lone marauder

Decided to take an afternoon bus to El Chalten from El Calafate to do a couple of quick hikes to view Cerro Fitz Roy, big famous peak. My thoughts were to get there in the afternoon, make it to the top in time for sunset and come back at night, then wake up and do a different hike and watch the sunrise, then catch an afternoon bus back to El Calafate and then try to head to Chile to Puerto Natales. Those plans didn´t quite work out. It was a bright sunny day all day until I arrived in El Chalten then the clouds started rolling in. So i quickly got my room changed clothes and hit the trail hoping to beat the weather. But no luck, Patagonia finally won a round. Shortly into the hike ... read more

Bariloche was a great stop. On my first full day i decided to take a bus into the mountains and rent a bike to do what is called the Chico circuit. this loop is about 30km up and down the hills surrounding a bunch of lakes, and then there were a few side trips along the way. After reserving my bike i ran into one of my dorm mates, Peter, and he decided to come along as well. This was a good way to spend the afternoon and the scenery was beautiful, pictures can hardly do it justice. The following day I had to start and figure out where i was going to go next and try to figure out how to spent the quickly fading days I had left. It was becoming impossible to continue ... read more

For the last night in Buenos Aires everyone was taking it easy, so we went up to the roof for a few beers. Well the party of 5 on the roof turned into about 13, and sooner or later it was 4am and you couldnt count the number of empty beers on the tables, so we went off to get some food and then back to the hostel by 5, at this point i decided it was bedtime, but a few of the guys went back to the roof and drank until sun up. Spent most of Friday just relaxing and waiting for my bus, wandered the city for a few hours once everyone from the night before startet feeling better. Then it was off to my bus for a 14 hour ride. Bus wasnt that ... read more

Well I arrived in Buenos Aires without any problems. Not sure if I got less sleep in my snow cave the night before the trip, or on the plane, but here none the less. Finding the shuttle and getting to the hostel was quite easy. The hostel is nice, there is a roof balcony overlooking the city where you can have a beer and enjoy the sun, which i certainly did when I arrived. A few quick observations, i certainly can't do anything more then read spanish, traffic lanes seem to only be recommended, and beers seem to only be availible in the 1 litre bottle, not that that bothers me. Walked a big portion of the city already today, but now i'm beat, i'll fill that part in later and throw up some pics.... read more

Wednesday July 11th, Its seems today we did nothing but drive, after waking up and packing the car we drove out of Invercargil to the Catlins conservation park on our quest to find penguins. As always we drove through plenty of beautiful scenery along the coast and arrived at our destination. For once we arrived at our destination to coincide with the proper tides, this time to see a petrified Jurassic forest. Walking along the rocks on top of the petrified forest was cool, but what we had really wanted to see was penguins, there were also frequently dolphins is the bay but we were not as excited to see those. Unfortunately we were not lucky at this beach with any wildlife, except the usual seagulls. So we decided to continue our search along the coast ... read more