Patagonia

In the last two weeks I have visited a few more cities of Argentina and Chile. We went through the lake districts of both countries than headed down for Patagonia. It is as amazing as people say. It is so beatiful. Everywhere you look you can see mountains and lakes that are this amazing shade of blue. OUr first stop in Patagoins was El Chalten, where I did a full day trek to a glacier than geared up with crampons and did a glacier trek. This was pretty amazing despite the very cold temps. I also got to pull myself over a glacier water river on a rope..:)
We also stopped in El Calafate, which is the home of the famous Perito Moreno glacier. This was truely unreal. There are two pictures above...one shows a big chunk falling off. Every few minutes you would hear a loud noise and see large peices of ice tumbing into the waters below. The glacier was also very blue in color and soooo huge.
We made it Torres Del Paine national park and stayed for 4 days to do a bit of trekking. We were painfully welcomed with a little snowfall to set up our tents in....I felt like I was in Canada! The hikes were very beautiful...amazing mounatins and lakes everywhere. It was quite windy here, I felt like I could have been blown off the mountian at times. It did help us get up the mountain though!
On our way to Ushuaia, the end of the world...or the southern most city in the world, we stopped at a penguin colony...the little guys were everywhere and so cute! They were fairy penguins I think, so they dont get too big. About knee height.
I am now in Ushuaia, which is very beautiful but also cold. I hit a little snow storm as I walked to a glacier here. fun.... The good news though is that I will be hot temps in about a week to start working on a tan!

And the camping begins...

I made it to Santiago, Chile and spent 3 days there. I took in a Daft punk/DJ shadow concert, which was crazy fun because the stadium was packed with people...you just had to jump and dance when everyone else did! I met up with the tour group here...turns out there are 30 people on the tour and the group seems really nice and everyone is around the same age...ish. There is a picture of the bus we travel on! It really is NOT as comfortable as it may look. The guide and our driver are great fun. I am going to be practicing my culinary skills as we all have t0 cook meals for the group...should be interesting.
We spent two days in Pucon, Chile which is a little ski resort town. We tried to climb the active volcanoe (the one covered in snow in the picture..yes it is smoking!). We had on so many layers and lots of gear, including crampons and an icepick! We hiked about 2 hours, which was very difficult because the winds were so strong...everytime you would take a step, the wind pushed you back a little. Unfortunately, someone from another group had a 70 foot fall because the winds were that strong, and was very badly injured, so all the groups decided to head down. Good choice. Sadly, we did not make it to the top, where apparently you can see flowing lava!!!! The second day in Puconn I went Hydrospeeding, where you grab a boogie board and head down the white water rapids. You try to hang on for your life while you get bashed into the rocks, other people and the rapids. Great fun!!!
We are now in Bariloche, Argentina which is another resort town in the lake district. Amazingly beautiful place, right on a crystal clear lake. Spent the morning on bikes with my tent buddy...who happens to be an Irish OT...how perfect???? And spent the afternoon walking around town and tasting the famous chocolates....mmmm.
Oh yeah...the tenting...not so much fun, especially in the below zero night temperatures....but an adventure!!!

Pics from Cafayate and Mendoza

1. Halloween party at the hostel...apparently they dont celebrate it in south america, but do it just for the travellers!
2. Me, getting ready to go repelling...getting courage!
3. The waterfalls at the end of the hike in Cafayate
4. Landscape outside of Cafayate
5. Landscape outside of Cafayate
6. Me paragliding in Mendoza

Mendoza

Bit of trouble to put on pics....sorry!
I spent almost a week in Mendoza. This city was great! There is quite a bit of activities to do here. First off, there is great shopping everywhere you look! The city is always busy and full of people except at siesta time. I spent a day on a bike to get to the wineries which was pretty good, the wine was great. I also went paragliding for the first time, this was pretty cool. Basically you run from the top of a mountain towards the edge of a cliff and are swooped up by the wind and you glide down.
I spent a day going white water rafting and abseiling (repelling). The rafting was great. The rapids were only a class 3 but this was enough to get us all soaked with freezing cold mountain water! The repelling was a bit scary. Your hooked up to a rope that you slowly let go of to get the bottom. We did this on the side of a mountain, and repelled about 30 feet downwards. I can definitely say, this is an activity I would NOT do everyday! But it was fun to try!
We sampled the nightlife of Mendoza, which is crazy like salta. Nothing gets going until about 2am. You end up very tired the next day!
The hostal also put on a BBQ halloween party which was a blast. The whole hostal got dressed up (budget style) and got our faces painted. We had an amazing steak BBQ (what else right?) and some drinks.
I took the bus to Santiago, Chile this morning. I almost felt like I was in the Canadian Rockies for awhile. The bus drives right through the Andes and all the mountains here are covered with snow! We actually drove through a ski resprt.
My tour to Patagonia starts on saturday....

Cafayate

I spent 3 days in a little wine city called Cafayate. In this city you basically enjoy a lot of wine and good BBQ, and see the amazing landscape. So my travel buddy, joanna and I, spent a morning touring to the local wineries and of course tasting the local wine: delicious! We spent an afternoon on a tour to the 6 canyons just north of the city. The landscape here was amazing. The mountains were multicolored with lots of odd formations due to wind erosion. The next day, we decided to hire some bikes to get to the waterfalls. It was about an hour bike ride all uphill, in the freaking hot sun to get to where the hiking started. We had to hike for just over 2 hours, scaling huge rocks, crossing over and back across the little river and trying to avoid getting cut up from the cacti and sharp plants. We did actually make it to the waterfalls eventually, and swam in the freezing cold water. The walk and ride back to the city was much easier!
Argentina is an amazing country, the people are very friendly and nice, but very difficult to understand. They have their own form of spanish which is slightly different from the northern countries. The shopping is amazing here..so much beautiful clothing and leather goods. I think I will be breaking the bank in Buenos aires....
The beef is so good here as well and very very cheap. You can get a huge thick steak for less than 4 dollars. I have been eating a steak about every 2 days! The wine is great and also very cheap. You can get a liter for about 2 dollars at a resturant.
Pics to follow!