TRAVELS IN ARGENTINA
This part of the trip is more countryside than town. Sara was quite keen to fly all the way to southern Argentina to experience walking on a glacier. That meant flying to Patagonia, the one horse town of EL CALAFATE to be precise, for three days to visit the Perito Moreno Glacier and associated national parks. After that we would fly back to Buenos Aires, overnight in BA, then fly on to Mendoza in the west of the country. The wine growing area in the lee of the Andes Mountains. From ice country to hot country.
IT'S A LONG WAY TO TIPPARERY...
Just to put this side journey into a little bit of context. This is broadly similar to a couple of Yanks coming over the pond to visit London and Europe, and the the lardy arsed lady Yank saying to her loving husband, "Darlin', while we are her can we just pop to Tehran in Iraq for a day or so, it can't be far" FUN FACT 1: It is about the same distance Rio-Calafate as London-Iraq, 4,200 km give or take. Of course the husband says "Yes darling, as long as we can then go to Lima, that isn't far either my little piranha fish" FUN FACT 2: Yup, same distance again. This is one big country!!!
​
The original plan was to have a 3-4 days in Mendoza, then over the Andes by bus to Santiago in Chile, and visiting Valpariso on the coast. Well that didn't work!! For some reason the return flight Santiago-Rio (where we return for the carnival) had jumped from £300 to £800 each. Not happening! Change of plan. It is all very well doing things last minute but it is high season here and so it MAY just pay us to book at least the flights a little further ahead in time.
The solution is to cut out Santiago altogether by staying in Mednoza for longer, we will take a bus tour to the Andes but return to Mendoza and do more countrysidy things like more wine region, gaucho horse riding sort of stuff and then make it to Rio by transiting back through BA for a far more reasonable £300pp.
​
I AM NOT AN OLD MAN,...
But first to appalling AGE DISCRIMINATION in Calafate!!! We had booked a tour for both of us to HIKE ON THE GLACIER. To be fair it did say the tour is for those 15-70 years of age, and to be even fairer it did also say 'No Exceptions'. Well it says that on most car hire documents too and I always ignore that as well. So duly ignored we booked. Request for copy of passport. Sent. Within in seconds comes back the email "What don't you get about 15-70, no exceptions??". Bloody cheek!! I am going to be at the tour departure point yelling at all the fat, overweight, unfit lumps in their late 60's and pointing to my sleek, healthy, 10-15,000 steps a day 73 year old body and demanding I be allowed to go. I totally bet they allow 69 year old heffalumpapigs on the tour! I have never been so insulted in my life, don't they know who I am??? Now we can only look at a Glacier as opposed to pay £300 (I kid you not, £300 just to traipse over some glacial moraine and 50' up the muddy side of one). I don't care, I have been on loads in Greenland, Iceland, Alaska and Chile so bollocks to you, you ageist bastards. Just a shame for Sara, who now can't go because after all the argy-bargy - the tours were all fully booked!.
​
To be honest even Sara was slightly put off by the stated need for crampons, gloves, waterproof clothes and hiking boots, none of which we had in our 15kg of checked luggage - yes 15kg is all you are allowed on most South American flights! So its looking at from a distance, rather than standing on, and probably falling off, a glacier.
So look at the PERITO MERINO glacier we did.........
It is incredible! What a sight. We were at the glacier for around 5 hours, both on the hills opposite it, looking down (one of the only glaciers you can do this on), and in the water below it, looking up. We must have spent an hour or more just looking at it in awe.
​
Almost 5km wide and in parts the height of a 30 story building. With occasional bits dropping off with a thunderous bang and a roar as the ice hits the water below. As per the vid below
The overwhelming blue of the ice is the oddest thing, caused by the fact that the ice is compressed snow and is so compressed there is no entrained air causing the blue wavelength of light to be reflected most, causing our eyes to see blue. The blue of the lakes is due to the very fine sediment of rock crystals in the water. Blue, blue, blue everywhere! And perfect weather too. Glaciers can be a bit depressing in grey skys, not so much beautiful blue, more sludgy, muddy colour, so we were delighted to see it at its best, and from excellently laid out walkways that went on for miles. We even saw some fat 69 year olds wallowing along the trek onto the glacier itself - BASTARDS! I yelled but they didn't look up, Too exhausted I guess, about to have a conniption, that'll larn em!
Don't forget, to turn the volume on click the little music mark bottom right of video by hovering in that area
It was also very kind of the locals to put up a sign to tell all their visitors that The Falkland Islands are a mere 1069km away, always good to know. The bit I failed to understand is that they mis-spelt the name as 'Malvinas' or somesuch. And why write 'Malvinos nos une' (Malvinos unites us)?. It hardly did, it deposed Galtiere and lost you a war. More appropriately it should say - 'It united the UK and saved Maggie Thatcher' I was about to use my magic marker to write just that on their sign when I spotted the fat bastards on MY trek and was distracted!
A really great days visit and so back to town for a bite to eat. Sara had spotted a restaurant that did 'hot-pot' and she was hot for that pot. In we went, hot-pot ordered. Quick question, "Is the hot-pot lamb?", answer, "Yes, Lamba". I already knew it was actually Guanaco, and I already knew that Guanaco is actually Llama, not the similar sounding 'Lamb-a'!. But I also knew Sara was dying for a hot-pot and so felt it wrong on every level to deprive her off that treat. Why spoil the evening by telling her? Lovely hot-pot. Lovely taste of cuddly Llama.
Sara was a little miffed when I told her the awful truth but I reminded her that in Kenya we ate Zebra, Crocodile, Water Buffalo, and Giraffe, all at one sitting, so a little bit of Llama was hardly going to hurt. But hurt it did, bad karma, we both got food poisoning!!!!! Montezuma's Revenge it is called round here. By coincidence exactly the same happened to us in Kenya when we ate our herd of local wildlife, there it is just called 'the shits'. Will we never learn not to chow down on the local protected species?
I did say earlier it was a one horse town, or a one glacier town if you will, and by golly it is. We had done the one horse (glacier) on day one which left us day two and three to go. We had also made a cardinal error in going cheap on our accommodation by going bed-and breakfast (to free up funding for the £300 per head trek - less said about that the better!!!). So not only did we have nowhere to go in town, we had nowhere to go during the day either except to sit and get drunk on wine and fill up with Llama.
The town centre itself however was very smart, quite Californian in its outlook, lots of bars and clothes stores, most people in their 50's. Reason for that? It is bloody expensive and a long way from anywhere else in the world. If you can afford to fly here - you can afford to pay! We did however have a great day out on bikes.
_edited.jpg)
This side of the Andes is called 'Steppe', like in Russia. Dry desert like plains. Caused by the prevailing winds coming in from the Pacific, dropping rain on the forests of southern Chile, snow on the Patagonianan Ice Field and then having nothing left once they drop down to this part of Argentina. Just 18" of rain a year.
It made for a lovely ride alongside Lake Argentino, largest lake in Argentina. And very sore bottoms. The cycle hire place was a shack in a scruffy side-road on the outskirts of town. Not mentioned on any of the tour sites, no wonder. Just six old bikes standing up courtesy of being jammed into a couple of palettes in the front yard. With little narrow saddles, totally unsuited to rough riding over the Steppe. But we persevered for three hours until the pain became too much.
​
The best bit was being passed by two 4WD buses crammed with tourists who had paid £40 each to bump along the same tracks as we were on, but locked in a hot sweaty bus! We felt SO superior waving from the road-side as they passed. Us in the fresh air, getting the exercise, doing it out in the open, hard core. I do suspect some of the passengers may have seen my rubbing my sore arse and grimacing, but I just could not hold my smiley pose long enough.
That killed the rest of day two. Recovery in the late afternoon was accomplished with the application of Malbec taken internally. Most effective. It goes really well with Immodium. Day three was spent writing this drivel and dosing on more Malbec. Late in the afternoon was our almost four hours back to Buenos Airies to overnight before the 90 minute hop to Medoza.
​
Here it is a very pleasant 15 degrees, in Medoza today 35 degrees! But we are already booked on a 'Sunset Horse Riding and BBQ trip for day one so off we jolly well go.