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Published: February 28th 2006
Well, here I am spending the last or second to last night in Argentina catching up on emails and journals. The last 3 to 4 weeks with Carolyn have been very full and exciting ones. We have travelled the length of the coast down one side of the country and up the other side. I have worked out that in the last 4 weeks we have spent 120 hours on buses and taken one 3 hr flight from Ushuaia, the southern most city in the world half way back up the east coast which saved us another 24hr bus ride. Out of interest in the past 20 weeks in South America I have sat 313hrs on buses......Anyhow, about few of the places we have visited over the last 4 weeks include Ushuaia, as mentioned, here we took a 5 hr boat ride down the Magellen Straits and saw penguins and seals. altho most of the millions of penguins were rather small, there were a couple of King or Emperior ones amoungst them. Further north we spent a day at the Glaceir Moreno which is over 2.7kms long and 55mt high and most glorious blue colour. A couple of days later tramped up to 2800mt to view Mount Fitz Roy at El Chalten Nat Park. This is a series of high spiked peaks overlooking beautiful blue lakes which back onto the Torres Nat Park in Chillie which we didnt get to visit due to bad weather and high winds. Further north and several days later another beautiful Nat Park in the Lake district we walked several hours visiting more lakes and lovely views. Here at Bariloche stayed in a Back Packers owned and run by a fellow Kiwi from Auckland. Its called the 41 Below Hostal and even boasts a potato masher and a collection of Paua shells......The most notable feature of the landscape down here in Patagonia has to be the desert like landscape....and the accompaning blue skies... .it just goes on forever, and was most noticed from the air. Carolyn asked several people where all the cows and sheep are kept as the land is deserted. Further north still and the landscape changed into more of a moonscape of oranges and browns and the occasional shrubs. After Mendoza where I had to sample several good red wines accompanied with some of the best fillet steaks Ive ever had ( we have eaten steak nearly every night for 4 weeks, either cooked at the hostals or at All u can Eat type restuarants for $7 to $10 including great deserts). At Mendoza we did a day tour up to 4000mts to the pass between Chille and Argentina and viewed South Americas highest peak of 6900mts. After here we bussed to Tucaman and Cafeyate to see more rock formations and desert and drink more wine and eat yet more of the most delicious ice cream ever.....oh well there goes the waistline again......thank god Bolivia is next and I believe the food is all down hill for the next 3 countries. Our last stop is here in Salta which is at a cooler altitude of over 1000mt so at last we can sleep at night without waking to hot sweats. Carolyn is flying home from here and Im off to a small northern town to celebrate the last night of carnival tommorrow then into Bolivia the next day. I still havent figured out the photo thing and keep hoping someone who speaks English can help but guess it has to wait yet again. One other comment about Argentina is the fact that it is so similar to the South Island of home except in a much larger scale...... the lakes,mountains, rivers, desert (yeah well maybe ours is real tiny but the view from Lake Tekapo is just like here). The people are also similar, enjoy BBQs, play rubgy, drink like fish (althou I havent seen many drunks)and are really friendly and helpful. They do sing much nicer than us and are great on the guitar but our lamb is less fatty than theirs and they dont make as good pavs.......Well enough comparisons, its nearly midnight and people here are just going out for dinner and its getting busy on the streets. Ill sign off and wish u all a goodnight and catch u in the next country. Love from Kay here in South America xxxxxx
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basman
non-member comment
Steak
Enjoy the steak while it last Kay, cause you're right: from now on the food is downhill. Its gonna be chicken all the way! I'm now in Auckland and just went up that skitower: views are good! Met up with Sarah aswell. Cool. Anyway, have fun. Lots of love!