A most Patagonian adventure

As we mentioned we decided to semi blow the budget and head down to El Calafate to the National Park of Glaciers. I have to say it was worth every penny. In El Calafate is the Perito Moreno Glacier that is an active advancing glacier 5 km wide and 60m tall. We took a walk and a boat to get up close to the glacier as it carved icebergs into the lake. It was a spectacular and beautiful sight that was only slightly spoilt by constant drizzle and extreme cold! The photos and video are pretty great (Maura takes the scenery shots I do the animals) so hopefully we´ll get them available to view soon.

The next day, after an evening of entertainment with 6 Irish lads, we decided to try our hand at bird watching and headed for a walk to a near by lake to watch halks ducks and flamingos. The highlight was later in the day when all the flamingos flew in from far away places and we got to watch a steady stream of them coming in to land as the sun set behind them.

We then headed into the national park to a town called El Chalten, this town is in the shadow of the well-known Fitz Roy mountain part of the Cerro Torres mountain range. It is surrounded by glaciers and snow capped mountains. We ended up doing two monster hikes that left my feet and legs battered but they were seriously lovely walks. I would highly recommend it! We attempted to summit one of the mountains but were turned back by snow, rain, gales and the fact that our wet weather gear was over 300km away in El Calafate (idiots!). Still a super time.

We have now arrived in Buenos Aires, with only a couple of minor hick ups on the way (the fact I had two very sharp kitchen knives in my hand luggage going through security was one). We are staying in a very budget part of town but it hasn´t stopped us enjoying this beautiful city. Maura will update you on all of that in the next post.

Thanks very much for reading and have a very Happy Christmas and a crazy New Years!

Trekking, trekking and more trekking....

After a few days of living the high life Maura decided that it was time for me to lose the extra pounds I´d gained so we shipped off to St Martin De Los Andes south of Mendoza. St Martin is at the top of Patagonia and is a small town surrounded by lakes, mountains and lots and lots of hiking trails. We put these to good use with a couple of days of energy sapping forced marches up and down large hills. It was a fantastic couple of days and I even got to lead the march which of course resulted in a bit of off trail activity (I wasn´t entirely lost - just a little.)

Next stop was Bariloche further into Patagonia. Again this was a lake surrounded town with stunning scenery and beautiful walks - not sure why we ended up in an Irish pub then! Still we managed to get a couple of great walks in there as well. We were going to head to Chile next but decided that whale watching was more important so we took the famous route 40 across Argentina to Puerto Madryn.

Puero Madryn was a great experience where we hoped to catch Orca´s eating seals off the beach. Unfortunately there is only a 3% chance of seeing this (not mentioned in any of the tourist books). We didn´t even get to see Orcas which was a shame but fantastic viewings of right whales, sealions, Elephant seals, foxes, ostriches(!) an amardillo and tons of pinguins (spelt how the spanish say it) made up for it.

We have now decided to break the bank and head down to the Glaciers of El Calafate (something we can´t afford but have to see), we have just got off a 25 hour bus and we are now going for our beautiful dinner of bread and water....... just kidding we just spent 2 quid on a steak as big as my head, can´t wait!

Bikes & Wines

Our first stop in Argentina was to the beautiful city of Mendoza. As I may have mentioned previously, this is Argentina's wine capital. We spent our first day there wandering around the very pretty streets, and managed to find ourselves a great little parilla (bbq place) where the three of us (including our new friend Keith) chowed down on all sorts of delicious meats as well as a bottle of red, yum! We then signed ourselves up for a bikes and wines tour the next day.

This tour is pretty self explanatory... the bus takes you out into the Maipu Valley where you are dropped off at the bike rental place. You're then given a pretty basic bike and an even more basic map of the area and the different bodegas you can go and visit. Our first stop on the tour was of suprisingly not a bodega but a little farm shop specializing in olives, chocolate, and liquors (namely absinthe.) So after a flaming shot of the latter, we hit the road for the bodegas and wine tastings. Unlike France and other places, wine tasting in South America is pretty laid back which suited us and our little bike posse just fine. I think we managed to visit ever bodega listed on the map... and may have possibly been asked to leave the last one we visited as they wanted to close before we cleared them out of stock! Obviously our trip provided us with valuable knowledge on how to taste the difference between a younger and older Malbec!

We spent another few days enjoying the town, exploring the massive park just outside the city, and eating enormous steaks along the way. It's no wonder that Mendoza is possibly one of our favourite places yet!

I thought they spoke spanish in Chile?!

So we've arrived back in South America... I won't say all in one piece as the bags arrived at least 2 days after us. Not ideal when you've spent the good part of 17 hours flying, missing connections, and negotiating the hostel situation in Santiago. (Oh, and did I mention that they don't speak Spanish in Chile?! They say they do... but it comes out sounding entirely different than anything we've heard before! And apparently Argentinians are worse... so much for those Spanish lessons.) In any case, that didn't stop us from enjoying our first couple days wandering around Santiago, a city that could easily be located anywhere in Europe... and a vast difference from any place we'd been previously on the trip.

We hit the road again pretty quickly and headed out for the beaches of Viña del Mar, and then down to Valpraiso. After lying on the beach for the first day in Viña, it was Tim's turn to decide what we did next. So I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised when we ended up in the city's massive casino till the wee hours of the morning. Needless to say the next day in Valpraiso was less than productive.

And now we've arrived in Mendoza, Argentina and have had our first few tastes of the local goods... steak and wine, and they were amazing. Since the region produces 70% of the nation's wine we've decided this is the place to hire some bikes and go and check out all the local wineries tomorrow... I can't wait!

biking, horsing and wedding.

Last time we undated this we were about to adventure off horseriding and cyling in Sucre. Both of thought Sucre was fantastic, Maura because of the gorgeous buildings me because you could buy plates of chips, sausage, beef and gravy for every meal!

The horseriding was fun although Maura had a certain amount of trouble steering Artoro away from the cliff edges. My horse Santana just spent the time biting everything in his path. It ended in a village drinking Chicha a local corn ber fermented with spit! with a 90 year old lady. Probably the reason we were reaching for the Pepto Bismol for the next week. The biking was also fun starting with two broken bikes in the first 100 metres but ending in a romantic canon swim and an opportunity for a mud bath.

We then headed off to Santa Cruz, not the greatest place on the planet with an enormous spectrum of rich and poor, the rich been drug dealers the poor being drug takers. We did however pay one dollar and go to the Zoo which actually turned out to be a great laugh.

Back in the UK we had a fantastic time meeting up with everyone on Thursday, then it was wedding madness which was brilliant fun. Friday a family dinner then the wedding itself. All very stressful for everyone except us who stayed in a local pub and got hammered everynight!