Keith's travelogue

Greetings All,

Well here I am in Buenos Aires again, soaking up the warm summer sunshine after a pretty tough trip up from Ushuaia. Ushuaia is billed as Fin del Mundo, or "the End of the World", since it is the southern most city in the world, at the curved pointy bit of South America nearest to Antarctica.

And as Talking Heads might well say, "You may ask yourself, "How did I get here?". At El Calafate, I visited the Moreno Glacier, one unusual in the world because it as at least stable, andf not receding. It is one small part of the Southern Patagonian ice cap, the third largest ice field outside Antarctica, and Greenland. At the Glacier there are lookouts where you can sit and watch huge chunks of ice split off and fall into one of the two lakes it has made.

It reminded me of the lines from the poem, The Rhymw of the Ancient Mariner,
"The ice was here the ice was there,
the ice was all around.
It cracked and growled and roared and howled,
like noises in a swound."
Or something like that.

There was certainly a lot of noise, like cracks of gunfire and when the pieces split off, they seemed to fall in slow motion, and made huge splashes, with waves radiating out and pushing the ice further into the lakes. The pieces were quite large, and we even saw ice bergs in the lakes, some over 20km from the face of the glacier.

After that, it was on to Torres Del Paine, perhaps the highlight of the trip in a trip of many highlights. We had to cross from Argentina back into Chile and here we went for some day hikes. The best one was for the sunrise to the towers. There are three towers, huges chunks of granite sopiking 3000m+ into the sky. We were very lucky with the weather (indeed for the whole trip) so the day was fiune and clear, and the sun rise very spectacular, with the colours of the sky reflected on the rock of the towers. It was so beautifuyl to watch the changes, but then it got a little bit chilly, so it was time to head back to the reugio (hut) and have breakfast. Then I spent two delightful days by Lake Pehoe, our campsite had the best view of the magnificent peaks isn the Torres park, anbd the weather was fine and clear so the mountains looked magnificent.

Then it was on to Ushuaia, two days drive away (which seems to be the story for most places to visit in Patagonia). Ushuaia has perhaps the best setting of all. To get there, to the end of the world, we had to cross backj and forth between Chile and Argentina, so lots of stamps for the passport. I hope the blank pages hold out till I get back. We crossed the straists of Magellan by ferry and then drove another 300km to get there. The city is nestled into a small tract of flat land between a range of mountains, and the edge of the Beagle Channel. When we got there it was getting dark (about 10pm) and the sunest was stunning, with glorious colours oin the clouds and hills.

The next day when I went for the boat trip on the channel it was fine, but it had snowed overnight, down to about 300m, yet here it ios the middle of summer. So it was very strange to see the snow barely above the level of the city. It made for a spectacular view though as we cruised out into the channel and looked back, we could see Ushuaia nestled against the waterline, and crowned by the snow. The weather on the channel was fine, so the water was flat and we saw sealions, and comorants, peterels and gulls. And the lighthouse here, with a shipwreck right next to it, where a drunken Russian sea captain(is that an oxymoron) had run aground in 1935.

We had a couple of unexpected extra days in Ushuaia because there was trouble with the trucks suspension. Given the really rough roads down here we were pretty lucky it hadn't happened earlier, so we had a couple of days waiting, expecting the truck to be ready in a few houtrs, but finding it wasn't. I wnet for a siz hour hikew in the Tierra del Feuego National park, a nice jaunt along the coast of the Beagle Channel in the southern beech forests, so very enjoyable. Despite more overnight snow, Ushuaia was a pleasant enough place to chill out (no pun intended). Some of the others got a bit frustrated, as it meant that the trip up to Buenos Aires would be cut short, but as I had plenty of time, it didn't worry me.

After the truck was fixed, it was too late to leave that night, so we set off the next day and drove, and drove, and drove, until we hit Puerto Madryn and the Valdez Peninsula. It tooks a full day from 5AM, yes five, till 10pm to clear Tierra Del Fuego, and recross the Straits of Magellan. This involved re-crossing into and out of Chile and Argentina a couple of times again. We spent the night in a free camp north of Rio Gallegos. And then we were up and off again at 5AM, yes five, to drive all day across the pampa grasslands, with very few trees, but lots of low shrubs abd tussock like grasses, and we finally arrived at the Puerto Madryn camp site around 1.30am.

The next day we were able to lie in till 7am and were off at 7.30 for a tour of the Peninsula, where we saw sea lions, elephant seals and lots of bird life, as well as armadillos, and lesser rheas. But there's no rest for the wicked, so the next morning we were off at 7.30am and drove all day with a lovely break for lunch by a river, under blue skies, and shady trees, till around 7.30pm when we stopped at the city of Tres Arroyos and had the pleasure of a night in a nice hotel.

The next morning (yesterday) we were up and ready to be off at 6.30am, as it was the fiunal days drive before we hit the big smoke. You could feel the buzz of excitement in the group as we all got on. Buenos Aires at last! But there was a little hitch,as the truck wouldn{t start. We }waited four hours for a mechanic to work out what was wrong and fix it, anfd then we were off. We were so determined to hit BA that we had lunch on the go, and only stopped for pee breaks. We arrived, finally, around 6.30pm.

To cap the trip off, we went to an all you can eat buffet, and did exactly that, stuffed ourselves absolutely full after 4 days of camp food. I rolled back to the hotel about 12.30pm, feeling very sorry for myself, and swearing blind (again!) not to do the all you can eat buffet thing ever again. So now I have two weeks or so before I head back to Ushuaia and head to Antarctica, so I'm going to enjoy staying in one place for a week or so, before I decide what to do with the remaining time before that trip.

Regards,
Keith