Adios Argentina

Well, our Argentinian adventures are coming to an end.

Instead of spending our last two nights in Buenos Aires we decided to take a little side trip to Uruguay. Just an hour on the boat from BA is the cute little colonial town of Colonia del Sacramonte. We found a nice hotel with a lovely little courtyard in the main square and decided to chill out. In the evening everyone gathers at the waterfront to watch the sunset before dinner. That’s about the extent of the nightlife but just what we needed after so much travelling. The weather has been perfect – warm and sunny – apart from one thunderstorm in the middle of the night on Wednesday.

Uruguay doesn’t seem to be famous for anything. It’s a tiny country – I think the population is even smaller than Scotland – and truly laid back. A very different pace of life to Argentina.

We hired a car for a few hours just for fun. Alan was driving as I don’t have my license with me, but the only worries he had were passing a horse and cart and avoiding some dogs on the ‘ruta nacional’ (main road).

We headed north through very rural areas. They seem to be growing wheat and we saw lots of horses, cows and also plant nurseries. I thought it looked like East Lothian with the odd cactus and lizard thrown in!

Found a tiny little beach at an old abandoned camping area and relaxed gazing out over the River Plate, then visited the rather bizarre Anchorena Park, which is the country residence of the Presidents of Uruguay. It’s designed to look like the garden of an English stately home and the house itself is Tudor-style. How odd! There’s a 75m tower giving a great view over to Buenos Aires though.


Bird of the day…

Is the burrowing owl. We saw one sitting on a fence post in the middle of the afternoon. They’re reasonably common in Uruguay. Cute.


We’ve had a wonderful time in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. Thanks for following my blog. I promise not to bore everyone endlessly with the holiday snaps!

Big Water

We are about to leave Iguazu and I'm a bit behind with my blogging, so I'm doing two posts in one today...

In the Guarani language, 'Iguazu' means 'big water'. A very straightforward description for these incredible waterfalls.

First off, after an overnight bus to Mercedes and a couple of hours in one of the most interesting bus stations we've ever visited (Gauchos drinking beer anyone?) we made it to the very special Estancia Rincon del Socorro http://www.rincondelsocorro.com/. It's a conservation ranch in the Esteros del Ibera wetlands - similar to the better-known Pantanal in Brazil. We were the only guests and so were really lucky to have our own personal guide, Mingo. We went on a night safari to spot vizcachas (like chinchillas - very cute), capibaras, armadillos, foxes, deer, then a trip the next morning onto the lagoon, where we spotted caiman, marsh deer, more capibaras and dozens and dozens of bird species. There were only two or three boats out on the lagoon so we were hugely outnumbered by the wildlife. Highly recommended! I think one of the reasons it is not well-visited is because it's not very accessible. To get to the next town for a bus to Iguazu we had a white-knuckle five-hour 4x4 ride. Due to the thunderstorms, the road was virtually impassable so it was an experience not to be forgotten. I think my kidneys are OK now though.

Iguazu

Made it to the famous Iguazu Falls on Sunday. It poured all afternoon so was a bit miserable but on the plus side, the National Park was not as busy as usual. They are amazing - thunderous and huge, with lots of side falls and trails through the jungle. Again, loads and loads of unique birds and wildlife, most of which we saw the morning after, once the rain had stopped. If you get off the beaten track a little or even just wait for the tour groups to pass, the birds, butterflies and critters all come out. Definitely worth the trek north to see the falls and the national park. We had been a bit worried they wouldn't be spectacular in the 'dry season' but the water level was so high that the boat trips were unable to land - so we didn't need to worry.

Bird(s) of the day...

... about a hundred in the wetlands - although Alan's vote is for the purple gallinule. In Iguazu, the black-fronted piping guan. Very rare! We also saw two toucans.

This afternoon we head south again on a long-distance bus for our last little trip - we're going over to Uruguay for a couple of nights.

Adios Amigos.

Goodbye to the South

Our last day in Tierra del Fuego. The weather looked a little better (ie less snow) so we took a boat trip out into the Beagle Channel. Half of the Channel belongs to Argentina, half to Chile.

Our lovely guide Carla was very bright and bubbly and showed us the lighthouse at the end of the Bridges Islands – named after Thomas Bridges, one of the first European settlers in the area, and his family. We passed a couple of cormorant colonies and also a large group of sea-lions lolling around on the rocks. One huge male sea-lion was getting a bit shirty. Carla told us about the indigenous people, the Yamana. They lived naked on the islands, but always had a fire lit, even in their canoes (wooden canoes!) but were absolutely decimated when the European settlers arrived with new diseases. Sadly, only one pure Yamana lady is still alive, and she is over 90, although there is a small community of mixed Yamanas over in Chile.

Alan has in mind that he wants to take a cruise to Antarctica. I’m not sure that 10 days of monstrous seas and freezing temperatures is my ideal holiday but I can see the attractions of the amazing wildlife and actually stepping onto the Antarctic Peninsula. We’ll need to start saving now…

Bird of the Day…
Is the black-browed albatross. Not as big as the famous wandering albatross but it still has around a 1.5m wingspan. Several flew around the boat and they glide really close to the water, almost dipping their wingtips in.

The End of the World

Ruta Nacional (national road) 3 starts in Buenos Aires and 3079km later ends in a muddy car park at the end of a pitted track in the Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego.

After a flight and almost 20 hours on buses we've made it 'el fin del mundo' - the end of the world. Or to be more precise, to Ushuaia, the most southerly city in the world.

This place has a good feel to it, with lots of interesting people passing through, waiting for cruises or exploration ships to Antarctica - the Antarctic Peninsula being a mere 1000km from here. It's also a great place to buy tax-free outdoors gear at great prices - if only we had space in our backpacks!

The temperature didn't get much above freezing today and it snowed in the morning and again this evening, but this afternoon we were lucky and had some calm weather so we went for a hike in the national park. Several inches of snow made what was supposed to be a fairly easy walk into quite a challenge and we had to navigate from signpost to signpost, with the help of tracks from a fox which seemed to like following the path too. Later on we saw one of these Patagonian foxes - very big and with a thick coat - they seem to be quite common in the park as they eat the rabbits.

There also seem to be a lot of beavers in the park. We stopped for a snack beside some beaver pools. They do a heck of a lot of damage to the trees around their pools and we saw several large trees they had started gnawing on.

Visited the last post office in the world. We had said we wouldn't visit it even if it was the last post office in the world, but it was quite cute and surprisingly warm for a hut on a pier on the Beagle Channel.

Bird of the day...

.. Alan tells me it is the fire-eyed diucon. One of the tyrant family, apparently.

You'll have had 'yurt' tea

Well, tomorrow morning we have to leave our luxury yurt. It has been wonderful. Patagonia Camp is like another world and the Torres del Paine National Park very beautiful. Our guide has taken us on several treks with amazing views and loads of wildlife. The park seems quite quiet at the moment - I suppose high season is a few weeks yet - and the weather has been very changeable - about two inches of snow yesterday morning and very windy today.

Ah well, back to having to think for ourselves tomorrow, as we travel down to Punta Arenas. Alan is hoping for a penguin encounter so hopefully lots of fun pictures of the little cuties tomorrow.

Bird of the day...

... is definitely the Andean Condor. We've seen several circling around on the thermals and one in a field. It was as big as a sheep, honestly!

Do you want ice with that?

Visited Perito Moreno Glaciar yesterday after flying to Patagonia from Buenos Aires. Amazing! We have seen a glaciar before, in New Zealand, but this one is much more exciting. It's one of the most active glaciars in the world and is really noisy, with bits always falling off. I thought you only saw the crashing ice calving off into the lake in films and on TV, but it really happens! We went to the glaciar late in the afternoon/early evening so pretty much had the place to ourselves after all the othet tour buses left at 6. We went on a boat trip on the lake to see the face of the ice but getting up close to the side via a network of walkways was better. We took about a hundred pictures - very difficult to take good shots of something so big and so white.

Now we've crossed over to Chile and are about to start our 'glamping' experience in a luxury yurt. I hope it is well heated as it's been snowing today.

Bird of the day...

... is the lesser rhea. A bit like an emu but smaller. We saw dozens from the bus, including one with several babies.

Linda's guide to dealing with the Patagonian weather

Step 1: remove fleece

Step 2: apply sunscreen

Step 3: scrabble around for sunglasses

Step 4: put sunglasses back in bag

Step 5: put on fleece

Step 6: put up umbrella

Step 7: take down umbrella

Step 8: remove fleece

Step 9: put fleece back on

Step 10: put on jacket, hat and scarf

Step 11: repeat as required

OR

Stay indoors and watch the weather instead.

It Takes Two...

It only stopped raining for a few hours yesterday but we had a wonderful day. On Saturday evening we had stumbled across a brilliant tango show at the Centro Cultural Jorge Luis Borges (try saying that after a couple of beers). It was really small-scale and not touristy at all. Five different couples dancing and the band was fantastic - a violin, bandoneon, double bass and piano. Alan took some great pictures, like this one.

So yesterday evening we decided to go for it and went to a dance hall around the corner from the hotel. It was in the basement of a local cultural association and there were loads of locals plus a few tourists. They did classes for beginners, intermediates and advanced, all dancing to the same music, with the three groups split across the massive dance floor. It was a laugh - especially trying to translate what I could for Alan and dance at the same time. Totally different to tango classes here as the men outnumbered the women. Everybody was taking it quite seriously but it was great fun. Except when the dance teachers did a little show and started pulling people out of the audience. We hid!

The mysterious case of the missing 's'

I'm having trouble with the accents here. It's definitely Spanish but sounds like all the 's's have been removed from the words, so 'adios' is 'adio' and 'dos' is 'do'. Hopefully I will tune in soon.