Blogs from Santa Cruz, Argentina, South America - page 3

This morning we fly 350 miles north to El Calafate, a town on the edge of the Patagonian ice field. We arrive at the airport in plenty of time, which is good because it is now that we learn that Aerolineas Argentinas has a 15 kg luggage limit – not 23 kg as indicated on our booking form. After checking in, we have to wait in a long queue to pay our excess baggage fees. But first, the old man has an argument with the check in clerk, followed by an argument with the excess baggage clerk, rounded off with an argument with the supervisor. We board our flight, I’m hoping it’s calmer then our arrival when I genuinely thought I was going to star in the sequel to Alive! The next 3 weeks of our ... read more

Woke up at 5:15am, had breakfast and packed our bags and walked the 15 minutes to the bus station and got there at 6:30am. This gave me an hour to hike to the Mirador Los Condors for a view of El Chalten with the mountains behind. However, it didn’t look promising as the clouds hadn’t cleared and there was light rain, so pur first bit of bad luck concerning the weather. I still did the hike anyway and didn’t quite make it to the top as I was worried I wouldn’t make the bus in time and the weather hadn’t cleared so it wasn’t worthwhile. Oh well, you can’t win them all and at least we did sight Mt Fitzroy in silhouette last night. Our bus back to El Calafate stopped at the same rest stop ... read more

Today is a travelling day. Woke up this morning at 7:15 and finished packing before walking to restaurant for breakfast. Our room 60 is the second last room on the western side and the restaurant is located at the extreme eastern side of the hotel so actually a bit of a walk as the hotel is long and skinny so that all rooms have a nice view. The bus left around 9:20 and had to back track towards Punta Arenas to reach the border crossing. We were traveling with Joseph, Marta, Darlene(Boston) , Angeliqua (Texas), Arnie and Benny from Israel. The bus stopped just before the border crossing at a cafeteria/tourist shop for about 60 minutes even though the driver told us 20-30 minutes. We were all looking for the driver but he had disappeared but ... read more

Vanuit Puerto Aysen rijden we door een smalle vallei richting het oosten. Alle bergtoppen zijn prachtig besneeuwd. De zon komt steeds vaker tevoorschijn en als we Coyhaique naderen wordt het schitterend weer. We stoppen bij een uitzichtpunt vanwaar je een mooi uitzicht hebt over de stad met daarachter de bergen. Coyhaique is de grootste stad van de omgeving en het is er dus ook erg druk. Wij doen wat boodschappen en zijn dan weer onderweg. We kunnen wederom geen wegenkaart of gas vinden. Het landschap is hier veel droger als voorheen en we rijden over een hoogvlakte en kunnen goed snelheid maken. De weg klimt steeds hoger en in de bergen van het Cerro Castillo Reserve komen we de eerste echte herfstkleuren tegen. De bossen tegen de steile berghellingen kleuren fel geel en rood. Uit de ... read more

And on we travelled the next day by bus to El Chalten, right in the middle of the Parc Nationales de Glaciares (the clue is in the name). “Is it February?” Pete asked, at 7.50 as we waited to load our rucksacks onto the 0800 bus. “Of course its February” I replied, thinking “what’s up with the man?” “Then why does it say March on our tickets?” says Pete.......meaning “the tickets YOU booked“.....Pete took command and his now fluent Spanish along with a lot of gesticulating and a bit of wailing from me ensured we got on the February bus. We are now half through our adventure and as a bit of a treat we decided to stay in one place for 5 nights to regroup and get our laundry done. We found the most amazing ... read more