Friday, December 14, 2007

Hot, hot, hot in Brazil


Greetings from Iguazu Falls! The falls form the border between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay.


I arrived at the Argentinian side so went to visit the National Park directly from the airport. The falls really are stunning and cover a huge area so you get different perspectives from all different angles. I spent about four hours hiking the various trails which enable you to view the falls from across, below and above. It is seriously hot and humid here so it was nice when you could get close enough to the falls to get cooled from the spray.
After the park I crossed over into Brazil where I´m staying. So far I´ve been happily muddling along with my basic Spanish but as I haven´t a word of Portuguese this could be more fun - I think there´ll be a lot of smiling, nodding and pointing over the next few days!
Today I went to visit the Park on the Brazilian side of the falls. You get more of a panoramic view of the falls from this side with less walks available but still the chance for getting soaked to cool down. In the afternoon I went to the Bird Park close by which has an amazing collection of parrots, macaws, toucans, eagles, anacondas and all sorts of other feathery things. (Yes, I know anacondas are not birds but they were in the park so thought I´d mention them.)

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Lovely day for a GUINNESS
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Nice and cool under the canopy of the jungle walks. But if I´m finding it hot in t-shirt and shorts I don´t know how the poor Santa is fairing in the supermarket down the road in his big red suit with snowy lining and great big fluffy white beard. Somehow I think the southern hemisphere should invent a new image of Xmas more suiting to their climate!
Next stop Rio for an overnight before I board the Tocorime tall ship. We´re sailing from Rio down the coast to Paraty stopping at various locations along the way. Not sure if I´ll be near an Internet connection anywhere but if I am will try to post an update. If you want to see more about the boat here´s the site http://www.tocorime.net/. I´m really looking forward to it.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Buenos Aires


We left Ushuaia with snow falling and the mountains covered from a night of snow to arrive in Buenos Aires in 27 degree heat - woohoo!

B.A. is a big, busy, vibrant city of 22 million people. It is very European in its buildings, people and culture - very different from the other South American cities I´ve visited. There´s many different neighbourhoods with their own history, style and culture. Certainly a great place to spend a few days shopping and sight-seeing. Our first evening here was the last night with our whole group so we went to a Tango show which included a 45 minute lesson beforehand. With about 60 people in a tiny room it was more like musical bumper-cars but by the end we were all very proud at how we had mastered the basics in such a short time. We were then completely brought back down to earth when we saw the real thing in the show later...mmm think I´ve still a bit of practice needed.

The next day a few of us went out to La Boca, famous for its football club and the club´s most famous player, the one and only Maradona. La Boca has an area famous for its brightly coloured buildings where you can have your picture taken with a Diego lookeylikey i.e. just a fat fella with a mop of curly hair wearing a soccer shirt!

I´m staying my last couple of nights in the area of San Telmo which is an old area with an arty, bohemian feel to it. The hostel is in a lovely old restored art-demo building. Today I went on a guided bike tour around the areas of Recoletta and Palermo which are the rich´n´leafy areas with some lovely parks for biking around.

Off to Iguazu tomorrow to cool down in the spray of the falls...

Saturday, December 8, 2007

The End of the World


Well, in this trip I´ve gone from The Middle of the World to The End of the World. (And yes, there is a certain REM song stuck in my head for which I only know the one line). Ushuaia is very proud of its claim to be the most southerly city in the world and if ever you wanted an egg-cup that says ´Ushuaia the Most Southerly City in the World´on it then this is definately the place to get it!

Ushuaia is on the southern coast of Tierra del Fuego the island at the tip of the South America. We were surprised by the calm weather when we arrived two days ago but strong seas meant our boat trip along the Beagle channel was cancelled yesterday. So instead we went and got covered in mud in the Tierra del Fuego national park instead. Luckily today was much calmer so we managed to get out this morning. Lovely calm weather when we were leaving but it got really cold along the trip. We were all layered up like a Michelin man convention. Apparently the native people, before the European arrival, used to live naked here just covered in animal fat - madness! Don´t think I´d fancy winter here if this is mid-summer. Along the channel, which is surrounded by snow covered mountains, we saw lots of sea-lions, cormorants and some swimming penguins.

Flying back to Buenos Aires tomorrow for a few days shopping, sight-seeing and hopefully enjoying the nice warm temperature. Then off to Iguazu Falls on my way to Brazil for my final week!

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Perito Moreno glacier and El Chalten


The Perito Moreno glacier is unusual in that it is one of the few glaciers in the world that is still advancing rather than receding. It is incredibly hard to comprehend the sheer size of it let alone describe it. Even when you are there it is hard to get perspective on it. The front wall of the glacier is about as high as a twenty storey building and the whole area of the glacier is about as big as Buenos Aires. This is just a small section of the whole Patagonia ice-sheet which is second in size only to Greenland. As the glacier advances large sections of the front wall crash down into the lake causing huge splashes and new icebergs. We only saw some small breaks when we were there but they seem so load and dramatic it must be incredible when there are huge falls.
We caught a boat out along the glacier but still kept to 300 metres from the wall otherwise the falling ice can be really dangerous.




From El Calafate we drove to El Chalten across the Argentinian steppes, huge plains of scrub where´s nothing much but sheep estancias (ranches). They need huge areas of land in proportion to the amount of sheep as the land is so infertile. Due to the strong winds and low moisture the plants are all very low to the ground. El Chalten, is a funny little town which seems like the last place on the Wild Frontier. Mostly just used a base for hikers heading to Cerro Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre. In winter I think there are only 600 hardy souls left here.

Our first day we did about a 9-hour hike up to a view across Laguna de los Tres to Cerro Fitzroy. Serious climbers spend a number of days crossing the glaciers to summit the peak so we really just arriving at their first base camp. With the aid of a good support bandage, my knee was much better and managed to complete the trail. Again we were lucky with the weather in that we had a clear views of the peaks without any rain and only a light scattering of some snow flakes at the top!

(Connection doesn´t seem to be working too well at the moment so will have to finish this later. For now, there´s a giant piece of chocolate cake with my name on it. Just as well we´re getting some exercise in this place otherwise I´d be rolling home.)

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Torres del Paine - do you want iceberg with that?

We set out to Torres del Paine expecting the worst but I think somebody somewhere up there likes us as we had brilliant sunny views of the spectacular scenery. There was some of the famous Patagonian wind of course but you´d almost feel cheated if you came here and didn´t get knocked over by the wind a few times (see my hair in the photo below)!
Our first day´s hike was up to the Torres (or towers) themselves - dramatic high rocky towers formed into spikes by wind erosion.
We were completing the famous ´W´circuit of the park over five days. A night we were camping but have to confess to ours being the ´luxury´camping option i.e. someone was transporting our luggage, putting up and taking down tents for us and providing us with lots of food.
We got lots of dirty looks from all the hard-core trekkers who were carrying huge packs all day (probably filled with rocks for extra suffering). We´d been expecting freezing nights but it wasn´t cold at all at night really and each nice we had a nice lodge to eat together inside. There´s even been hot showers which we completely weren´t expecting.
The second day was a short hike and we were all in shorts and t-shirts it was so warm.Beautiful views and sunset from the mountain lodge where we stayed that night out over the glacial lake which is a deep green colour during the day.
The third day was a long day with a nine-hour hike up to view one of the glaciers in the valley and then on to our camping area lake-side. Unfortunately I´ve developed a bit of a knee injury which has make hiking a bit tougher but hasn´t stopped me doing anything yet. Hoping it´s just a short-term thing.
On the fourth day we hiked over to the Grey glacier where we took a boat trip right up to the impressive glacier wall where it meets with the lake edge. Quite bizarre with icebergs floating by on the lake (made sure my life-jacket done up tight just in case). Our complementary Pisco Sour came with a bit of iceberg floating in it that they had just fished out of the lake! The glacier is an amazing blue colour in the crevasses.
Our last day included a short hike to a view point of the whole mountain range and again we were very lucky to have a clear day. Some people come to this park and see absolutely nothing for five days which must be just gutting. We felt the full force of the Patagonian wind on our way back as it literally blew us down the hill and we just had to give in to it - luckily we weren´t hiking on a cliff edge at the time. It really is a stunning area and not sure that my photos will do it justice but hopefully you´ll get a taster here.
After a night back in Puerto Natales we travelled today back into Argentina to the town of El Calafate. Tomorrow we are off to the Moreno Glacier where again we will be doing a boat trip along the glacier wall. The following two days we are off to Chalten and a couple more days hiking in the parks here some hopefully catch up in a few days time.