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Published: April 1st 2010
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If I was to ask you; where can you buy a steak the size of your plate for $6? Or where is the capital of south American football? Or where do they start to go out for a night out at 2am?
The answer Buenos Aires, Argentina!
So this is the 1st leg of my South American adventure. After arriving from a long and uncomfortable flight on the worlds cheapest airline I met James in our hostel, cleaned up and went out. We soon found out that the first weekend we were there it was 'El Classico', it's only the biggest game in south American football with Boca Juniors playing Riverplate. These are Buenos Aires (BA) two biggest teams and have as fierce rivalry as any other, so we bought our tickets and off we went. It did rain (a lot) but that didn't dampen anyone's spirits. The crowd was fantastic, they were in the stadium and singing 2hrs before kick off and didn't stop for an hour and a half after the final whistle. Flags, confetti, balloons and banners every where the eye could see, blue and yellow in all corners.
Once we had experienced this the 'ultimate' BA
Sunset in Uruguay
havin a beer and watching the sunset event it was time to head across the water to Uruguay for a couple of days to take in the slower pace of life. James and I took the ferry across to Colonia del Sacramento, which is a very old town whose history is one of smuggling goods out of Uruguay into Argentina. After these days of recuperation we were ready to try out the night life for which BA is also famous for.
So we started early around 10.00pm and 2.00am came and it was time to head out to the clubs, and what an awesome experience that was! (snake hips!) 7.00am came and it was time to get some shut eye as we were soon to fly down to Ushuaia 'The edge of the world'!
As I haven't really felt the cold much over the last 20 months it was a shock but also quite nice to actually have to wrap up warm and put my bobble hat on. After looking around Ushuaia (which is the gateway to all Antarctica expeditions) we went for a days walking in the national park. After a beautiful but long days walk we were ready to get home and chill out
before packing up again as it was time to move on to Chile.
After a 16hr coach trip, 1 boarder crossing, several cheese and salami sandwiches and a packet of biscuits later James Kitty and I arrived in Puerto Natales. We stayed here just one night, just long enough to get our barrings and prepare for what we came here to do which was a several day trek in the national park 'Torres del Paine', to explore the glacial lakes, rugged spires and camping in the great outdoors. After the couple of hour coach journey to get us to the edge of the park it was a short shuttle bus to the start of the hike. We decided the site for our camp on the 1st night was going to be camp Chileno, however with our sleeping bags, roll mats, food and tent all on our backs scaling our first climb was hot and tiring work. We made it before night fall, set up camp and ate a fabulous 3 course dinner of crackers, followed by pot noodles and cookies for dessert. Once the sunset it was bitterly cold so it was into the tent for cards and a
gossip.
After a bad nights sleep it was day 2 of the trek and I couldn't wait for breakfast time as i'm sure my roll mat only succeeded in making the floor harder. However breakfast wasn't exactly all I had hoped it would be but the salami sandwich and cup of tea did the job. Day 2 was going to involve a lot of trekking as we had to get all the way around to camp Italiano in a river valley only 100's of meters from a glacier. As I got closer I must have seen about 4 avalanches, one I managed to get a few pictures of (see below). But after all that walking we had made it to the camp. James and I had now perfected the art of tent erecting and had it up in less than 2 minutes and pegged down in less than 4 (guy ropes inc!) another 3 course meal later only substituting the noodles for pasta a few games of cards, washing up in the river then off to bed and hoping for a better nights sleep.
Day 3 was our last and with a few aches and blisters appearing it was
a shame but knowing we had a nice warm hostel to sleep in that night it was far to tantalising. I had a quick breaky helped the guys pack up and left them to follow me later and meet me at the ferry. I cracked on to get a glimpse of Glacier Grey going into the lagoon, however we had our first drops of rain and some steep climbing ensured I ran out of time so dejected i turned back and met the guys at the ferry. It was then when eating our left over food James and I realised Kitty hadn't eaten the corners off our bread that morning but rats had been feasting on our delights all that night, even eating through the ruck sack to get to the food!
However they left us some cookies and with that we took the ferry and bus back to our hostel for a deserved shower.
Tomorrow we head back to Argentina to 'El Calafate' to see a stunning glacier that is still advancing 2m every year.
The views in this part of the world are amazing,the population is small and landscape barren for hours but a very rewarding place
to be.
I trust you are all well, let me know the gossip from your corners of the world!
Lots of love
Tom xx
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Eric
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I really enjoyed your Argentina post. It reminded me of my time there. My blog is looking for travel photos. If you have the time, check us out a dirty-hippies.blogspot.com Continued fun on your travels, Eric