Argentina

We arrived in Bariloche on an overnight bus from Peninsula Valdes on 27 March after 13 hours on a ridiculously comfy bus. The 1st class seats recline close to 160 degrees plus you get food and a DVD in english. Unfortunately, and not the bus companies fault, the movie Firewall starring Harrison Ford and Paul Bettany was somewhat less inspiring than the bus. CRAP comes to mind.....

We arrived fresh the next morning to be greeted by a 500 meter steep hill to our hostel with 20kg back packs and 5 kg of hand luggage. We made it but it was pretty tiring after a night on a bus!.

The town is like a little bit of Switzerland in the Andes. The town is surrounded by low Andean mountains and a beautiful lake with too many chocolate and outdoor clothing shops.

In the main square there were a couple of huge St Bernard dogs adding a little bit of extra Swiss character to the place.

The temperature is great ranging from 14-26oC most days with perfect cloudless skies all day.

Tomorrow, we are heading to the Llao Llao Hotel 25km by bus in the Andes to have afternoon tea on a lake. A splurge item that Alli is pleased to do. It comes highly recommended in Lonely Planet as a must do just for the bus ride and scenery. The limitless supply of cakes and sweet pastries is also an added bonus...... If that tickles your fancy.....

On Friday 30th March we will be getting a bus back into Chile to the river town of Valdivia (another must according to the Lonely Liar) before embarking on Santiago a couple or so days later. A point that will mark 50% into our trip.

A trip across country to the east coast of Argentina again saw us arrive in Puerto Madryn. A nice, seaside town although it is a bit out of season for the hordes of summer bachgoers this time of year. It is however, the base for a visit to Peninsula Valdes.

The peninsular is home to a national park which houses some pretty spectacular land and marine wildlife. Driving out to the park we encountered guanaco, Patagonian Ostrich, sheep (the merino sheep live on pretty dry grass down here, which is why they produce some of the leanest, best quality meat to eat...the famous patagonia lamb!).

The first stop was to say hello to the magellan penguins, a seaside cliff leading down the the beach below. The penguins stand around right near the fence, you could almost touch them if the signs didn´t warn that doing so is forbidden, as they are protected. Gorgeous, they are so cute! Hundreds of them waddle about and fluff their feathers in the wind. No explanation why they have chosen this particular cliff and carprk to live, it´s apparently only a recent habitation.

Stopped next for a picnic lunch watching the elephant seals do pretty much nothing at Punta Cartor. About a dozen of them were lying like big slugs down by the water. Things got exciting when 2 big males starting making throaty growls at eachother, but they obviously couldn´t be bothered moving as it stayed at just growls and they went back to sleep again.

Afternoon saw us camped out waiting for a sighting of the Orcas (killer whales, although they are actually part of the dolphin family). One of the only places in the world where the orcas come in on the high tide and swim right in to throw themselves onto the beach to catch a meal of seal before allowing the tide to wash them back out into the water, still chomping away on a seal. We were very lucky that there were 2 orcas cruising the coastline whilst we were there and plenty of seals lolling about as easy targets on the shore. Unfortunately for us (or fortunately if you were one of the seals!) the orcas must not have been overly hungry that day as neither of them felt inclined to come in for a dramatic feed. Paling into less excitement while everyone was so orca focused, we had a couple of armadillos running about and also 2 grey foxes. Surprisingly tame, both seemed keen on turning on the charm for visitors in the hope of a scrap of touristy food.

Long but very rewarding day, about 12 hours on the road but thoroughly worthwhile for all the interesting wildlife we encountered.

Over to Bariloche next, so our next blog will be from the chocolate capital of the Argentine Lake District....yum!!

Alli and Jason

El Calafate is the Town in Argentine Patagonia where you base yourself to go and see the glacier on every traveller´s itinerary....the Moreno Glacier.

Some interesting facts: the glacier is 257 square kms in size, with a span of about 5km at the front and ranging from 55m to 70m in height above the water. It grows about 40cm each day on the edges and even more in the middle apparently.

We have taken some really cool photos of this glacier, and our other travels so far, which Jason is in the process of trying to upload to a new yahoo-linked website (we´ll provide details when it´s set up so you can see them).

The glacier is awesome, there are a series of boardwalks you take to get as close as is safe to the glacier....not too close though, you should see the size of the chunks of ice regularly cracking and falling off into the water! The sounds are amazing, really loud and the size of the waves in the water below is an indication of just how huge the ice chunks falling off really are. The first hour we were there was sunny, and the glacier looks pristine white. Unfortunately grey skies and showers set in after that, although the change in the colours of the glacier was impressive as it looked much bluer without the sun on it.

Not much else to write about El Calafate town itself, quite cute and touristy but fairly small and really just the base for glacier viewing.

Alli and Jason

We stayed in Puerto Natales for a couple of days as a stop off point for a trip to Torres Del Paine National Park.

The Park is simply sensational but this part of Chile is unfortunately a cash cow. The entry fee for a day was a whopping US$30 on top of the tour costs. The accommodation in simple refugios even more expensive than the digs at Uluru in the red centre.

That said, the National Park was fantastic. On our day tour (we were the only ones there - ¡ was full of a cold and alli would never have camped! so a 4 day trip around the 50km W circuit was never a bona fide option) we saw a grey fox, guanacos (like Llamas) plus Chilian Condors in the fields. We also saw wild ostrich looking things '- the name escaped us.

We were shown a waterfall and some spectacular lake and mountain views - not too dissimilar to South New Zealand. The lakes contain excessive salts and minerals, hence the water appearing blues and greens and then greys depending on the wind and orientation of the sun.

The glacier there was impressive as was the ice cold wind. Bloody freezing to say the least. The glaciers were 15 km away with large chunks of icebergs left over in the Lakes.

We got to see the Torres (not too dissimilar to the 3 sisters at the Blue Mountains in Sydney) and we were happy. Especially as the forecast for the day was rain rain rain. We got sun sun sun.

I could write a paragraph about the town of Puerto Natales but at best the place is sleepy, windy and not much a happening to report!.

Our next report will be the amazing Perito Moreno Glaciar at El Calafate. Simply sensational............

Speak soon y'all.

Jason and Alli xx

Here we are the the end of the world!! Literally, we are in Ushuaia which at the very bottom tip of Argentina. It is the the southermost town or city in the world and the base for most of the cruiseships that go to Antarctica.

Ushuaia is not really on the mainland but on an archipaelago called Tierra Del Fuego (translation meaning Island of Fire). This place was inhabited with peoples similar to the aboriginies of Australia. But the European gold diggers and Sea Lion hunters soon put paid to them with murder and disease. Gold panning was the business here. It is now tourism.

The weather is slightly more ¨fresh¨is here compared to the summer heat we´ve been used to so far - about 10 degrees during the day as the Antarctic breeze and snow capped Andes keep things pretty chilly. Jason thinks I am mad, but I am loving getting out the fleece and goretex and shopping for a beanie and gloves!!

Ushuaia is a fairly touristy town with lots of local excursions on offer. We ventured out on boat cruise on Monday to visit the penguin and sea lion colonies. The penguins were gorgeous, just like in the movie, Happy Feet! The sea lions are quite blobby, smell fishy and make some disgusting noises. Yesterday we did a hike in Tierra del Fuego national park, which was great. Wasn´t a particularly hard walk, quite flat really as it followed a lake along the bottom of the Andes. The scenery was just spectacular though. The end point of the hike is the border of Argentina and Chile, although I have to admit we were a bit disappointed when all that marked the border was a plastic orange witches hat type thing. Not sure what we were expecting (a ¨Welcome to Chile¨sign maybe??, or armed border officers.... he he...) but a number of other hikers also expressed their let down at the official border so it wasn´t just us!

Remember that TV show, Northern Exposure? That´s pretty much what Ushuaia looks like, very cute with chalet style houses, although without the moose walking down the street of course. Penguin are definitely the selling theme of the town, every shop sells penguin statues, jumpers with pictures of penguins on them, giant fluffy toy penguins dressed in hiking gear....and there is even a guy who dresses up as a penguin and walks down the main street.

Chat to you later.....Alli & Jason