time as possible in El Chalten.

Last Days...

We left Puerto Madryn on the 1st Class bus - fully reclining seats, 4 different movies and bingo games made the ride pass quickly. Buenos Aires is hotter than we remember, its 30º today and sort of humid. My feet are sore from walking everywhere. A 9 hour walk to and from Palmero and almost 7 hours today looking for the perfect wine holder. The city is busy after the small towns we´ve been in for the past month. But its exciting, with tango dancers, street venders and multiple icecream stores to chose from.

We´ve pretty much just shopped and ate since we arrived here. Our hostel is busy and full of young people, so we tend to avoide it. But its conveniently located within walking distance of most everything and the room is confortable and clean. It currently looks like we were robbed, with clothes and bags and papers strewn everywhere in preparation for packing tomorrow.

We´re just taking it easy until our flight tomorrow. We saw most of the tourist sights last time except for the Japonese Gardens, which we visited yesterday as a break from the shopping (and walking). For a $0.33US we bought a baggie of food and fed the koi in the ponds. One more trip to the grocery store for some last minute dulce de leche is all that we have to do. And perhaps a trip to the icecream parlor for some last minute dulce de leche icecream too...

The Last of Patagonia

Puerto Madryn was our last stop in Patagonia and our last new city before returning to Buenos Aires (and then home). After the winds and mountains of inland Patagonia we were looking forward to the ocean and warm breezes. We got the ocean, but until this morning those warm breezes were blowing pretty cold!

On the bus to Madryn we met up with our Swiss friends and made plans for visiting the two sights near town – Reserva Faunistica Peninsula Valdes and Punta Tombo. Upon arrival, tour bookings was taken care of by the eager staff at the hostel and we were off!


Reserva Faunistica Peninsula Valdes

This peninsula is located about an hour north of town and is home to a variety of marine life from birds to seals to whales. We´d booked a bus tour which included an English speaking guide and a chance to spot some marine life close up. Like all tours we´ve taken, this one involved a lot of driving, a few angry Spanish people and an extra long lunch stop at a very expensive restaurant (which we avoided by eating sandwiches on the bus). But we did get the chance to get close enough to elephant seals to touch the ugly monsters (not that we did, the sign warned ¨puppies may be squished¨!). We spent over an hour sitting on the beach within spitting range of a hundred large elephant seals, watching them lumber around and listening to the farting sounds they make when they sneeze. The seals are there in large numbers right now, just sitting on the beach, waiting for their fur to molt off. Not a bad way to pass 5 weeks or so...

After the seals we went to see the real stars of the peninsula, the southern whales. We´re pretty near the end of the whale season, and its possible that we spotted the very last of the whales in the bay. They come to the area to mate and to raise their young before heading back south for the summer. The majority of the whales had already headed south, but we did get close up views of a mother and her calf - close enough that I could have touched them from the boat.

The elephant seal pups from last year (looking cute).

Momma whale poking her head up to see us.


Punta Tombo

Punta Tombo is the largest breeding colony of Magellanic penguins in the world. Its a couple hours south of Madryn, but we couldn´t stomach another tour (which always include a stop we don´t want to see). Instead, a car was rented, a picnic packed and Jon got behind the wheel to drive. Because we didn´t leave at the same time as the tour buses, we arrived late enough in the day that the hoards of tourists were leaving as we arrived and we had a couple hours of almost just us and the 170 000 penguins. You can get amazingly close to the penguins and its really a pleasure to watch them waddle around and even swim in the ocean. Penguin chicks were just starting to hatch, and furry babies could be seen sitting on their parents feet.

Penguins as far as the eye can see. Each hole is a nest and in each nest are two penguins...

Stretching after a good grooming. Penguins spend a lot of time cleaning their feathers...This guy was enjoying the peace and quiet after the tours left. He may also have been working on his tan...

The Rest
Puerto Madryn is a sleepy little town but after touring for two days we were happy to sleep in, try and locate our laundry from the laundry service and enjoy amazing icecream. We´ve walked the beach, dabbled our toes in the Atlantic ocean for the second time this year and gotten our fill of browsing stores filled with whale decorated t-shirts. With only another 1/2 day in town we´ve got just enough time for our laundry to be found (hopefully) and another few icecream flavours sampled before we continue on our way.

Enough with the glaciers already!

After Torres del Paine, we caught a bus back into Argentina for a little more mountain viewing. Parque National Los Glaciares is just on the other side of the border and offers more spectacular hiking and the granddaddy of all glaciers, Perito Moreno. Apart from the scenery, the towns we visited had nothing going for them but we endured high prices and mediocre food for the chance to view some of the nicest mountains we´ve ever seen. Oh, a just a few more glaciers in case we hadn´t gotten our fill of ice...

Our first stop was the big glacier- Perito Mereno. We skipped the tour (since we´re way over budget by this point) and simply took a bus out to the glacier for a few hours. We´re glad we didn´t spend longer, as the glacier filled up with tour buses shortly after we arrived. We can´t handle the crowds of people pushing around and retired to eat avacado sandwiches from a view point after only an hour. Still, even with all the people, the glacier was spectacular and we´re glad we made the trip for it. As you can see, it was a little cloudy and chilly at the glacier front, but back in town the sun was shining and we warmed up with a hike to see the local flamingos.

After only one day in Calafate, we were ready for a change and we headed north to El Chalten. We´d been warned that El Chalten was not the finest of towns, but that didn´t prepare us for the partially finished pile of buildings that our bus driver claimed was town. It was windy, dirty and ugly! The main drag (which was really all that there was in the town) was un-paved and contained, well, nothing. Maybe I´m being a little judgmental, but our first impressions of the town weren´t good. The bright light was our B&B and the apple pie at the nearby panaderia.

Luckily, El Chalten has more going for it than its buildings (or lack of). Treking to the mighty Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre can be started right in town which is the only reason why you´d endure the endless winds and dirt of El Chalten. Unusually, the day we decided to start our trek was clear and windless and within a few hours we could see Mnt. Fitz Roy ahead of us. Its the highest peak in the area and portions of it can be seen from town when the wind isn´t howling.

We´d given ourselves 3 days to hike and camp in the area, so we weren´t too disapointed when the peak clouded over as soon as we were within range of the view point. Later, when we did attempt to climb to the view point, the incredibly strong winds kept the viewing to a minimum. Thanks to the borrowed treking guide, we knew there were other sites to occupy our time and spent the rest of our afternoon looking at yet another glacier.

The next morning was perfectly clear (which could explain why we were so cold at night), and a sidetrip along the valley before breakfast gave us crystal clear views of Fitz Roy without the wind. We could have spent all day watching ice fall from the glacier but there were other mountains to view.

(Fitz Roy and other peaks with glacier and lake)

Setting out from camp we met our Swiss friends day-hiking our three day trek (crazy) and from them we heard that the second big peak in the area, Cerro Torre, was visible. People in town say that you can only see it 5 days of the year so we´d expected to find it clouded over when we arrived to camp at its base. I think the townies are wrong about the visibility frequency, or we´ve used up all the clear days, since the peak was visible for 3 days while we were there. I found it less spectacular than Fitz Roy, but easier to enjoy as its only a 10 minute walk from camp. Usually we don´t have time for sitting around when we hike, but this time we found ourselves with a whole afternoon of free time. Again, luck was with us and it was hot, really hot, in the valley. Fleece jackets were shed and 4 glorious hours were spent basking in the sun, and yes, waiting for glacial ice to fall.

A not so early walk to the lake rewarded us with reflections of the peak and an absence of other trekers (rare). We look our time getting back to town, but all was well in Chalten when we arrived, with the wind still faint and the sun shining. The circuit that we completed was short (30km?) but probably one of the nicest hikes we´ve ever done. If you find yourself in El Chalten and the weather is nice, we highly recomend!

While waiting for my photos...

... check out our friends Katia and Didier, a Swiss couple traveling around the world. They´re almost at the end of their trip and have some amazing photos of South America, India, Nepal, etc. Their blog is in French (problem for us who don´t read French I guess) but for those of you who are multilingual, they´re pretty funny. We´re regreting not bringing our big camera as our shots aren´t half as nice as theirs, but they have captured a few moments with us that we are looking forward to seeing.

Internet Woes

I´d meant to upload more pictures with my Torres del Paine post but we had a dinner date with some friends and I had to end my session early. I think it was worth it as we ate at an amazing restaurant, but its taken me until now to find an internet connection that will allow me to upload this one photo! Thats what $4US in a tourist town in the middle of nowhere buys you. The satallite connection here keeps going down and when its up it doesn´t like anything google related. But the photo is proof that Jon and I are alive and well even if we can´t use the internet as we wished (the tough life of a traveller). Perhaps in a week or so when we get back to the other side of the country I´ll be able to up date with photos again. Until then...

Us, in front of the Torres, enjoying a sunny, windless day in Patagonia.

The ¨W¨

The ¨W¨ is probably the only reason 90% of travelers are in Puerto Natales (Chile). Its a well reviewed 5 day trek in Torres del Paine National Park that takes in some stunning scenery. Named for the W shape it traces out along the base of several peaks its only about 80 km long and not ranked as the most difficult of treks. Loaded up with rental gear and the Chilian version of treking food, we set out to see for ourselves.

The trek is wonderful, if you can stand the large groups of people (oh, a far cry from Canada) and the wind. But the views were fantastic, we only had seriously bad weather for one morning (snow) and we got to see almost everything we set out to view.

We saw the Grey Glacier (ok weather), missed the Valley Frances (snow and clouds) and got two beautiful days at the Torres. Other than freezing everynight in our rental sleeping bags (perhaps we should have brought our own) things went fine. In fact, 4 out of 5 sunny days is pretty good! I prepared 3 different pasta meals (and one potato) and we dinned well on PB and honey on crackers for lunch.

We finished the trek exhausted, in need of a shower and craving something other than pasta. We´ve got tonight in Puerto Natales before heading back to Argentina to see more glaciers and doing a little more treking. Below are just a few of the many pictures we snapped on our 5 days.

Into Chile

We were both a little nervous about crossing into Chile from Argentina - we´ve never had to cross a border by bus before and we were loaded down with fine chocolate and wine. In order as we were seated on the bus we were presented first to Argentinian border guards to get our exit stamp and then to Chilian border guards to get an entry stamp. Other than a long look at Jon´s passport photo (those sideburns throw them off) we were into a new country hassel free!

Crossing into Chile from Bariloche hadn´t been in the original itinerary. But the lack of buses heading down to Patagonia on the Argentinian side prompted us to change plans and book berths on the ferry from Puerto Montt, Chile, to Puerto Natales, Chile (home to the famous Torres del Paine National Park). The ferry was a little out of the budget (at a whopping $370 US each) but seemed to be the least painfull way to make it south.

Puerto Montt, our first stop in Chile, was disapointing. We found it dirty and full of drunks when we arrived by bus but our guest house was nice and our fellow travelers welcoming. The next morning, things looked a little better in town, especially since we were leaving and the drunks were still sleeping it off. We lugged our bags to the ferry check in (along with 200 other tourists) and then left to purchase a few more motion sickness pills (Jenn) and wine (Jon). We returned later in the afternoon for a final check-in before setting sail (behind schedule already).

The ferry is a combination cargo ship/tourist trap which allows approximatly 200 people and an assortment of semi-trailers to be carried through the Chilian fjords south into Patagonia. We were settled into a massive 22 person dorm, sub-divided into sets of 2 bunk beds. Luckily for us, our bunk mates were wonderful and didn´t even snore!

We spent the next four days crawling at a snails pace through some outstanding scenery. There were only 12 hours of very rough seas, in which I curled in first my bunk and then the bathroom while the boat swayed madly. Jon is unaffected by such things and he read and dined and slept through the night.

But the boatride was worth the seasickness. We got about 50% sunny weather (which I think is pretty good) and we were the first trip of the season to visit the large, advancing glacier enroute. Very spectacular!

We´re now in Puerto Natales, Chile (the ferry arrived last night) and madly doing prep to get on the trail tomorrow. My rough night on the boat has cost me, I have now caught a cold and am snifflying and sneezing my way around town while wiping my nose raw with cheap kleenx. Its chilly, as expected but it hasn´t snowed (yet).

The mighty ferry.

Mountain views.

Snow.

Glacial rocks.

Glacier Pio XI

The front.

Three Weeks and Mountains

We´ve been touring around Argentina for a little under 3 weeks now, although it feels like its been a lot longer than that! In the past 19 days we´ve been up through the northern half of the country, and covered waterfalls to high altitude desert. We´ve got just under a month left in our trip and a fair bit of the country left to see. We´re headed south towards the Chilian Patagonia for some mountains and treking before returning to Argentina for glaciers and penguins. Given the large distances we have to travel, it will probably take our remaining month to make it back to Buenos Aires. Luckily for us travel hasn´t been that hard and our small amount of Spanish is serving us well.

I try and add a new phrase or word to my vocabulary everyday, but its never enough to fully understand. We spent a whole day very curious about signs reading ¨picnic sin fogones¨ at all the stops on our bike trip, until we looked up fogones in the dictionary at the hostel. It means firepit.

I´ve finally found some reasonably fast internet here in Bariloche and uploaded some photos of the past few days. Our boat trip yesterday was a disaster - long, boring and ugly! But we had an excellent lasagna last night and some gourmet chocolates to help us recover.

So, we´re well, well fed and enjoying our adventures!

Photos are 1- View of the the lake from our hostel, 2- Mountains on the Circuito Chico and 3- Lake view from Cerrito Llao Llao.

More mountains from our bike trip.

Another view from Cerrito Llao Llao.

View from the gondola ride.
Jon and I at the top of Cerro Otto.

Mountain view from the boat trip.

Brrr...

Bariloche (Argentina) is a shock to the system. A mere 20 hours on the bus and we were no longer enjoying heat and palm trees but instead cold winds, snow and mountains! Despite the chilly temperatures, Bariloche is fast becoming on of our favorite places so far. Its got a certain vibe, which is really nice after the northern Argentinian cities. We´ve got 4 days here, the longest we´ve spent anywhere so far, and are filling them with mountain type adventures.


Wednesday (our first day) we rented bikes and biked the Circuito Chico, a lovely mountain loop with excellent scenery and several large hills. Although it was chilly enough to need toques under our bike helmets we had an excellent time since we were practically the only people on the road. Biking, instead of taking a tour, gave us the time to snap pictures of the mountains and enjoy a late afternoon break with a beautiful view (and some great olives). Our calves are not happy today.

Today we took it easy and rode the gondola to the summit of a near by mountain, Cerro Otto, for views of Bariloche and the lake. It was windy, so the the ride made me quite queasy (7 minutes is a long time!) but the views from the slightly rundown chalet on top were worth it. We had a licuado (like a milkshake) in the revolving restaurante at the top, but that only enhanced my seasick feeling. On the way down we watched a family trudging up the 4 km hike and felt that our $20 was well spent to avoide that.

The rest of our time has been filled with sampling chocolates to determine who is the best chocolatier in town (a demanding activity) and browsing in the shops. Bariloche is like being in Banff or Jasper - plenty of tacky souviner shops to check out for the best deals on woolen toques and shirts with Bariloche on them. There are a few gems out there, and we´ve got some time penciled in to check it out.

Tomorrow we doing a boat tour (thankgoodness I packed gravol) and then spending Saturday preping to head into Chile. My internet connection won´t allow for pictures, so those will have to wait until next time.

Bikes and Wines

Mendoza is an adventure paradise - tour companies offering everything from paragliding to rock climbing. Its also at the heart of Argentina´s wine region with both small and large bodegas producing a staggering array of vino. Jonny and I aren´t really the paragliding type, and white water rafting produces welts on one of us so instead we did what Jon enjoys - spent a day sampling some of the finest wine at bargain prices. We chose not to do a stuffy bus tour of the wineries and instead rented bikes from a company that specializes in biking wine tours and who´s employees though Jon had an uncanny reseblance to Wolverine (check out his sideburns).

We were picked up from our hostel (late again) and shuttled out to the Maipu vine region, just south of the city. There we were given a map, two bottles of water, a voucher for lunch and our choice of 1/2 a dozen bright yellow bicycles. We requested helmets and after some rummaging we were given a bright yellow shell for Jon and a fushia pink for me.

Our first stop (a mere 600m down the road) was the large Rural winery, which produces 6000 bottles an hour. We got a very excellent tour in Spanish, which left us with no understanding of how the winery worked but did include two free tastings in the very tastefully decorated winery lobby. Starting to get into the swing of things, we hoped back on our bikes and headed to tast liquors and chocolates. Sadly, the chocolate wasn´t very good, but our chocolate liquor shots made up for it. Sometime during the tasting Jon´s bike got switched for another company bike, complete with flat tire. We got a nice tour of the liquor making process while we waited for our replacement tire to arrive.

After lunch we hit a much smaller winery, Vino El Cerno, where we got a tour in English, a lesson on how to taste wine and a chance to stand in an old wine vault. Then it was off to another small winery, where we got three tastings (which I actually enjoyed). More than enough wine for me!

I´m no more of a wine expert than when we started out, but the trip was enjoyable and a great break from the hussel and bustel of the city.

Jonny in the celler with some aging wine.
Showing off our very nice helmets.
Vines in front of the Andes - a pretty nice spot for biking!

Salta and Area

Salta is located in the Northwest corner of Argentina, near the borders of Bolivia and Chile. Only one bus company travels there from Iguazu, so we were forced to travel FlechaBus, in semi-cama, while watching the music videos for DanceMix ´96 and eating ham sandwiches (for breakfast, lunch and dinner). It wasn´t as nice as our last bus trip and we were very glad to see the city of Salta after 26 hours!

The city itself is a mix of clothing stores, old colonial buildings and modern high rises. There are also a couple of spectacular churches and loads of great food. Our main purpose for visiting Salta had been to cross over into Bolivia for a quick tour of the salt flats before continuing south through Argentina. A look at our calender told us that there wasn´t going to be time for that if we wanted to see the rest of Argentina, so instead we booked ourselves a one day tour of the valleys that surround Salta itself as well as onward tickets to Mendoza.

Our tour started off on a sour note with our guide being nearly an hour late to collect us from the hotel, but improved once we found out that there would only be 4 people on the tour and that we would be able to see the sites that we wanted for as long as we wanted. The trip was a loop through northern Argentina near the Chilian border, visiting canyons, salt flats and crossing over several high passes. We lucked out and got clear, sunny weather which allowed us to see the spectacular colors of the various canyons we drove through, as well as enjoy the glare off the giant Salinas Grandes (salt lake).

We arrived back in our hotel exhausted after 12 hours of off road driving and site seeing, but pleased with what we had seen. The scenery was amazing, although I don´t think the photos do it justice. Its hard to capture a giant salt lake in a single photo! The two shots are of the valley we drove through before heading up to the puna (high altitude desert). The rest of the photos follow in the order of the tour.
The road up out of the valley. We climbed over 2000 m in less than 30 km, up to 4200 m.

Salinas Grandes, a large salt lake. The locals are mining for salt by digging holes through the crust, which then fill with the salty water. Once the water evaporates, the almost pure salt is collected for export.
Salt tables on the Salinas Grandes.

Vicunas on the puna. Apparently they are the producers of the most expensive wool in the world. They look like a smaller llama, which we also saw.

Cactus on the puna. They were everywhere!

Valley through which the ¨Train to the Clouds¨used to run. By this point we´d been in the same car for 11 hours and I was too exhausted to take many pictures. We also stopped at some pre-Inca ruins.