Santiago, Chile- Last stop in South America

From Mendoza we made our way over the border into Chile. I have to say that this bus journey runs along the most impressive landscape i have seen. Its a couple of months into the spring and while most of the snow has melted from the mountains there were many places where thick slabs of ice still scatter across the land, it is a very impressive view. Getting through the border went without issue, just had to wait for a couple of hours. Everything was offloaded from the bus, put through the xray machine. Some bags were picked for random searches but luckily none of ours were chosen- not that i was bringing anything dodgy across the border, just had a heap of dirty laundry in the bag!

The concesus on Santiago from other travellers wasn't good so i wasn't expecting very much from the city. But i have to say after spending a couple of days there, i am very impressed. It is one of the city's that i really liked. This was probably helped by the fact we were staying in the bar and restaurant district of the city. It had quite a bohemian feel to it and was surrounded by many theatres. As we were only spending a couple of days in this place, we did a bus tour of the city. One of the stops was in the city park that has a small garden dedicated to a Benjamin Vicuna MacKenna. Well once i saw the surname, my interest was piqued. It turned out he was a Chilean historian and journalist in the 1800s who was sentenced to death for his part in the revolution of 1851. Escaping death he lived in exile for many years before unsuccessfully running for presidency in 1875. His greatest achievement was the 100 volumes of Chilean history that he penned. In this particular park they have a hermitage dedicated to him and there is even an avenue named after him. Good to see the MacKenna's up in lights!

Sun, wine and cycle

From El Chalten we had a long bus journey to Barlioche. Eventhough Barlioche is located north of El Chalten, the direct bus route from El Chalten to Barlioche did not open til Nov 15th, well after we'd be gone. So we had to head down south east to a town called Rio Gallegeos to catch a bus all the way back up to Barlioche. We were pretty much travelling for 24h. We have done about 4 overnight buses in total and even at that we didn't get to the southern most point in Argentina, Ushaia. That would have taken another 16-19h and we just couldn't face it.

Instead we opted to head for Barlioche, a town famed for its hiking and water activites on the lake. But unfortunately for us the bad weather followed us and for a couple of days we were restricted to watching DVDs in the hostel. When we did manage to get out, we went on a cable car up to the summit for an amazing view of the surrounding landscape. Described in national geographic as one of the top 10 views in the world. Well it might have been if it wasn't cloudy!!.

After a few days we headed to Mendoza, further north again. This is the wine making region of Argentina and gets mostly sunny weather. What a nice change as we had sun for the three days we spent there. It's funny but since we are following the tourist trail we are constantly bumping into the same people. On a bus or on a hiking trail you come across friends that you met in a bar or in the previous hostel. The same happened in Mendoza where we met up with a Portuguese couple we had gotten to know. They had arranged to do a cycling tour of the wineries and we joined in. It had been recommended to them to rent the bikes from a 'Mr. Hugo' in Maipu town. We were given a map of the area with 5 wineries highlighted and set off. We were a group of 11 and after a few kilometres cycling we arrived in the first vineyard. Wine tasting is the proper thing out here, known of that 'spitting out of the wine' when you have tasted it. You down it all. As you can imagine the cycling got easier as we visited each winery. In addition to the wineries we visited an olive factory and finished off the tour with a visit to a chocolate liquer factory. On return of the bikes to Mr. Hugo, we were invited to sit down in his garden and he proceeded to open 6 bottles of wine for us over the duration of the evening- that is why he comes highly recommended!!

Wind and rain in El Chalten

After the glacier trek we said our goodbyes to Rachel and Noreen who were heading back home. We continued on further south to El Chalten, a two street town that was only founded in 1985. This town has no banks nor ATMs and has developped as a result of fantastic hiking that can be done in the nearby mountains. On the day we arrived the weather was so bad we were restricted to staying in the hostel all day, no hiking possible. The following day it was somewhat better and we headed out on a 3hour hike to a viewpoint of Mt. Fitzroy. Unfortunately the clouds were out and the view of the peak was totally obscured, nonetheless the hiking was good. And on the third day we managed a hike to Cerro Torre, again another fantastic view of mountain peaks if the weather had permitted, but it didn´t. Directly below this mountain peak is a lake into which a glacier feeds. We were able to see the glacier which we hadn´t expected so that was a nice surprise. We were leaving the next day and just as we were exiting the town the clouds cleared and Mt. Fitzroy was visible in all its glory. The bus driver stopped to allow us to get photos- i may have seen the mountain from a distance but it is impressive nonetheless.

Glacier Trekking

From Puerto Madryn we made our way to El Calafate, right in the centre of Patagonia. It is a small town built around the Perito Moreno glacier. This is one of three Patagonian glaciers that are not receding and the experts don't know why. It advances into Lake Argentino and forms a dam with the land on the other side. When the pressure builds up enough, the face of the glacier caves, creating a spectacular big event. The last big rupture was in July of this year. The tour we did brought us to the national park where we got quite close to the glacier. It is addictive as you watch the glacier, waiting and hoping for a big chunk to fall off. We managed to see some small parts calve, nothing spectacular, though the noise would make you think it was a catastrophic collapse. The remainder of the tour brought us to the west side of the glacier where we did trekking on the ice. We were all given crampons, very basic metal spikes tied onto the foot with rope. It was a bit unusual to walk on at first but totally necessary if you wanted to be able to climb the ice. The bedrock underneath the ice is bumpy and the glacier follows that topography so the top of it is also bumpy, giving lots of wonderful shapes. The ice reflects the blue colour from the sun so the ice has an amazing blue hue. The trek lasted for 1.5h. It was great and for a few moments i imagined something of what Tom Crean and his fellow explorers must have experienced as they set off on their explorations. Needless to say i didn't discover anything new but was nicely surprised when we rounded the last corner and were greeted with a glass of whiskey- on ice!!!

Whales, Elephant Seals, Penguins and Welsh Tea

Puerto Madryn is a 15h bus ride south of Buenos Aires. This is the starting point to see the huge array of wildlife that Argentina has to offer. We headed out on a whale watching trip and i am glad to say that this time round we saw plenty of them. It is the breeding season for Southern Right Whales and they spend several months along the Atlantic coast of Argentina. For two hours we watched as they surrounded the boat and performed for us, it was fantastic.

Further down the coast there are colonies of elephant seals that come to the Argentine coast to have their young this time of the year. The adults are huge, ugly and awkward and seem to just lie on the shore soaking up the sun. Their predators are the Orca whales, who have a fancy for the young pups and i was secretly hoping we would see a shoal of whales appear out of the blue ocean looking for a spot of lunch. Alas it was not meant to be- at least the young pups were safe for another while!!

Another day we took a trip to see the Magellan penguins, the second largest colony after the Empire penguins in Antarctica. This time of the year they are nesting and incubating their eggs. The tour allowed you to walk among the nests, which span for miles, and watch them go about their business. They are a protected species and in this colony they have the right of way. It was amazing to see all these animals in their natural habitat.

There are a couple of towns outside Puerto Madryn that have a strong Welsh heritage. In the early 1900s 153 Welsh made their way to Argentina on the promise of land and set up home in Trelew and Gaiman. Today, they are still very proud of their heritage and many speak Welsh. One of the main tourist attractions in Gaiman is Welsh Tea- I didn´t know such a thing existed but it is very big in Gaiman. The four us stopped in for a cup of tea, scones and cakes, cakes and more cakes- it was the biggest afternoon tea i have ever seen, it was great.

Tango in Buenos Aires

It was straight to Buenos Aires after Peru where we met up with Rachael and Noreen, two friends over from Dublin who were going to travel Argentina with us. We spent 5days in Buenos Aires; called the ´Paris of South America´, it is a nice city though personally nothing can compare to Paris. The architecture is definitely European in style but it is quite a dirty city, a bit shabby, it still hasn´t fully recovered from its economic crash in 2001.

Tango is alive and well in the city and on the weekends restaurants put on free shows to enjoy with your coffee and dinner. We did an all in package, tango class, dinner and a show. An hours class and i am able to say i can do the basic tango step- i have the certificate to prove it, see the photo above!!! It was good fun and the dinner and show were excellent.

There is quite a bit to see in BA and there are plenty of walking tours to show you around. One of the main attractions is Recoleta cemtery where Evita is buried. When you arrive in the cemetry you just need to follow the crowds to find her tomb. This cemetry is full of fancy mausoleums, where the rich and wealthy are buried- we managed to find two Irish tombs- Admiral Brown, a native of Mayo, the founder of the Argentinian navy and Father Fahy, an Irish priest who helped alot of Irish immigrants when they arrived in Argentina, are both buried here.

The Irish who did settle here would have fitted in nicely- good steak and beer and nightlife that starts late and goes on til the early hours of the morning. We were often eating dinner in an empty restaurant simply because we couldn´t wait any longer!!!

Machu Picchu

This time last week we had just set out on our 4day hiking trip to Machu Picchu. A 42km hike over 4days doesn´t sound too bad until you start climbing- i don´t want to see another mountain step for a long time- it was hard but well worth it.

We met the rest of the GAP group on the Thursday- 16 in total- 6Irish, 4Ozzies, 1Canadian, 1Norwegian, 4Americans. We transferred to Cusco, a city on the outskirts of the starting point of the hike. Had Friday to explore the city and the hike started on Saturday morning. The team consisted of us 16, 2guides and 22 porters. We could only bring 6kg each packed into a duffel bag. The porters carry our things, a max of 25kg and they pretty much run all the way so that by the time we reach the camp, everything is set up, our tents, basin of water ready for us to wash. It is amazing to see them run up those mountains especially at altitudes as high as 4200m. And it isn´t only the young guys, one guy on our team was 65 years old! The record holder for the fastest time to complete the trip was part of our team- he has done it in 3h45mins. And we took 4days!!!!

We were really lucky with the weather as we got 4 beautiful days- it made the trip so much easier and the views so spectacular. Day 1 was an easy introduction to the hike and wasn´t too taxing. We reached camp about 4pm and by 6pm it was dark and really cold because of the clear nights but they were a stargazers dream. We were in bed each night by 8.30pm wrapped up in thermals, hats, sleeping bag- i can´t remember the last time i was in bed on a Saturday night that early!!

Day2 is known to be the worst and i knew this before going on the trip. But boy did it hurt. We pretty much spent the first 4h climbing up steps, some almost at 90degress. The following 2h were spent going downhill, not very good for the knees. After the 4h uphill you reach the highest point on the hike, 4200m, known as ´Dead Womans Pass´ - named because the mountains give a profile quite like a woman lying down and not because a woman has died at this point; though a few of us felt lying dying by the time we reached it. I was lucky enough to only suffer some headaches from the altitude but others were quite sick over the few days. The high altitude takes awhile to get used to- eventhough i wasn´t sick, i was moving alot slower than at sealevel. The locals have evolved to deal with it- small feet to be able to manage the steps, big hearts and lungs for the thinner air. Even the wildlife is affected by the air. Parts of the trail are home to 12 or 13 species of humming bird. They cannot continuously fly like they would at sealevel, but must stop every few minutes to take a rest. This meant we were able to get photos of alot of them and appreciate their wonderful plummage.

Each day on the trip we got breakfast, lunch and dinner cooked for us by the porters- it was 5star quality-luxury camping i think!! 3course meals each time: soup, dinner and desert, fantastic.

The final days hike started at 3.30am- up for breakfast and to pack our stuff. At this point of the trail there is a checkpoint we have to go through. The hike consists of two parts- a 6km hike to the sungate, which are ancient ruins that look down on Machu Picchu. From there it is another 3km to the site. The earlier you get up the higher you are in the queue to get through the checkpoint. We were the second group in the queue. When the checkpoint opened at 5.30am it was as if it was the start of a race. There was an air of anticipation and everyone started increasing their speed to make it to the sungate as soon as possible. Most of this part of the trek is flat and it was great to get a good stretch in the legs. Rounding the corner for the last part of the first stage we faced a 90degree wall. Usually i would take forever to climb such a thing as i am not good with heights, but in this case nothing was going to stop me making it up the wall and i wasn´t going to let anyone pass me!! At the top of the wall you enter the sungate- wow, the view of Machu Picchu was spectacular. It was a beautiful morning and not a cloud in the sky. After we had all reached the sungate and taken time to cool down after our charge, we made the final 3km hike to the site. We were there by 8.30am and spent the next couple of hours touring the site. By 12pm the site is jam packed with daytrippers who take the easy option and get the train. By then we were making our way back to Cusco. What a fanastic few days.