The Big Trip Report #17 - "In Patagonia" - Fri, 16 Apr 2004

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After our relaxing month in BsAs we were back on the road again. First we had to get a little beach action, so we spent a few days at the Argentine beach resort of Villa Gesell, where we stayed in a hotel that doubled as an animal rescue operation. Wandering about the tranquil grounds was a plethora of beasties including flamingos, ducklings, parrots, rabbits, a toucan, a sheep and even a pony. For entertainment we enjoyed an evening of miniature ten-pin bowling, the best part being the man who reached down to reset the pins by hand after each frame!
An overnight bus ride south took us to the northern edge of Patagonia. Here we visited Peninsula Valdez, a national park known for its marine mammal life. We were here for one reason: this is the only place in the world where orcas are known to hurl themselves onto shore in pursuit of a meal of baby sea lion. We had seen footage of this in a number of nature documentaries but the small chance to witness such an extraordinary scene in person was too much to pass up. In fact the orcas didn't show up but we spent a few hours watching cute baby sea lions frolicking in the surf, oblivious to the potential danger. We also had a great close-up encounter with Magellenic penguins, also known as Jackass penguins because of the donkey-like braying sound that they produce.
In the village of Gaiman, we had afternoon tea in the house of the granddaughter of one of the original Welsh settlers, and in Trelew we had drinks in a bar where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid tippled before going round the corner to hold up the local bank.

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Then we flew down to Tierra del Fuego (avoiding a 30 hour bus ride) to visit Ushuaia, "el fin del mundo", the southernmost city in the world. This is where most of the Antarctic-bound boats leave from, unfortunately we had just missed the last boat of this season, so we'll have to save that continent for later!
After some wonderful "warm-up" hikes here to get ourselves in shape we headed north and into Chile to trek the Torres del Paine, a 5 day through hike that culminated with an hour of pre-dawn scrambling up a steep rocky slope to witness the amazing red and orange colors of the sunrise on the impressive granite formations of the Torres.
Then onward through the vast Patagonian steppe (there's a whole lot of nothing down here), we crossed back into Argentina to visit the Moreno glacier, a truly awesome sight: a 2.5km wide wall of ice, 60m high and extending 30km back up the valley to the third largest ice-field in the world (after Antarctica and Greenland). Not only is it a marvel to look at, but the thunderous noise of huge icebergs crashing from the face of the glacier into the water has to be seen in person!
We then had the choice of either a 44 hour bus journey or a 1.5 hour flight north to Bariloche and the Argentine Lake District, a beautiful system of lakes nestled in the Andean foothills (guess which we chose?). It was Semana Santa (Easter week) when we arrived, and as this area is a very popular holiday destination for Argentines, it was heaving with people ready to shop, enjoy the alpine scenery, and take advantage of the fact that Bariloche is the chocolate capital of the country. Needless to say, we enjoyed daily sampling of the homemade delicacies. Yum! The strange thing about Bariloche is that it is modeled on a Swiss mountain village. From cutesy log cabin architecture, through St. Bernards with barrels around their necks, to the abundance of fondue restaurants (and great chocolate of course).

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Autumn is arriving down here, and recently the weather gods have been less kind to us. We've had several days of wind and driving rain. However, we took advantage of a break in the weather to whitewater raft through a gorgeous canyon to the Chilean border, do some hiking and a very tiring but worthwhile 65km bike ride.
The weather doesn't look to be getting any better so tomorrow we're crossing into Chile and heading north to look for the sun.

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