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Bonjour les amis !
You'll be happy to learn that we survived our southern expedition !:)
After 3 weeks of travelling throughout the great south of Argentina in UNBEARABLY cold temperatures, we made it unscathed and simply delighted with the souvenir of so many incredibly beautiful landscapes.
After Buenos Aires, our first port of call was Puerto Madryn, impossibly charming sea town with white houses, on the east coast. It felt good to get closer to the sea and to at last switch a heavy diet of red meat for fish ! But as soon as we stepped out of the bus, we realised that indeed Argentina was entering winter time. Quite a shock after the hot temperatures we had enjoyed only a few days before in Iguazu falls.
To be able to face the icy winds we quite simply had to wear in layers pretty much all of our clothes. The only advantage was that it made carrying our empty rucksacks a hell lot easier :)
We also quickly realised that the only humain way to visit Puerto Madryn was to hop from coffee shop to coffee shop to warm us up with a nice chocolate drink. That proved to be the start of a 3 weeks intense chocolate addiction we shamelessly entertained.
Now the main reason why people go to Puerto madryn is to see the variety of wildlife on the peninsula Valdes. Pinguins colonies, whales, sea lions, orcas, elephant seals...etc. But because Andy and I are very clever people and extremely organised individuals, we actually decided to get there the ONLY month of the year where all the animals have either already migrated or not yet arrived.
Typical.
Nevertheless, we still decided to try our luck and embarked on a tour of the peninsula. And that turned out to be our lucky day. We were rewarded by a magical encounter with a 30T, 14m long, pregnant whale. We behaved like excited kids, throwing ourselves out of the bus to run on the beach and approach her. She was only about 15m away from the shore. We stayed there about 30mins watching her play around, chilling on her back, blowing water through her blowhole, and diving.
Unforgettable.
After all this emotion in Puerto Madryn we decided to head further south towards Punta Arenas, in Chile. I was desperate to see those cute magellan pinguins, and there are 2 big colonies near Punta Arenas. After 18h bus, we at last got to the penguins' promise land .... only to be informed almost immediately that here too the penguins had migrated a month ago, to go to the brasilian's coast where it's warmer.
Now aren't penguins supposed to like cold to freezing temperatures ??!!
I was gutted.
Not to mention that if we had actually read in detail our Lonely planet, we would have realised that it was very clearly mentioned that no penguins were to be found in this region past March. We would have saved ourselves a looooooong trip to a town which eventually turned out to be a dump, and that we left very very very quickly.
Our following destination : Ushuaia.
The most southern city which has attracted so many travellers. A city with many legends attached to it...the end of the world, the starting point to historical antartic expeditions.
Yes, we were excited to get there !!
And again we weren't disappointed. First surprise, in the B&B where we were staying we got upgraded to a cabin for the price of a simple double room without bathroom, courtesy of the owners. But when I use the technically acurate word "cabin", I actually mean "luxurious chalet that turns out to be bigger than both our flats, with widescreen TV and fireplace". Visiting places during the low season certainly has its advantages !
Ushuaia was a lovely & lively city snuggled in between snow capped mountains and the canal beagle. In this southern part of the world and during that season, the sun remains very low in the sky, gets up at 10.00 and goes down at 16.30. That's pretty much the rythm we adopted to visit the city and it's surroundings :)
All in all the scenery was quite spectacular. We spent 3 days walking around the beautiful park Tierra del fuego, learning about the early Yamana indians that lived on this cold and desolate land before the spanish invasion and taking a boat trip to explore the canal beagle. The photos will speak better than words, check them out.
We could have stayed longer in Ushuaia, but we were equally looking forward to visiting the western part of the country. So after 3 great days we embarked on another 14h bus journey by daylight(!) to reach Puerto Natales (back into Chile territory) in order to visit the national park Torres del Paine.
Again, the pictures will speak better than words but the highlight of our park visit was undoubtedly the glacier Grey and its icebergs. Our first time of seeing glaciers and icebergs!! We were jumping excitedly up and down the beach, taking billions of pics, and marvelling at their intense crystal blue colour.
This great sight was only to be surpassed 2 days later by our visit to the glacier Perito Moreno in el Calafate. A huge huge huge glacier, about 60m high and stretching as far as vision goes. Incredibly impressive and beautiful.
But our visit to Argentina was getting to an end, after 7 eventful weeks.....
Our last destination was to be Bariloche, in the more central lake district. Slight issue, to get there our only option was a 30h bus journey !! Now, after 3 weeks of tiresome day time travelling throughout the south of Argentina, this news killed us. There is so much flat Argentinian pampa one can endure, however beautiful it is !!!
For a moment, we seriously considered blowing a month budget on taking a flight instead. But facing the harsh reality of our already stretched budget, we resigned ourselves to a day and a half of "back breaking, pampa brain washing" bus journey... Leaving at 2.00 in the morning only to get there at 13.00 the following day. Fun, fun, fun....
But Bariloche, Argentinian capital of chocolate, surrounded of beautiful lakes was worth the effort. Still need to upload the pics, but we spent 3 days there, eating chocolate, horse-riding, eating chocolate, enjoying the lakes, eating chocolate, relaxing and of course eating chocolate. A great way to wave goodbye to Argentina :)
We're now off to Chile for 2 weeks which will conclude our great South American adventure... Can't believe it's already over but Andy is very much looking forward to it as in 2 weeks he will be able to talk the local language of the new zeland people - a refreshing change :)
Hope you're all doing super duper well back home and give us your news !!
Lots and lots of love
Soph and Andy xxx
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