What, no Penguins?

From Ushuaia

 Our second, and final, day in Ushuaia was to feature a boat excursion in the Beagle Channel, which links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, bypassing Cape Horne.  Alison had been hoping that we would have the chance to seem some penguins whilst in Tierra del Fuego, but unfortunately the only penguin colony in the area was some distance from Ushuaia and was not included on our 4 hour itinerary.  However we did get to pass various small islands in the channel containing colonies of sea lions and various species of bird, including cormorants and rockhoppers, and I managed to get some good photos.  We both agreed that from a distance, the cormorants looked very much like penguins when they were standing on their rock with their heads tucked in, so don't be surprised if Alison tries to pass of some cormorant pictures as being of penguins!

To the End of the World

From Ushuaia

 Ushuaia's main claim to fame seems to be based on the fact that it is the southernmost city in the world.  Consequently, many of its attractions are billed as "the last XYZ in the world!".  To be fair, it does also act as a base from which to explore the Terra del Fuego region, and also as a starting point for cruises to Antarctica.  Of course, we had to have our passports stamped with the "Sourthenmost City in the World" stamp! 

Our first day in Ushuaia involved an expedition to the Tierra del Fuego National Park, which included a trip down one of the rivers, paddling an inflatable raft, followed by a three hour hike around one of the larger lakes in the park.  Naturally, we also had to visit the starting point of the trans-Americas highway that runs up the whole length of America from South to North (or indeed the other way round, depending on how you look at it). All in all a very pleasant day out, if perhaps not quite as impressive as some of the expeditions that we had already done earlier in the holiday.  

In the evening we found a restaurant serving a tapas platter of local dishes, which turned out to be an excellent choice.

Tierra del Fuego

From Tierra Del Fuego

 Our itinerary involved a lengthy road journey from Torres del Paine to Ushuaia, which spanned almost two whole days, and involved an overnight stopover in Punta Arenas.  Not quite sure how we ended up with this route as a flight would have saved us at least a day's holiday, but anyway, it offered the chance to "view some of Patagonia's most stunning scenery", and cross the "mystical Straits of Magellan", according to the blurb in our itinerary.  In the event, the multiple bus hops were all comfortable enough and we did have a good meal in Punta Arenas.  However, the Tierra del Fuego landscape was pretty dull compared to some of the spectacular scenery we had encountered earlier on our trip, and the roads on the Chilean side of the island were all of the dirt track type.  As we approached the West cost of Tierra del Fuego we had to go through the whole Chile/Argentina border control again, with it's mass of paperwork. Why these two neighbours can't trust each other a bit more beats me.  After yet another bus change in Rio Grande, we eventually reached Ushuaia - the end of the world!

Torres del Paine on Horseback

From Torres Del Paine

 After much debate, I bowed to Alison's better judgement and agreed to tackle the journey to the foot of the Torres del Paine peaks via a combination of horseback and trekking, as the nine hour round trip would have been too daunting on foot alone - and besides, I insisted that Alison pay for the horses!
  Our hotel had a selection of 50+ horses available to carry guests on a variety of trips around the national park, and we were assigned two reliable and experienced animals who, we were assured, would be more than able to carry us to the staging post on the mountain trail.  I tend to distrust modes of transport that do not have at least two wheels, a brake pedal, and a reasonable selection of forward and reverse gears.  However, our guides explained the basics of how to drive and steer our horses, and it all seemed straightforward enough, with the added benefit that the horses had four legs as against our paltry two, which could come in handy on the steeper bits of the trail.
It was not long before I started to feel reasonably at ease with my nag.  Her only bad habit was to try to stop and eat every bit of green vegetation along the trail, which could be inconvenient at times.  Anyway, it certainly beats walking.  After about an hour we reached the refuge where we had to park the horses to await our return later in the day.  The remainder of the trek was to be on foot.  In the end we reached our destination, a viewpoint overlooking the towering peaks of the Torres del Paine, without too much strenuous effort. It was certainly less tiring than our assault of he Mt Fitzroy peak a few days earlier.  The peaks were certainly impressive, standing out starkly from the surrounding darker mountain rock.  Unfortunately we were not able to see their summits, which were shrouded in cloud for the whole day. (It  turned out that we were very lucky with the weather for our outing, as it got considerably worse the next day).
The return journey retraced our outbound path, and we were eventually reunited with our horses where we had left them at the staging post.  Although we could have done the rest of the journey on foot without too much difficulty, we were glad of the fact that the horses were there to take the strain and give us an easy ride back to the hotel.  In retrospect, the decision to go for the horse/trek combination was a good one, and one that I would be happy to repeat on some future occasion.

View Torres del Paine in a larger map

Into Chile

From Torres Del Paine

 In fact we had already set foot in Chile earlier in this holiday, albeit only for 5 minutes to drink a hot chocolate on a mountain top in the Andes.  This time it was for real, with a trip to the Torres del Paine national park, which is located in Chile about three hours drive south of El Calafate.  Our expedition was in a rugged looking 4x4 minibus, which turned out to be an appropriate choice of vehicle, as the paved roads in Argentina turned into dirt tracks as we got close to the boarder, and continued like that pretty much the whole way into the national park.
The park itself consisted of a series of lagoons surrounding the centre piece, which was the towering Torres del Paine peaks themselves.  We had the opportunity to visits most of these lakes, which were each stringing different shades of blue, ranging from turquoise, where the lake contained rock particles from the glacier ment, though sky blue to indigo.  On the way we passed many guanacos, the llama like animal that is native to Southern Patagonia, and is currently undergoing something of a comeback.  Much of the park was still closed following the extensive forest fires that had raged there a few weeks earlier, but fortunately most of these were now under control and it did not affect our itinerary too much.
At the end of the days excursion on we were taken to our hotel, which is strategically placed as a base to tackle the various trails to be found in the national park.

Cerro Torres

From Cerro Torres

After yesterday's marathon trek, we decided on a more modest outing today - to view El Chalten' s other main set of peaks, the Cerro Torres. Rather than do the whole day trek to the lake at the base of the peaks, we opted for the much shorter 3 hour round trip to the main viewpoint. Still impressive, even from that distance.
Getting back in the early afternoon, we had plenty of time for a refreshing beer followed by loads of homemade ice cream, which is quite a speciality in Argentina.  Then it was time to catch the bus back to Calafate and an excellent vegetarian pizza in the restaurant attached to our hotel.

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Ascent of Mt Fitzroy by Camera

From Mt Fitzroy

 After a short warm up walk on our first day in El Chalten, we were ready for the big one: the assault on the towering peak of Mount Fitzroy (named after the captain of the HMS Beagle).  The trek started off relatively modestly though woodland and along flattish scrubland areas, for about 12km, with one or two lookout points on the way.  The final stretch was a steep 400m ascent up a rocky slope and moraine scree to reach our goal, the view of Mt Fitzroy and the blue waters of the Laguna des Los Tres at its foot.  A truly impressive sight, with several glaciers tracing down from the peaks to feed into the lagoons below, and the massive peak of Fitzroy in the background. We decided against actually scaling the peak itself, and settled for a photographic assault instead.
After our picnic lunch I descended the short slope to the Laguna to test out the water for myself.  Nice and cool at around 2deg, and very refreshing for my hot feet.  One braver guy even had a swim in it.  Refilled our water bottles with pure glacier water for our return journey.
The walk back down the slope was if anything harder then going up, but we had hired walking poles for the day and that helped enormously.  The route back retraced our outbound path, but it was still interesting seeing the landscape from a different angle.  We finally arrived back at our hotel in El Chalten after a strenuous, but very satisfying, nine hour, 28km round trip.

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El Chalten

From El Chalten

El Chalten is a three hour bus ride north of El Calafate, and is the base for walks to the renowned Mt Fitzroy range.  Just before we pulled into town, our bus driver stopped at a view point so that we could get our first view of the impressive Mt Fitzroy.  On arrival we were given an orientation session by the people in the National Park Visitors Centre.  After checking in at our hotel, we decided to go for one of the shorter walks in the afternoon in preparation for the big one on the following day. Just high enough to get a view back over the town, and in the other direction, towards Lago Viedma.

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Walking on Ice

From Perito Moreno Glacier

 Today's excursion was to the Perito Morena Glacier, which is about 80km from where we are staying in Calafate.  This is one of the few glaciers in the world that is actually growing year by year, unlike the majority that are shrinking due to global warming.  As our bus drew near to the edge of Lake Argentina we were treated to the impressive sight of the towering ice cliffs pushing into the blue water of the lake.  The national park in which the glacier is located is very well organized, and there was an extensive network of walkways to allow visitors to view the glacier close up and form all angles, without disturbing the rest of the environment.   At the closest point, we were only 300m from the face of the glacier, and we were able to see the blue color of the ice that had been under the greatest compression.  We were also lucky enough to be able to see the glacier calving, which entailed a loud bang like an explosion, followed by the crash as a large chunk of ice fell into the lake to create an iceberg and a mini tsunami.
In the afternoon we were taken across the lake by boat to vice the glacier up close from the water, and then land on the opposite shore for the start of our glacier trek.  We trekked up to the side of the glacier where we were all fitted with crampons so that we could walk safely on the ice.  Then we were lead onto the glacier itself to view some of the more interesting features.  If you saw the episode of Frozen Planet that featured the Greenland glaciers, then you will have some idea of what we saw.  Pools of meltwater flowed down channels carved in the ice and then plunged down into the depths though deep holes. Particularly impressive was the electric blue colour of the ice holes and crevasses, almost as if they were being lit up from below by some sort of glacial light show.
Of course, all that ice could not go to waste, so our trek ended with a whiskey toast to us intrepid explorers, poured over ice freshly carved from the glacier by our guides.

Pajcha - Museo de Arte Ethnico Americano de Salta

From Salta

ing more than a random entry in Lonely Planet, we decided to visit this tiny private museum, which was situated in the same road as our hotel.  An interesting choice as it turned out.  On arriving in front of the museum premises you are confronted with a closed door and an intercom.  Pressing the buzzer and a disembodied voice said "hold on my friend, I will be with you shortly".  Eventually the door was opened and we were greeted enthusiastically by Diego, the deputy director of the museum, who welcomed us into his domain.
We soon realized that we we the only visitors to this establishment that day (and possibly that week), and after a fairly manic introduction to the collection, we opted for the guided tour option @ $40 pesos.  (I think we would have ended up with this anyway, whether or not we had opted for it, as Diego was too enthusiastic to keep anything to himself for very long). For the next two hours he proceed to guide us though the eclectic collection of South American pre-Colombian artifacts.  Diego's particular speciality appeared to be the subject of paintings of angels with firearms.  No, that is not a mistyping. Diego and the museum's founder and director had spent many years traveling to churches in Argentina, Bolivia, Peru and Chile to undertake research on this subject. They had collected a mass of photographic evidence to illustrate this strange school of painting, which involved the depiction of angels (distinguished by their wings), but dressed in 16th century European dress, and carrying firearms.  And apparently no one knows how this started, and why the style became so widespread across the Inca region.
The rest of the museum contained a bizarre mix of ancient artifacts from the region, and tried to show the link between these old crafts and those still in use in modern times.  All in all, a very informative and entertaining collection, and well worth the visit.   Highly recommended if you happen to have a couple of hours to spare in Salta.

Llamas All The Way

From Humahuaca

 We had a couple of hours to wait in Purmamarca until we were due to join the rest of our excursion heading along the Humahuaca Gorge from Salta.  This gave us enough time to grab some shots of the Seven Coloured Mountain in the morning sun.  A spectacular sight, making it worth my efforts in scaling the ridge opposite the village to get the definitive shot.  Anyway, judge for yourselves.

After Meeting up with our guide for the day, we progressed up the gorge to Ticara, where we had the chance to look round the ruins of the ancient pre-Inca settlement that was discovered there.  We learned, amongst other fascinating facts, that llamas were a valuable resource for the inhabitants of this area, proving food, transport, leather, wool, and apparently even used as a hot water bottle substitute on cold winter nights!  

The Humahuaca Gorge is one of the many World Heritage Sites in Argentina, in part because of the regions cultural history, but also because of the amazing geology.  Basically what we were seeing was a cross section of what was once the seabed, turned on its side so as to expose its various strata going back over hundreds of millions of years.  This gives rise to the wide variety of rock formations and colours that were on view as we drove along the valley.

Then on to the town of Humahuaca for lunch, which inevitably involved llama casserole (so that's llama three days in a row then), before heading back along the gorge to Salta, via San Sebastian, the capital of the Jujuy region.

 

Train to the Clouds

From Las salinas grandes

 The title of this entry is rather misleading.  We actually went on a car excursion that for the first part at least, followed the route of the famed Train to the Clouds, which starts in Salta and ends up in the Andes close to the Chilean border.  The construction of the rail line was clearly a significant engineering feat with many obstacles to be overcome on its route.  As with the previous trip to the Andes, we were treated to some breathtaking scenery as the road wound along the river gorge and then up into the Andean mountains.  We turned off the rail route at the small mining town of St Antonio de Los Cobres, and headed out over the Alti Plano on a dirt track road that seemed to be in constant danger of being washed away by the occasional heavy rains that come at this time of year. Not much to see in this virtualy deserted plain other than a few wandering llamas and vicunias.  Eventually we reached our ultimate destination for the day, the salt lake of Grandes Salinas.  This is a truly spectacular sight, with an almost endless expanse of glistening white salt stretching out in all directions.  I wish that I was better able to capture the scene photographically.
In the evening we ended up in the village of Purmamaca, in a charming boutique hotel nestling at the base of the Seven Coloured Mountain for which the village is famous, and, to my mind at least, resembling a Hobbit house.  As with the previous evening, we were treated to a peña performance at a local restaurant, with, inevitably, llama steak on the menu.

Salta

From Salta

We were particularly keen to visit the Museum of Mountain Archeology, which holds the mummified remains of three Inca children who were sacrificed to the Inca gods, and  subsequently unearthed from their graves on the summit of a peak in the Andes. The museum also contained a collection of artifacts that were buried with the children, and a helpful explanation to put the discoveries into a historical context.  It was eerie to see the extremely well preserved mummy of a six year old boy, looking as if he was just sleeping.  Well worth the visit.
The highlight of the evening was a visit to one of the local pena shows , which feature musicians playing traditional Gaucho folk music, accompanied in this case by a troupe of dancing Gauchos and chicas. It sounds as if it should be a bit cheesy, but it turned out to be great entertainment. Luckily I managed to avoid being dragged out onto the dance floor to demonstrate my dancing prowess!

The High Andes

From Andes

This outing took us on the route that links Mendoza to Santiago in Chile, through the Andes. The road replaced an earlier rail link that has now fallen into disuse, as the traveling time via rail was 16 hours, compared to the 6 hours it now takes by road. For much of its length, it follows the Mendoza river that feeds glacial melt water to irrigate the vineyards in the Mendoza region and provide a substantial part of the city's water supply (there is hardly any annual rainfall in the desert that surrounds Mendoza.)
The final destination for this trip was the top of a mountain where Argentina borders Chile. At 3760 meters, this summit was high enough to make you out of breath after only very mild exertion, but it provided a stunning view of the Andes range in all directions. On our route we were able to catch a glimpse of Aconcagua, which at just under 7000 meters is the highest mountain in the whole of the Americas. Unfortunately, as is often the case, the view of the summit was somewhat obscured by clouds.


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Location:Mendoza

Mendoza

From Mendoza

After an early morning flight from Buenos Aires, we arrived in Mendoza in time for a late breakfast, followed by a brief wander round the city centre. The weather here is hot, but not humid, so one does not get too sweaty just walking around. The fact that most of Mendoza's streets are lined with avenues of shady trees certainly helps as well.
The main event for today was a cycling tour of some local wineries. We learned all about how they make the Malbec wine for which the region is famous, and of course got to sample a selection of their produce. It was heartening to see just how much effort and dedication these new winery teams are putting into improving the quality of Argentina's wine exports.

Buenos Aires, Day 2

From Buenos Aires

We continued today with our exploration of some of the more interesting neighborhoods in Buenos Aires ,including the San Telmo with its quaint cobbled streets and antique markets, and one of the city's original coffee houses from the early 1900's. Took in a trip on the Subte A line (underground), which has old wood paneled trains dating back to the days when the BA underground was first built.
In the evening we went in for the full Tango experience, which included a brief lesson (Alison's feet are healing up nicely, thanks), followed by a Argentine steak dinner and a very professional and entertaining show.

Buenos Aires

From Buenos Aires

Left London on a dull winter's day. Arrived in Argentina in the middle of summer, with clear blue skies and 30+ temperatures. Great!
We spent the first few hours being taken on an orientation tour of Buenos Aires, before being dropped off in our hotel in the Recoleta district of the city. After a brief siesta, time for some more sightseeing. Although Buenos Aires is a vast city, the interesting bits are mainly concentrated in the centre and are reasonably easy to get round on foot or by taxi. First impressions are that BA is a very elegant city, with most of the buildings being constructed during the country's boom period in the early 1900's, when Argentina was one of the most wealthy countries in the world, at least in terms of per capita income. The overall impression is Parisian, with perhaps a touch of Madrid. Certainly not what you might associate with a Latin American country. The fact that the city has a somewhat rundown feel does nothing to spoil its overall charm. You get the impression that when the Argentine economy recovers from its current bout of inflation and the country can afford to invest again in its infrastructure, then it could easily return to its former glory.
Our itinerary took in the impressive Recoleta Cemetary, where the family tombs are works of architecture in their own right. We also had to visit the tomb of Evita, who is still something of a cultural icon hereabouts. Also a walk around Plaza de Mayo; scene of many civil protests over the years. Currently occupied by a group advocating the repossession of the Islas Malvinas, which is still a very sore topic for some Argentinians (don't mention the war!)
In the evening, a very enjoyable meal in a cheap and cheerful Argentinian restaurant specialising in stews cooked in a log oven. We are saving ourselves for the full steak blowout tomorrow.