Saturday, March 10, 2012

Back in Buenos Aires!





After 3969 photos, 153 days, 63 hostels, 38 buses, 11 border crossings, 10 flights, 7 countries, 6 boats, 3 volcanoes, 2 counts of serious food poisoning and almost no Spanish, we have made it full circle, back to Buenos Aires. And we still came in under budget!

With G's incredible efforts as Head Researcher, Event Planner and Artistic Director and my unfailing attempts as Treasurer, Accountant, and Chef we have survived 5 months away with lots of laughs and very few battles.

From meeting orphaned manatees in the Amazon to having a rat fall on my head on the Caribbean, eating guinea pigs pancakes in Peru to getting food poisoning from a cheese and quinoa empanada in Argentina, standing in the flat endlessness of the Bolivian Salar to climbing the soaring towers of Chilean Patagonia, the oppressive wet heat of Catagena to the whistling icy winds of the Moreno Glacier. All of it unforgettable and fabulous.











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Monday, March 5, 2012

Sunshine in Uruguay



After weeks in the mountain air of Patagonia we opted to spend our final South American week on the beaches of Uruguay. Didn't go quite to plan as it rained for most of the time we were in the little surfer town of La Paloma. But it wasn't cold, so we still wandered the beach, or sat on the balcony over looking the ocean and watching spectacular electric storms far out at sea. Although they blew in overnight and we woke in the middle of the night to the most intense thunder we have ever heard. It felt as is we were inside the storm itself.
On the final evening the weather cleared and we joined a relaxed couple of friends from the hostel and sat on the sand, watching the full moon rise above us and the red sun set into the Atlantic. When we got back to our hostel a huge fire had been lit and we sat around and ate freshly crispy fried fish. Even G enjoyed it.




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Wednesday, February 29, 2012

The Fitz Roy Range


Since our arrival in Patagonia we had been lucky. We hiked up to Torres del Paine, notorious for bad weather and horrific winds straight from the Antartic. But for us clear skies, not a breath of wind. The Moreno Glacier, cleared to stunning blue skies and an icy breeze. The Fitz Roy Ranges, you wouldn't believe our luck. The day we arrived it was wet and grey and cold, no sign of the massive peaks high above the tiny town of El Chalten. By the next morning it was icy cold but brilliant blue. We took an alternate route, instead of climbing a steep mountain at the beginning, we followed a river course through beautiful forests and occasional low lying scrub lands. We could see the ranges above us the whole time, getting closer and ever more daunting. The final section up to the towers was a steep dusty path, winding backwards and forwards across a mountain side of gravel and shale. Several times I sat down, claiming I didn't need to see them up close, the view was good enough from where I already was. G had a hard time convincing me otherwise. But we made it. We sat and had our salami and cheese sandwiches over looking the glacial lake and hoping for another avalanche.

The hike down was not so much fun, hard on the hips and knees. Although sections of it were through marsh lands filled with dark tarns and wind swept grass, we had miscalculated our timing, and instead of the 2hr easy hike we had envisioned, it was a long and dusty 4hrs before we stumbled back into El Chalten.

Our luck ran out the next day, we woke up to constant drizzle and strong winds blowing fiercely down the valley. And it stayed that way for 2 days. So we read our books, made mulled wine to the delight of the others in the hostel, generally stayed warm and cosy.










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Sunday, February 26, 2012

Ice Trekking


As part of our amazing day at the Moreno Glacier we went ice trekking. We crossed the lake by boat and walked through the forest right up to the side of the glacier. There we attached crampons to our shoes. We were then marched single file across the glacier - don't step off the path or you might fall into a newly formed crevice. Now it all sounds very adventurous and it was, but this was sort of the Sydney Harbour Bridge of tours, all around us hundreds of other people were following little ant trails across the ice as well. But never the less it was amazing.
The ice was not smooth and soft like snow, but crunchy and hard like it had just come out of an ice crusher. It glittered and sparkled and hurt if you fell over. All around there was the tinkling sound of melting ice running through cracks and crevices, pools and riverlets of intensely blue water.  The ice was like sand dunes, towering over us and carved into odd shapes by the wind.
As we crunched into the final valley there was a little bar set up, and we were served whisky on the rocks, these rocks, freshly hacked from the glacier, just happened to be over 400yrs old. The one time the ice is older than the whisky as our guide said.












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