Blogs from Santa Cruz, Argentina, South America - page 18

After visiting the Argentinian side of Iguazu falls myself and Will, a guy from Dublin I'd crossed paths with a few times in Brazil, left Josh and took a bus to Buenos Aires just in time for St. Patrick's day. On arrival we bumped into a few of the guys I'd stayed with in Rio so we all headed out to watch some Six Nations and drink some green beers. The whole world celebrates St Paddy's but Buenos Aires takes it especially seriously. Whole streets in the centre were full of Guinness drinking Argentinians in a party of almost Carnival like proportions. Nightlife in BA is pretty hardcore, no one seems to head out until about 3am and to head home until nearly lunchtime. Being Irish for a day had it's advantages as I quickly realised ... read more

Ok, this is going to be big. I've got a week's worth of stuff to write about so I'll try to keep it concise. Also I'm dedicating this one to all those who did Geography at school, Mr Lemoine included, as I am now literally THE big dog of seeing glacial features. I was all like "why hello there lateral and terminal morraines forming barriers to the corrie lake or tarn that sits in front of the frost shattered back wall layered with scree deposits". Anyways: The week has been amazing, although the name of this place is slightly decieving in that I have so far not patted any gonias at all. First things first, Monday. This was the day of the visit to the Perito Moreno Glacier, which according to trustworthy sources translates as the ... read more

After a hassle free 28 hours of bus trip, we finally arrived at our destination, El Calafate. We were now in the heart of Patagonia and the temperature had definitely changed from the pleasant heat of Bariloche. It was still by no means cold though and in comparison to English winters, you could almost go as far to say that it was mild, however this was the Patagonian summer and could only imagine how cold it would get in their winter. Our hostel was a strange affair, looking more like a ‘Holiday Inn’ than a hostel, placed on the widest, most empty, random road we had ever seen. Donna and I joked that it looked almost like we were on some kind of airport runway rather than a road…turns out, we were right and in fact, ... read more

Yesterday was a day full of travel; lots of hurrying, lots of waiting, lots of sitting and wondering what the heck was going on. My taxi driver sent someone else to pick me up today, but she was early and very nice. We left the hotel at 9 and made it to the airport on time. I thought that the travel gods were smiling upon me today- the plane was on time and they checked my 2nd bag for free. It was off to a great start. As we approached Buenos Aires, the cloud cover grew thicker and more ominous. Heck I wasn't worried, I was only there for a couple hours and didn't care if it was raining there; that would be my worry the following week. Oops, my bad. We circled BA for over ... read more

Friday the 9th. Departing El Calafate and onwards to El Chalten aka The Trekking Capital of Argentina. A tiny town with something like 600 residents but many more tourists filling the streets, hostels and restuarants. We found ourselves a cozy campsite down by a big, braided river and headed off to get in on the trekking trend. The trailhead to Lago Capri was close the the campsite and we wound up narrow trail for about 2 hours. The whole time Matt was compulsively looking for a Condor as he had heard that they lived near rock outcroppings and that they existed in Argentina. This wasn´t enough info to convice me so I spent more time looking for catapillers and watching kayakers in the river below. Then we came upon two hikers stopped in the middle of ... read more