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9 and a half weeks on and it`s nearly all over, can`t believe I`ll be home in just a few more days.
Sorry communication has been spasmodic. The Patagonia trip was great but we were in some very isolated spots and internet was hard to find. In 3 weeks we covered 15 lines of latitude - from 40 to 55 degrees south. It`s hard to convey how huge and empty parts of the country are. If you have seen the Motorcycle Diaries, we covered some of the same route as Che and Alberto - and in many places little has changed. The main road south is the Carreterra Austral, which sounds impressive but in many parts is unpaved and with refueling stops few and far between. A strike of Chilean customs officers caught us on the wrong side of a border for 4 hours one day with no fresh food on board (we had already consumed everything in sight as you cannot take fresh food from Chile into Argentina) So we ended up making lunch from emergency supplies parked alongside lorries and trailers all stuck waiting for the strikers to go back to work.
However the amazing scenery - Moreno Glacier, Torres del Paine, Mount Fitzroy, Beagle Channel at Ushuaia more than made up for the hardships. And being Brits (we did have a token German with us but she was an Anglophile and wouldn`t go on holiday with Germans) we just got on with it. The group was varied but all got on well. Ages were from 30 to 60+, usual handful of teachers and IT workers, plus fireman, helicopter pilot, town planner, geneticist, surveyor so quite a mixed bunch.
Our final destination was Ushuaia on Tierra del Fuego - the most southerly town in the world (but on the same latitude south as Newcastle is north, which takes away a bit of the glamour) However the setting is definitely more impressive than the Tyne. There we said goodbye to the group and flew to Buenos Aires and then the next day on to the Iguazu Falls - 55 south to 25 south so a bit of a shock to the metabolism to be in semi tropical surrounding within 48 hours. Falls are amazing though very popular hence busy, but we managed to notch up another 2 stamps on the passport with a half day trip to Brazil to see them from the other side.
And now we are back in Buenos Aires, in a tiny apartment with a roof terrace in a house belonging to a man who teaches expressive dance so there are some strange goings on at times! However it is central and gives us somewhere to relax. Yesterday we escaped from the city to the delta of the Parana river, only an hour away but a different world. We hoped to squeeze in a day trip to Uruguay (more stamps for the passport) but the ferries are full on the only day we have free. Today we were in la Boca (home of Argentinian football, Maradona etc) and we also caught the changing of the guard at the Malvinas memorial - there are times in this country when you need to keep quiet about being a Brit! And tomorrow night we are going to see the Police (as in the band) in the other big football stadium here, River Plate. Then it will be time to see how we can squeeze all our possessions into a 40k limit and head home.
Still no photos - no USB ports in this internet cafe so will post some when I get home. I seem to have spent weeks in these places over the past 3 months and will not be sorry to see the back of them and get home to my dear little Mac.
Love Linda
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