Flavia & Gregory go LA

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Here we are in Bariloche, one of the most popular holiday resorts for Argentinians.

Bariloche is a very famous place and terribly commercial. It is the Switzerland of Argentina, in fact (along with San Bermando’s dogs for which you have to pay 10 pesos for a picture..) it offers plenty of chocolate and really looks Alpine -like. Like a Spanish-speaking South Tyrol...crazy!!

Since we covered 26 hours of driving over 2 days instead of 3, we have earned ourselves an extra night in Bariloche for a total of 3, isn't that cool! Amongst other things it means planting the tent one less time and leaving it up and standing for 3 consecutive nights, which is a rarity and very very welcome.
Yesterday we went up the highest cable car mountain, Cerro de la Cathedral, and took an Easter egg with us to wish you all A VERY HAPPY EASTER!! BUONA PASQUA A TUTTI DAL CERRO DE LA CATHEDRAL!!! Gregory actually had understood that we were going to a cathedral in the mountains, never mind, what can I do… When we got up there he got the idea, so that’s ok.

We have decided to go out for meals while we are here and have a party on the second night, which we had last night. That means joining up 2 days budget into 1 and buy illegal alcohol (Kim our guide says that we cannot buy alcohol under the budget, however we have already protested and bought wine back in Falafafu’, so I think she has resigned herself and accepted ammutiny…)
Well, the party was great, BBQ delicious and the PUNCH knocked most of us out... I have taken a picture of the punch given it was sooo good, see below..

Cable seats up to the Cerro Cathedral

View from Cerro Cathedral

The mighty punch

From Torres Del Paine National Park we travelled some 4-5 hours north to El Chalten, a small town at the base of the Fitz Roy mountain peak. While half of the group went on a ice-trekking trip of some 12 very exhausting hours with crampons and hanging cable river crossings, we decided to go trekking up to the Fitz Roy viewpoint - el Mirador Laguna de los Tres. This is marked as a 4-hr trip each way... it got recommended to us from a really nice couple of Argentinians that were staying at the same hut that we hired, so there we went. We missed the 7:30 start that we had agreed with another couple in the group and set off at 8:30 instead, after a nice and for once relaxed fried-egg breakfast. At 10 am we caught up with the same very couple at the first mirador - they had left early but it was dark and they got lost in town and could not find the beginning of the trail for an hour!!! My thoughts had to go back to the delicious eggs I had earlier while being late....

This park, north of the Parque de los Glaciares, which includes Perito Moreno (more south), is almost better than Torres del Paine!! Stunning, very different park, though when we were at the Torres we were sure that was the best park we had ever seen! This one does not have blue lakes everywhere, but has the most stunning autumn trees I have ever seen, just beautiful (the pictures will explain better). Anyways, we climbed up to the base of the peaks, this time to find a very blue laguna and a crazy wind. When we finally decided that it was too cold and windy to stay up and it was time to return and face the other 5 hours on the way back, the wind got us. In order to descend we had to go round a small rocky hill on top of the view point, and this point was hit by extreme wind. Fortunately the wind was blowing towards the mountain and not away from it (if it had, I don't know what would have happened) anyways it was blowing us down onto the ground along with sandblast and for a few minutes I thought we were stuck up there - we had to throw ourselves onto the ground in order not to be flown away and could not move for ages! Well, for a few minutes that seemed ages, but that was enough to really worry us that it might not stop.. We finally managed to take advantage of a minor wind recess and crawled to the base of the viewpoint. From there it was a very steep way down through the rocks and a fantastic view. About an hour away from base, we bumped into a PUMA!!! We were walking and Gregory was in front. I saw the puma walking in front of us about 30 m away, I said to Gregory un puma, un puma!! Gregory turns round and says yeah right!! When he realised that I was extracting my camera and pointing in front of him, Mr Bonds finally bothered to turn and look ahead and realise it was no joke!!! It just looked at us for a few seconds and continued walking down his path, completely uninterested. I managed to take a picture but I moved the image, I guess between the hurry and the fear!! Well I was not sure if I was supposed to be scared or not, the puma was not coming towards us and it is not huge (maybe 150 cm in length?). In fact, I wanted to move up a bit closer for a better picture, very discreetly of course, but I think Gregory guessed my thoughts and yelled not to even think about following the bloody puma!! Well it seems that we were exceptionally lucky, puma sightings are extremely rare.

I am being kicked out of the Internet shop as it is closing

We left El Calafate this morning at an unsually comfortable 10 am, after cook group 2 (which includes Gregory - the curry night was an extra performance while on free-style catering schedule) did the shopping for tonight and tomorrow. Each cook group (4 people) have to do one dinner, breakfast and lunch the next day. After the great success in the Torres del Paine, Gregory has been nominated head chef and has decided to go for beef stew with polenta and risotto with pumpkin (ok, I have had some tiny influence on this, I admit). Needless to say that I am looking forward to dinner tonight!!!

Anyways, yesterday it was day trip to the Moreno masterpiece, a huge piece of creased ice 30 km long, 5 km wide and 60 meters high. We took a boat ride to go close to it from the lake and then continued on a mountain path on foot to view it from land. Every few minutes big chunks of ice detach from the ice body and fall down in the water with a very loud roaring, the ice falling disappears quickly with a wave but the sound is soooo dramatic!! it is almost like a gun shot and then a huge cracking, very very impressive.

It was another great day and I could not stop taking pictures. The thing is so incredibly immense that each time one moves a couple of meters, one feels like taking another picture, well I could not stop I must have taken over one hundred till Gregory demanded that I hand over the camera. Call it Peritonitis Fotografica Morenica... ? I have managed to delete a few off and am down to 40 or so, but this is still too much for just one spot. Will upload in a couple of days now.

Here´s a website with a couple of pics to give you an idea in the meantime
http://www.patagonia-argentina.com/e/andina/glaciares/perito.htm

Today we are in El Chalten, a small town 4 hours driving north of El Calafate. Tomorrow half of the group are going to do ice-trekking, Gregory and I have decided to opt out once again and go for a long straightforward hike instead, possibly 9 hours again. We are obviously very optimistic, aren´t we.

On the way to Perito Moreno

Perito Moreno

Ushuaia has been another good spot. 3 nights here have meant a bit of rest and the chance to recover from the frenetic driving of the past few days.

Day 1 was entirely dedicated to relaxing, laundry, Internet, and a visit to the dentist to finish off the job started in Buenos Aires, where I had a root canal treatment done as the inlay replacement they did in London was hurting like hell when chewing and, believe me, you do not want to have tooth problems with all the Argentinian beef there is around here... The dentist in BA were great, they did a very good job and treated me like an old friend (they were recommended by Miriam, a friend of mine, so fair enough). But the dentist here was picked at random, and treated me like a friend just the same! All ladies dentist, wonderful women!! I had to have the canal root treatment finished off - permanent filling - so I popped in the first place I saw. Miriel saw me immediately and filled up the hole. Since we had spoken about the prices I had paid in London to do the crap job she could see and not believe, when she finished she told me she had a surprise for me and guess what? While she was sealing off the tooth in question she also whitened out another small adjacent filling as it looked like an eye sore and she could not believe that the person who had done the rest of the job had left it there like that!! And she gave me her email address and asked me to email her when I am in Mexico to tell her that the job she did lasted!! Honestly!!

On day 2 we went on a boat trip in the Beagle channel. Very nice, 4 hrs long trip going round to the lighthouse spot and a couple of islands, one with the seals and the other with the emperor cormorants, or something like that. Big birds. It is crazy how all these seals cramp up this tiny island one on top of each other when there are so many other empty islands?? The guide reckoned that it must be due to either security or lots of food around this particular island, seen that they never leave it and all the females have their babies there. Then we went for a walk on an island that was once inhabited by this indigenas that lived there NAKED!!!! Since they lived out of the sea and they were getting constantly wet, they worked out that they were better off not wearing anything and cover themselves with seal´s fat as insulation and dry themselves by the fire!! This is at 0 degress or so. BAH! The sad part is that once the European explorers got here, they wiped them out by poisoning them as they were competing for the seals, can you believe that? Then a British guy called Bridges arrived and he tried to save the last 100 survivals but of course it was too late - so today their island is called Bridges Island.

Day 3 (today) we went to visit the Parque Nacional de Tierra Del Fuego. We walked on itinerary 2 which is the path along the sea - 6,5 km, about 3 hours, and the views were very nice.

I have managed to squeeze a pic in, took me 10 minutes but worth the effort I think!

Seals in the Beagle Channel, boat trip

The minibus that we got was well above expectations - modern, fast, with lots of extra space (24 seats and only 10 of us). And the head rests were white and smellt of fresh washing powder... There is a god!!

In fact, losing the truck and acquiring the bus has meant an overall improvement for all of us. The minibus could travel faster than the truck (120 km/h as opposed to 90), was much more comfortable (2 reclinable seats EACH), 2 drivers meant we could travel for longer and make up for the lost time and, more importantly, we could not take the camping gear with us and therefore hotel rooms instead of tents!!!! OK, the whole point of paying loads of pounds for this trip was to camp. However - camping when travelling 3500 km over 4-5 days including shopping for food and cooking for a group in the Patagonian steppe (= cold and windy) has got to be pretty hard, so we have all been quite happy to miss this one out and move onto the nice bus with hotel lodging.

We stopped at Peninsula Valdes and stayed with a lady called Nora in a fantastic apartment. Exodus sent us on a day tour around the island to see the various animals - we visited sea lion and sea elephant colonies, penguins and saw lots of animals - foxes, armadillos (really ugly with a pink hairy bum and very very fast), guanacos (type of lama with beautiful eyes, also very fast). From Pensinsula Valdes we moved south to Camerones, famous for the penguin colonies, penguins everywhere. They are quite small and ugly though, but still quite fascinating. Then we went to the petrified forest, which is not really a forest, it was one about 150 million years ago but now it is just a few HUGE trees lying across the desert in petrified form - the gases and ashes of some vulcano turned the trees into stone.

After that it was lots of driving again, getting the ferry through the Magellan Strait through Chile (Chile have cut off Tierra del Fuego from the rest of Argentina so you have to cross Chile before you can get to Tierra del Fuego) and finally here we are in Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, el FIN DEL MUNDO!!! The place is incredibly modern and there are lots of seals and penguins around and a national park which we will visit tomorrow.

Unfortunately we cannot upload any pictures until the end of the month as we have used up all of our monthly space, very sorry!

Greetings to everybody

ITALIAN CORNER

Alla fine la perdita del camion pare sia stata piu´una fortuna che altro!
Exodus ci ha noleggiato un minibus a 24 posti molto molto comodo, specie considerando che siamo solo 10. Il fatto che il minibus fosse molto piu´veloce del camion, che ci abbiano dato 2 autisti e che non ci si poteva mettere dentro tutta l´attrezzatura da campeggio ha significato due punti cruciali a nostro favore: 1) notevole guadagno di tempo sul percorso dei 3500 km che abbiamo percorso negli scorsi 4 giorni 2) permanenza in hotel invece che tenda su di un territorio non proprio ideale (vento, freddo).
Cosi siamo andati di lusso, beh insomma piu´o meno. Alcuni degli hotel erano un po´patetici, ma in generale non possiamo proprio lamentarci. L´hotel migliore e´stato quello che ho prenotato io - ho capito male il prezzo - erm erm - cosi siamo andati di lusso! La nostra guida, che non parla spagnolo e fa una fatica bestia a prenotare gli alberghi per telefono visto che le mettono giu´il telefono quando si rendono conto che non parla spagnolo, mi ha chiesto di aiutarla a telefonare in giro per trovare da dormire. Insomma io ho capito male il prezzo pero´siccome e´abbastanza pieno dappertutto e la categoria dell´hotel era quella giusta, mi sembra che non se la sia menata molto - sicuramente molto meno di me, che ho continuato a menarmela per un bel pezzo per aver capito male il prezzo.

Da Buenos Aires abbiamo fatto tutta la Patagonia e visto nel tragitto varie colonie di pinguini e foche e anche addocchiato un paio di orche - da LONTANO. Abbiamo visto altri animali tra cui il guanaco - una specie di lama dagli occhi bellissimi - armadilli, volpi, struzzi e varie specie di volatili.

Purtroppo non posso caricare piu´foto sul sito fino alla fine del mese perche´ho finito lo spazio!! Accidenti!!

SONO INGRASSATA.

Saluti a tutti

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4th April - adding some pics:
Penguins in Camerones

Armadillo in Peninsula Valdes - really funny ugly fast walkers!!

Bosque Petrificado

Guanaco

Right, it was obviously going too well... 364 km south of Buenos Aires, on our way to Patagonia, our truck decided to pack up.

We will overlook our BA experience for now, it was great but too short anyways.

We broke down some 20 km after the last service station. After 2 hours of waiting around for help from the Exodus UK helpline, which did not materialise, a couple of Argentinian road controllers came to our rescue - probably called out because we had stopped in an hazardous position and someone had already hit and disintegrated our red hazard triangle. We were advised to drive back to the previous town (the truck could still move, only at 20 km an hour, and we had exactly 20 of them to drive back...) so we did. Our tour leader found accomodation through the mechanic in this place with lots of rooms and a kitchen which turned out to be very very old and mouldy and full of guess what? Mosquitos - of course!!! Bloody mosquitos again, this time in a civilised town and no swamps, but they were millions all the same and all came to feed on us while preparing dinner. The place was pretty grim, damp with a damp smell, the showers an hazard with electric cables running underneath the water, dim light and pathetic dirty crockery and pots to the point that we decided to go all the way back to the truck to fetch our good old utensils and forks. The bed was the worse, but thankfully we had bought 2 very nice pillows in BA (best investment ever) and stolen a couple of pillow-cases along the way, so, together with our beautiful cotton sheet that is meant to be our sleeping bag liner, we could sleep almost decently despite the damp stench.

In the evening it was diagnosed that the truck needed a new engine altogether, and therefore we should abandon the vessel along with ALL our possessions. Argghhh!! Now, that was a very big problem , considering that we are overloaded, we have just bought a huge bag full of warm clothes for Patagonia and the pillows and the sleeping bags and sleeping mats.. erm erm.

But we managed! We actually managed to pack the rucksacks back together and since we are not expected to be able to walk for miles with the possesions, we can manage.

Next, Kim our tour leader informed us that another truck was coming down the same route the next morning and it was half empty. So all we needed to do was to be by the road side by 8 am and look out for a big yellow truck and get rescued - the idea being that trucks rescue each other in case of trouble as they could easily be next. So there we were this morning, waiting for 5 hours and no bloody yellow truck in sight.. till Gregory convinced Kim to go and make contact via email and she found out that in fact our saviours had actually set off the night before!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So ... here we are, with plenty of time to do some Internet for once, stuck in this small town called 9 de Julio now waiting for a minibus that is going to replace our truck, of which we know only that it seats 24 and has reclinable seats, but Kim has not seen it so god knows what it´s like. On the bright side, this means that we have lost all of our camping and cooking equipment and that we will therefore have to stay in hotels rather than tents. Maybe a stroke of luck after all??

We will let you know once we see the minibus...

From Iguassu we had some 1,500 Km to cover till Buenos Aires, including stopping somewhere to camp rough.

The nightmare!!! We could only stop when dark in order not to be seen (obviously it is illegal to plant tents onto somebody´s land without asking), the drawback being that choosing somewhere where to camp when it´s dark means that you do not quite see where you are going.... But we have a great leader - Jim - he´s been doing this for years and is really smart, so full trust in his judgement... JIM ARE YOU READING??!! Well Jim picked this very well hidden side road into the pine woods - surrounded by pools of water - and actually got off the truck to go and inspect the chosen spot, and then told us it was ´good´. Right. We got off and planted the tents in all haste with the last remaining day light - this is under the trees in this tree-logging area. About 2 minutes into the tent planting, though covered with insect repellent, I made the immediate and extremely smart decision to go and cover up arms and feet (Gregory was even smarter and covered up before he even ventured ouside the truck, given that Ed the doctor had shouted Jim, are you aware this looks like a swamp??...) Got the first item of clothing with long sleeves I could find (Gregory´s thick shirt that Simona and Franco gave him as a present) put my boots on, and back to the tent... While the others started cooking. Well, by the time all tents were up and the lights inside and outside the truck were lighted, the raid attack started: flocks of insects of all sorts - black beetles, green beetles, flies, mosquitos, bugs small and big, mites, you name it!! They all came out onto us and the pots, falling in them whenever someone tried to stir the contents. We managed to eat and then retired as soon as possible to our tents. Departure time in the morning, 5 o´clock - someone suggested 3 am but was rejected... At 3 minutes to 5 we were all sat down ready to go, Jim shouting let´s get the hell out of here!!! Some of us did better than others - Carl ended up looking like he´s got chicken pox, Gregory with 35 bites on his neck and face, and me with about 15 on my rear side (collected at 4:45 during a 30-seconds wee that I could not avoid having...).

Yes, we are still talking to Jim by the way, he´s a great guy, really!!

Erm... did not quite have the presence of spirit to take any pictures...