Hello We have left behind the pristine lakes and rivers of Esquel and Junin de los Andes...passed through the vineyards of Mendoza and San Juan and now are located in San Agustin, a small town situated in the Sierra Pampeanas. We are now in Northwest Argentina and the heat has been turned on!!! This is cactus country, the surrounding hills are green and the large candelabra cactus stand out amongst the low growing shrubs. Embedded in the rocks are small growing cactus with massive thorns, and aloes of different varieties grow along the rock walls. Very different vegetation from what we [View Full Entry]

---

---

We have moved further south to the town of Esquel, situated close to another National Park. Again fly fishing is all the rage here, but there is also another attraction...La Trochita. This is the little train that at one time travelled a route through this part of Patigonia a long time ago. It now runs a short tourist trip to the orginal first stop on its former route..Nahuel Pan, and still makes a trip once a week to another town, El Maiten a mere 6 hours away. We boarded La Trochita for a quick trip, and found it very slow going, [View Full Entry]

---

---

El Bolson is a very laid back town, the main attraction is the huge craft market held 3 days a week. Everything you could imagine was on sale, including delicius food. Belgina waffles, topped with fresh raspberries and whipped cream were an attractive item!!! Don contacted a local fly fishing guide and after a couple of 2 hour lessons we were off to a couple of rivers located outside of town. The Rio Chubut was the first river he tackled and there he caught a beautiful river trout. Throughout the day, both he and the guide caught smaller ones. This river [View Full Entry]

---

---

Hello! We travelled to the Chilean towns of Punta Arenas (12 hours from Ushuaia) and then onto Puerto Natales where we would travel through the Chilean fjords on the Navimag ferry. We had just enough time to travel back into Argentina to visit the towns of El Calafate and El Chalten where we spent a few days checking out the sites in these places. El Calafate is home to the Perito Moreno glacier and the latter is home to the beautiful Fitz Roy range. Unfortunately, we have downloaded all the pictures from these two places onto a CD which is now [View Full Entry]

---

---

We are now in Ushuaia after flying yesterday from Comodoro Rivadavia. The flight was much quicker than taking the bus for the 2 day (or more) journey. Flying sure is great, the airline was definately a "no frills" adventure, but we made it in one piece. Ushuaia is very busy at the moment, cruise ships line up here heading to the Antarctic. After over a month of dry and barren pampa, we were thrilled to see green grass and flower gardens. The lupin definately reigns supreme here, and roses are thriving as well!!! The weather yesterday was warm and sunny when [View Full Entry]

---

---

We have been enjoying our time in the small town of Puerto Deseado, which is actually a large deepsea fishing port. Darwin and the boys travelled through this area way back when, and at one time this port was also busy shipping wool. Now all that remains of the wool boom and the train that carried the goods is the magnificient train station. There are 3 tour outfits in town and we went out on the river tour with one fellow that is just starting up a new business. During the trip we were able to see the Commerson Dolphin, grey [View Full Entry]

---

---

Summer holidays have begun in Argentina, and we were surprized to find many people in town. We have taken a couple of tours to see the wildlife in the area of Peninsula Valdes, we have seen many guanacos, sea lions, elephant seals and tonnes of Magellanic penguins. The young penguins are just now beginning to loose their fine down plummage and by the end of this month they will hike down to the beach in order to learn to swim. It was amazing to watch the parents (full to the brim with seafood) heading inland to their nests. Sea gulls flew [View Full Entry]

---

---

We are now in the small town of Sierra de la Ventana. We have rented bikes for the week and have spent some time riding around. The bikes are a bit different than what we are used to. My bike has many gears but only two of them work, fortunately one of the gears is "Granny" so I am happy. It is very flat around this area, so hills haven´t been much of a problem. However, yesterday we decided to hike to Cerra Ventana which is about a two hour hike uphill and about the same on the return. Certain parts [View Full Entry]

---

---

For a change of scenery, we have moved inland to the small city of Tandil. We are situated in the heart of an agricultural area and passed by many large farms with fields in full production. The green corn fields make a huge contrast with the yellow of the ripening barley fields. Lots of Holstein cows out in the fields and needless to say there are cheese factories galore. Today we walked by a new cheese store in the city and were amazed by the types and amounts of cheese they produced in the factory located outside the city. The microcenter [View Full Entry]

---

---

We have moved on to another beach town called Villa Gesell. The weather continues to be pleasantly warm, although a tad bit windy. We really enjoyed the small town of San Clemente del Tuyu, very friendly and easy to get around- we walked everywhere. Even managed to take in a theme park called Mundo Marino which is the Argentine version of Sea World. A very entertaining spot, not only do the animal trainers work with sea lions but they also have to be able to sing and dance with them. That was a 1st for us! We are having an easy [View Full Entry]

---

---