Argentina Part 2: Patagonia, the END OF THE WORLD and penguins

Well, we took our 30-hour bus ride from El Bolson to el Chaltén! The longest bus ride so far! Crazy thing about the buses. You never know if they are going to provide food or not – even if you ask. The long-distance buses are not chicken buses. They are plush Greyhound-type buses, usually double-decker, with bathroom, fresh coffee (sometimes tea) and semi-cama (reclining seats) or full-cama (seats go all the way down), depending on how much you want to pay. In Ecuador and Peru, these buses were cheap. In Colombia, Chile and Argentina they are not. On some shorter buses (we always take them at night to avoid the additional cost of a hotel, and also to have the daytime to do things), they gave us a snack when we got on, a dinner, and breakfast the next morning. On this super-long bus ride, they gave us NOTHING!!! Thank goodness they made a stop in the small town of Perito Moreno (not the glacier) so we could get something to eat during that time, so we were OK.

We got to El Chaltén at 7 am, too early to get hotels and hostels to open, as we soon found out! And it was extremely cold – the coldest we had experienced so far. We waited out on a bench until about 8:30 am, when we finally got a hotel to let us in. El Chalten looks like a little Swiss village nestled in at the bottom of one of the most dramatic mountain ranges you will ever see – the Fitz Roy! The outline of these mountains serves as the logo for the Patagonia clothing line and was the inspiration of several scenes in The Little Prince, when Antoine Saint Exupéry worked in El Chaltén as a postal worker! Patagonia, and specifically el Chaltén, is known for its trekking opportunities. And we didn´t waste any time. With a few crackers to fortify us (because the restaurants and food stores were not open yet) we took off on our trek through the bottom of the mountain range and Lake Paine. The scenery was spectacular! We walked through grasslands, forests, passes a milky turquoise glacial river, all with unbelievable views of the famous Fitz Roy mountains (see photos). The hike was ONLY 17 miles round trip (yes! I did it!) We ran out of water and didn´t have food except for the crackers and some dulce de leche (caramel) spread. Not smart of us. And strange – we are always prepared! But we made it! Exhausted and with legs hurting us at the end of the day, it was still worth it! We celebrated with a great dinner of grilled chicken and lamb stew with half a pinguino! Pinguino is Spanish for penguin and in this case a pinguino is the house red wine served in a ceramic penguin pitcher.

Our next stop was Calafate, the cute little tourist town that you go to if you want to see the absolutely mind-blowing, more than spectacular Perito Moreno glacier. This is the largest stable (not receding yet) glacier in the world. I had seen plenty of glaciers when I lived in Alaska, but nothing like this!!! Words can´t really describe it and the photos are never as good as the view you see with your very own eyes. We did not go on the tour (we never do). We took the regular bus and spent almost 6 hours gazing at this phenomenon! Thanks to Josue…he managed to capture three great photos of the glacier calving. A huge skyscraper hunk fell off with a deafening roar. We witnessed about eight of those that day and about 50 small ones. The ¨tunnel¨that forms had recently fallen and this year has been declared an active year for the glacier. We brought a nice picnic lunch and so enjoyed our Malbec and sausage and cheese sandwiches with fresh apples and grapes while we continued to stare at this awesome thing. A little bird joined our picnic! Perito Moreno glacier was truly a highlight on the trip so far. Near our hostel in Calafate we found a bird reserve so we took the short hike there to see colonies of flamingos and lots of birds we didn´t know.

Next stop: the END OF THE WORLD, a town called Ushuaia. The hardship of this trip was that the bus left at 3 am! It left at this odd time for the crazy immigration thing that happens. The 13-hour bus ride passes through Chile for a very short distance – and you guessed it – we have to LEAVE Argentina, ENTER Chile, then LEAVE Chile and ENTER Argentina again. We even get a ferry ride with the bus on the ferry! This process (and hauling your stuff on and off the bus) itself takes about 2-3 hours. At one point in the crossing, Josue was called off the bus. We are always worried about his Nicaraguan passport because so far at each border crossing, people say they´ve never had a Nicaraguan cross the border! Every time Josue says he is from Nicaragua to ANYONE, they are shocked. So we didn´t know what they wanted. Apparently, they had not had a Nicaraguan pass through before and asked him where his visa was and where did he pay for it. Well, he doesn´t need a visa and the immigration officials didn´t even know it. They had to look it up! As soon as they realized that, Josue came back on the bus. But that wasn´t the only encounter with the immigration officials. We had bought a ton of food in Argentina and were told we couldn´t pass it through the Chilean border. So we ate as much as we could, but still had apples, peaches, packaged meat and cheese, etc. When we go to the border, I decided it was best to tell the truth. I told the Chilean immigration officer that I had the stuff and he said OK and kept going through the bus. The next thing I knew I was hauled off the bus by another officer and interrogated. I just explained that we had spend our money on food to eat for the trip and since we were going right back into Argentina – we should be able to keep it. They didn´t agree and opened my backback and confiscated everything. Someone was going to have a feast that night. At least they didn´t give me a fine or put me in jail (there was a huge poster of someone holding an apple in his hand while his hands were handcuffed together)!

We got to Ushuaia around 8 pm. It was FREEZING and really windy. We went to the first place we found – a dormitory! We had kitchen privileges, so while we were there we cooked and ate there. Except for one meal. We had tried lamb four times in Patagonia so far (Patagonia is famous for its lamb) and we liked it, but couldn´t say we raved about it. Lamb is SO fatty. But there was a restaurant in Ushuaia that specialized in lamb and served it 20 different ways. We had spit-roasted lamb in orange sauce. It was fabulous! The best we´d had so far! Ushuaia is a port town nestled between some mountains – not the highest we´ve seen so far. But the city is pretty and has one main tourist street and that´s it. Tierra del Fuego is actually an island below the mainland of Argentina and Ushuaia is on the bottom of the island if you look at a map. It is the southernmost city on the planet and is truly the END OF THE WORLD. We planned to trek in Tierra del Fuego National Park the next day, but a bad cold (mine) and a freezing, rainy day stopped us in our tracks. This was the first day of real rain on the whole trip so far, but it poured! So we had to go. At least I can say I went to the END OF THE WORLD.

We left Ushuaia and had to go back through Rio Gallegos in order to head up the east coast of Argentina. Rio Gallegos is the second biggest city in Argentina. It is a regular city, so there is nothing much to take note of except that there was a disco two doors from our hotel and it played Latin music! The first we had seen in Argentina!!! HOORAY! This disco, called Metropolis, only played cumbia and merengue, but hey! We were happy. Of course we couldn´t go until 2 am, so we had to sleep in the evening and wake up at 1:30 in order to get ready to go. Crazy hours! Had a great time dancing though.

After Rio Gallegos we headed for Trelew and the Punta Tomba penguin reserve. This particular reserve has the largest colony of penguins outside of Antarctica. It was the end of the season and just before the penguins leave for colder places, but we were lucky to see so many. Everyone supposes that penguins are cute birds, and we weren´t disappointed. They are! They seem to have personalities. Some of them didn´t like people and would waddle away when we approached. But others were more curious and would actually walk up to us and turn their heads this way and that to get a good look at us. We enjoyed our day at the penguin reserve. We also saw wild Guanacos (an Argentinian llama). After that, we drove to a small Welsh (that´s right!) town called Gaiman. This pretty place was known for its tea houses and high tea ritual. So that´s where we went…to have tea and cakes. Yummy, but way too many sweets! We were buzzing for hours after with all that sugar. The next day we boarded a 22-hour bus to Buenos Aires, where my friends Rodrigo and Florencia and (yep, you guessed it!) Stacy (who was returning from her trip) were waiting for us. Click here to see photos of this section.