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Published: January 26th 2007
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Finally we are coming to the end of our time in South America. We have gone full loop and we are now enjoying a few more days in Buenos Aires where we began our adventure. Ín a few days we will head to Santiago in Chile where we fly to New Zealand.
In the last month since we wrote we have been working our way through scenic Patagonia, all the way down to the tip of South America. It has been an arduous task at times, travelling for days on end on buses, being stranded in the middle of the night in nothing towns because our connection didn't wait, but it was all worth it in the end.
After Christmas our first stop was El Calafate to see the Moreno Glacier. After a quiet New Years' Eve freezing in a tent, we headed on the first day of the year to see the glacier. We had never seen a glacier before and we were instantly hit by how incredibly beautiful it was. The 60m wall of ice rises from a lake and spreads back as far as the eye can see into the mouth of the valley. We couldn't
Condor above
Still not perfect but our condor pictures are getting better. stop looking at the jagged inter-twined pillars of ice that glowed different colours from perfect white to deep blue. We could hear continuous groans and creaks from the moving ice followed by giant crashes like a firework going off. We took a boat trip onto the lake to get a closer look, and as we stood watching the giant glacier wall a huge pillar of ice dropped from it like a falling tree crashing into the lake with a giant splash.
Later as we stood filling our eyes some more, a giant condor swooped down close to the glacier then looped around and flew over our heads. It made for the perfect day.
After seeing the glacier we finally started to feel that the bus journeys had been worth it. The feeling stayed with us by spending a few days in the remote town of El Chalten four hours away. The town was only formed in 1985 because of the surrounding mountain range and had that sense of having been created without much planning. Despite this the scenery was out of this world. We had perfect weather for our day trek with not a cloud in the sky
and no sign of the winds that had nearly blown us off our feet the day before. It took us about four hours to reach the edge of the mountain range where we stopped and cooked lunch (on our newly aquired camping stove) on a lakes edge with a view over the impressive snow capped mountain range.
The days' trek at El Chalten was a warm up for our 5 day trek at the Torres del Paine, over in Chile. In the last few weeks we had bought all the camping equipment we would need for the trek, and after stocking up on packet rice and porridge oats we were ready to head off. The treks were hard work, carrying all our camping equipment and food over 80km in 5 days. After 7 hours of walking on the first day, we camped near the Grey Glacier and yet again we found ourselves gazing upon another beautiful expanse of ice. After a good nights sleep we headed off early and found ourselves on open ground as the heavens opened and sweeping winds carried us along. Despite Laura's insistance that we should turn around and go home we soldiered on to
Tims' Outback Kitchen
Lunch by the lake at El Chalten. the next campsite. After erecting the tent in high winds, we crashed into our sleeping bags exhausted...15 hours walking in two days and we were just getting started. The water is so clean in this part of the world that we could just fill our water bottle from the streams and drink fresh from the mountain.
Luckily the next day the weather was fine and we headed up the Valle Frances through beautiful forest along a fast flowing river of milky blue water, all the time in the shadow of the giant surrounding mountains. We reached the top of the valley and enjoyed the incredible view point surrounded by snow capped peaks.
The next day it rained again, and Tim attempted to walk off his ever worsening cold. We skirted around turquoise blue lakes and later stumbled through flower filled meadows. The final night we camped just below the Torres, three huge mountains that the area takes its name from. For some stupid reason we got up the following day at 4.30 am for the sunrise, and climbed the final hour in the rain and howling winds across giant boulders to the summit. Sadly as the sun rose
El Chalten
Trekking to the Fitz Roy mountain range. the Torres were hidden beneath grey cloud, but the the sun did poke through at one point to form a huge rainbow. We stayed at the summit as long as our freezing fingers could bare before we headed back down to finish the trek, the idea of heating and a comfortable bed calling to us.
After a few days of recovering we took another long bus journey to Ushuaia, the most southern city in the world originally formed as a penal colony. Despite its famous status the town was a bit of touristy dump and we spent must of our time chilling out and cooking good food in our hostel in an attempt to avoid the mass of US tourists, all out purchasing tacky "end of the world" merchandise.
Finally we flew back to Buenos Aires to complete the circle 7 months on. We have had a brilliant time in South America and seen and done some great things, thanks for sharing it with us. Now for the next chapter, see you there..........
7 Months in South America......
*6 countries visited
*412 hours on a bus, including 1 crash and 2 flat tyres
*32
hours in a jeep
*3 hours in a plane
*23 hours on a boat
*6 hours on a train
*115 hours of hiking
*580 hours working with monkeys
*2 bowls of muesli
*1 roast dinner
*1 curry
*0 fried breakfasts (sniff)
*Visited the highest city in the world
*Visited the southernmost city in the world
*Lost 4 pairs of sunglasses (Laura)
*Had a turd at 5000m above sea level (Tim)
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