Strong Patagonian Wind

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More Animals: In the peninsula valdez, which is famous for the whale watching in semptember, we were still able to take in som wildlife- elephant seals, penguins, and an armadillo which i was able to pet when it came over for food. there are also killer whales here that hunt the seals at high tide but we weren´t so lucky to see that.

One night we were camping, the wind was so strong that it was blowing the tent in half! i woke up because the top part of the tent was on my face. when the wind stopped, the tent would go back to the original position. The wind has continued and pushed us, metaphorically speaking, from the coast all the way to the border town of esquel. to get here the landscape became even more like the american southwest, with small canyon like openings in the road, mesas, buttes, and red, white, and tan striations in the earth, and dotted by green scrubby vegetation. still the llama like creatures appear and giant rabbits, and things that are a cross between a squirrel and a rabbit. we also stopped in a town that the welsh settled in the 1860´s and had english style tea in a tea house here with biscuits and little cakes; something you might not associate with argentina.

We are using the town of esquel as a base to explore futaleufeu, a small chilean town famous for whitewater rafting, and to see the national park of can´t remember the name right now.

to get to futaleufeu we travelled on a small dirt road that cut through some spectacular scenery. imagine a more greener plain of the Old West dotted by small cattle ranches every half mile or so, and then surround the valley with green snow capped swiss alps, with some popping up in the middle. it is a collision of switzerland and the old west, and the dirt road keeps it inaccessible enough to preserve the character for now.

whitewater rafting in futalefu: it is a world class river with, they tell me, class 4-5 rapids. i went into it not thinking much, and when the first rapid hit, water in my eyes, mouth, almost knocking my hemit (i imagine like being in a washing machine), i could not stop laughing, which caused some minor choking which only led to more laughing. quite an experience- i recommed it to anyone if they haven´t done it yet.

Problems at the chilean border: for some reason when i crossed into chile the guy there didn´t stamp my passport! when i returned a different guy was there and was very concerned. he said something like "this is a real problem, you will have to stay in chile until i get permission to let you go¨ and i thought he said ¨let me look up what happened before you go¨and so i said ¨sure no problem¨. luckily the others with me interrupted and explained somethings and i told my story and they in the end let me return to argentina.

Now we are going to head north along the mountains to a very popular ski town of bariloche. on the way we´ll stop in a national park with very old trees similar to redwoods. they are teaching me some intricacies of the spanish language, inlcuding the proper way to swear. we are drinking mate by morning and having good asados (argentine style barbecues) by night.

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