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After a normal life in BA, we were now heading south trying to get to El Calafate for Christmas and Bariloche for New Year.
We took a 5 hour bus down to Mar Del Plata for a few days surfing and then took a 17 hour bus down to Puerto Madryn to spend a day on Penninsula valdes where we saw Sea Lions, Elephant Seals, Pengiuns, Rheas (Ostrich like birds) and Armadillos! However, we had just missed whale season and had no luck with the Orcas either. My snake-man adventures are also turning up nothing!
We then took a 26 hour bus trip (2 different buses and a 2 hour delay) down to El Calafate. This is the most southern point of our trip and the journey down was very unimpressive, apart from the last 30 minutes when we arrived in the mountains, rivers and lakes of Patagonia. We met up with an English couple and decided to go out on Christmas Eve, partying until the sun was up on Christmas Day and many of you were probably busy unwrapping presents... MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
A few hours sleep and we were up for our Christmas Day trip to the Glacier Perito Moreno. This has to be one of the most spectacular things we have ever seen... A living, breathing piece of mother nature that is so immense that we spent the afternoon in awe of it´s beauty. Large claps of thunder were heard every time a house size piece of ice fell from this advancing wall (the only glacier in the world that is still growing, at 2 metres per day!) and crashed in to the water creating large waves and a very memorable display. Trully a Christmas Day that we will never forget!
With the gap between Christmas and New Year, we decided to head to El Chalten (3 hours by bus), the trekking Capital of Patagonia and were not disappointed with 2-days and 50km of walking in the mountains, seeing glaciers, peaks, rivers, waterfalls and lakes. Still no snakes!
To get to Bariloche for New year, we had 2 options... Go back the way we came, or take Ruta 40 (Route 40), which is a bumpy 2-day trip through the mountains. We opted for the later and endured 2-days of no air conditioning and mostly boring scenery apart from the occassional massive lake and mountain, a few birds and animals, the odd dead cow or animal carcus and an overnight stop in the ghost town of Perito Moreno!
Eventually, at 8:30pm on 30th December we arrived in Bariloche and enjoyed a few days of luxury in a hostel over-looking the lake. A wierd New Year´s Eve, saw us wondering the streets at 11am to find a place for a drink, as all bars were shut until 2am? We hooked up with a group of people (Americans, Swiss, German, Dutch and British) in the same position and saw the New Year in with cheap Champagne in a travellers bar, before a few hours dancing in an Irish Bar and then watching the sun rise on the beach by our hostel before getting to bed at 6am! It was not what we had expected, but memorable all the same.
In total we have spent 62 hours in the bus to end up here and although there was a lot of bum and leg pain and not a great deal of sleep, we have seen some amazing things that have made it all worth it!
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY x x x
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Richard Ey lieve mensen! Heel gelukkig nieuwjaar voor jullie! Wat een mooi verhalen! BA lijkt me prachtig..idee om weer terug te gaan in april?! :) Weer een memorable oud& nieuw erbij! Dikke tut