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El Calafate
Back to Argentina.......we arrived on Easter Sunday, and what to all good catholic girls do on Easter Sunday? Eat easter eggs of course. This place was full of yummy chocolate shops and of course it would be rude not to purchase. I did actually go to church as well - it followed the same general pattern as in England, except in Spanish (to be expected). Other differences of note were the stray dogs wandering up and down the aisle (probably after my easter eggs) and the hugging and kissing towards the end, rather than the polite shake of the hand which I am used to - a little bit scary!
We spent half a day at the Reserva Laguna Nimez - a nature reserve on the lake in El Calafate which promised lots of birdlife. The main problem with this was that we unwittingly picked up another couple of stray dogs who had a bit of a habit of chasing away the few birds that could be seen. Not ideal, but one of the dogs had a bit of a limp so couldn't help but feel sorry for him.
The main attraction in El Calafate
Reserva Laguna Nimez.......
.......just after the dogs chased them away! was the Perito Moreno Glaciar (Dad - I'm sticking with the Spanish spelling!), named after Francisco Moreno, a 19th century Argentinian Patagonia explorer. I have to confess by this point I felt I had probably already seen my fair share of glaciars, but this was spectacular. It was huge! 55m high and 5km wide, and similarly to the Iguazu falls, they've built excellent walkways which enable you to get quite close. All the while you could hear mini rours of thunder as bits of ice broke off within the glaciar, and we were lucky enough to see a big chunk fall off the front into a big pool of ripples and huge cloud of ice.
Finally some decent beer...........
Next stop was a little 22 year old, still only half-built town called El Chalten, which has a microbrewery, where they brew yummy cloudy pilsner served with a bowl of popcorn. Brilliant! This made me very happy. A baby town really, in the sense of being both small and young, it still took it's water supply form the glaciars, untreated, and had lots of little cute triangular houses, where the roof slopes all the way down to the
ground, like lots of isosceles triangles (GCSE maths flashback :-).
Just the two days of hiking here - one to Glaciar and Lago Sucio, and one to Lago Maestri. Not nearly as arduous as the Torres del Paine, which is lucky, since El Chalten was somewhat deficient in its chocolate supplies. As seems to be becoming the custom, a stray cat adopted us at the campsite. We woke one morning to find a large lump hanging down from the roof of the tent. A meteorite perhaps? No. The cat had somehow gotten in between the tent and the fly and had spent the night there. I should have learnt my lesson though from the last cat - the next day it stole my cheese. And I really fancied some cheese :-(
The end of the world..........
Next destination was Ushuaia, right at the bottom of the world (more or less, except for a little place known as Antartica). This was a 26 hour passport-clogging journey through Chile and back to Argentina. On the first leg back to El Calafate we stopped at little cafe, which was really just a room in someone's house selling cakes, pies,
empanadas, chocolates and more. Whilst contemplating the purchase of a naughty empanada I was quite surprised to see the cute little face of a llama pop up behind the counter! Apparently he was the 5 month old family pet, and after he served me my empanada, was quite happy wandering amongst the customers, soaking up all the attention and pats (he should get together with Harry....). Sooo cute.
Sunday morning in Ushuaia and you really did feel like it was the end of the world - it was deserted (probably how it was in the olden days in England!). 'Twas chilly, (perfect hot chocolate weather) but bright so decided on a boat trip, but no sooner than the booking was made......then the heavens opened. A shame really, because weather aside, it was a brilliant boat trip, and the guide was very informative. It was a sail boat, though the sails weren't out, named 'If' after the Rudyard Kipling poem, and had been sailed to Antartica on a number of occasions. First stop was a little island full of sealions and shags, much closer than we had been in Puerto Madryn. The male sealion, much larger than the females, lay
a short way from his hareem (between 5 and 12 girls for each lucky male). The shags weren´t doing a great deal, though apparently by swallowing stones they can dive up to 40 metres to catch their food. Next stop was 'H' island, home of a 150 year old relative of the carrot, a 500 year old shag nest, and the 200 year old remains of a campsite of the Yamana Indians (crazy people who used to live naked in Patagonia!!!!).
Tierra del Fuego
This national park was a lot greener than the others, bit more like the green green grass of home. The campsite was right next to Lago Roca - a beautiful location, just a shame they were so grumpy (bit of an inconvenience every time we wanted hot water and kitchen access). We decided against the 1000m climb of mount Guanaco in favour of some flat walks, much more favourable when it's cold and windy. The walks took us past hundreds of rabbits, a large peat bog (Laguna Negra), lakes, a beech forest and an apparently active beaver colony. There was a distinct lack of beavers, though much evidence of their beavering; trees looking
freshly nibbled with piles of shavings strewn around, some reduced to stumps and others looking like they might fall any minute. But no matter how much I searched, no beavers. Maybe they're nocturnal - does anyone know?
Time to leave the end of the world........a 6am departure, which would have been fine had I not set the alarm for 5pm instead of am. Big oops. The big alarm clock in the sky woke us at 5.50am, and after a super speedy departure form the hostel, with a small amount of stress from some parties, we made the bus.....phew.
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