Advertisement
Published: January 19th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Los mineros are back for a new entry. The first one of 2009, we hope you enjoyed the end of 2008. Happy new year to everyone. Many things happened to us during the last 3 weeks. Some good and some bad ones...
First, we would like to thank the people who have created the "Los mineros group" on facebook.
Here are the details of our trip in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego.
Villa Gesell & Puerto Madryn, Chubut Province (Eastern part of Patagonia):
We decided to stop on the east coast to rest for few days in Villa Gesell. A bit disappointed by the place as it was too windy and cold to swim. Moreover our only investment was not as good as we expected. Indeed our tent is too small and not very resistant to the wind. So we eventually stayed 2 days and headed south to Puerto Madryn near the Peninsula Valdes.
We met two friendly Irish guys (Fergal & Paul, from Ringsend in Dublin and playing football in Irish town!) with whom we rented a car to visit the Peninsula Valdes. We did not see any whales but we saw a lot of pinguins
and sea lions. Max was our pilot for one day, easy right easy left it was our Paris-Dakar.
We spent the new year eve in Puerto Madryn managing to break a historical record making 29 people lifting their feet in the middle of the street at midnight. Unfortunately as we gonna tell you later you will not see any pictures of it (one of the bad news)... Our dinner that night was unforgettable as we ate Irish pasta (Tuna, onions & tomato sauce). It did not prevent us from partying until 7AM.
Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego (Argentinian side):
Our next stop was then Ushuaia, the southern most part of our trip. It took us 38 hours in total as we had a bus breakdown (the second one of the trip, and the second one in Argentina). All along the road the landscape is completely flat without any tree nor people nor animals. We arrived in Ushuaia at 2AM, most of the hostels were full so Tim had to sleep on a couch in a nasty hostel.
The city is not as attractive as we expected but the surroundings were. The cost of life was too high for us
but it is still a well known meeting point for sailers who reach the Cape Horn or for tourists going to Antartica (7000 USD per person : unaffordable for us). The place is also very special because in summer time the daylight lasts from 4AM to 11PM making sunrise and sunset amazing.
We did a 2-day trek in the national park and camped for one night in our shitty tent. However it was the first time Max could make a fire which made him very happy (he had been waiting for so long). The second day we walked up the Cerro Guanaco (970m above the sea level but started from the sea level). The view was beautiful and we met a very nice german guy called Marco. The national park contains many lakes and forest surrounded by snowy mountains. But the temperature is very low due to strong and steady winds.
Puerto Natales & Torres del Paine national park, Tierra del Fuego (Chilean side):
We crossed the Argentinian border to Chile and stayed in Puerto Natales to get ready for our trek in Torres del Paine. Our preparation was so good that we forgot ham & cheese in
the hostel. We trekked during four days on our own, sleeping in our comfortable tent (we got wet one night). Our trail covered the famous "W" shape accessing to various valleys. We walked everyday up to 8 hours carrying our heavy backpacks with food, tent, clothes... Wind, rain and snow made our trek even harder: Patagonia is definitively a hostile place for human beings. The experience was awesome: we saw Glaciars standing over lakes and pieces fallen off forming icebergs, Rockies mountains hidden from time to time by clouds and green lakes. The third day, Max wanted to take the lead of our stolen/lost objects contest by leaving his camera in a refuge. 15 minutes later it was gone.... with the feet lifting record picture and two months of photos: "Mala onda" as people say around here.
When we came back "Mala onda" was still with us as we realised we had bought bus tickets for the wrong day and therefore had to buy new ones. The last night was memorable: we could sleep only two hours as people came back drunk in our dormitory laughing and snoring (ronfler en francais) loudly. The conclusion is : better to sleep in
a shitty tent than in a noisy dormitory.
Breaking news: The BIG story
We are now back in Argentina in El Chalten after having been in El Calafate (Pics and story in the next article).
An unexpected event forces us to inform you ahead of the following. First, Los Mineros have also to face a financial crisis: overspending by 30% our original budget in Argentina. Tim´s parents please come back! Secondly, we got robbed in Calafate by an Argentinian guy who was sleeping in our dormitory: tent, sleeping bag, trekking shoes and a pair of jeans. We had mixed feelings the first time we saw him, he looked a bit weird but was trying to be friendly with us. When we came back from our visit from the Perito Moreno Glaciar we found out he was gone with our stuff. In our sadness, we got lucky because we learnt he was going to El Chalten, our next stop. The next day we took the bus to El Chalten and Los mineros investigated on the robbery. It did not take long for Sherlock Holmes and co to find THE shitty tent in one of the three campings in this
village of... 600 people. We then called the police and each of us had to go through an interview (in Spanish!) at the police station for 1.5h to explain our story. After, armed policemen arrested the thief in the camping wearing Tim´s shoes and about to rest in Jems´ sleeping bag. The guy denied but we finally got our stuff back. It took us an afternoon but Los Mineros are now back on the "Buena Onda". Don´t mess with Los Mineros otherwise Los mineros will mess with you!
Next article will be about the end of our trip in Patagonia.
As usual, you can find all the articles we have published since the beginning of the trip at the below link:
Advertisement
Tot: 0.2s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 16; qc: 64; dbt: 0.1119s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Lol
non-member comment
Inspecteur Harry?
Hola gringos, 1) Degoutee pour vous de voir que les vols/pertes continuent, mais que vois-je? L'inspecteur Harry en vous a triomphe haut la main! Clint peut etre fier, il n'a plus rien a vous apprendre! Mais les flics, avaient-ils un gros flingue au moins? 2) La crise financiere, Tim, enfin es tu tellement surpris :-)? La crise est mondial de toute facon, donc ne vous sentez pas seul... 3) La photo Chilean Abbey Road, 10/10 tres bien pense! Des gros bisous et gardez vos affaires comme a votre vie! Faites confiance a "des guns" comme on dit chez nous.