Buenos Aires 13-20 de Octubre

After almost 2 months exploring the depths of Patagonia, it was a great contrast arriving to the cosmopolitan splendour of Buenos Aires. We instantly noticed the change in culture – one more aligned with European traits than we had previously experienced in the slow-paced towns of the South. The exciting capital kept us entertained for a week and lived up to all expectations.

Riding the beef boom of the 1880’s most of the Spanish Colonial buildings were flattened in order to make way for a seemingly more-grandeur image modelled on Paris. And so Clare’s description of the city of 13 million as a cross between Barcelona and Paris; and the city being coined “The Paris of the Americas” seem somewhat fitting. The city now resembles a faded image of days past, and presents many additional facets which required exploration.



The phallic Obelisco, marking the city centre. 

  

Avenida 9 de Julio, the widest street in the world, 14 lanes in the middle
and 8 subsideries! It takes 4 pedestrian crossings to get across.

We had a fantastic week soaking up the atmosphere of the various barrios of the city, a lot of walking, gawking, and eating meat - standard Argentinean affair. Sick of being accosted by Irish folk wanting to discuss the latest pretatoe famine, and with the inherent rise in temperature Buenos Aires marked the time for holiday beard Mk-1 to come off.

Modelled on childhood heroes, the ginger bushman
soon became James Hetfield, and then Freddie Mercury.



Floralis Generica - massive kinetic sculpture with petals that close at night.



Cementerio de la Recoleta, located in the ritzy suberb of Recoleta where the Argentine elite rest within hundreds of elaborate and monumental sarcophagi.

An obligatory visit to Evita's grave. A non-descript black granite monolith.

Caminito, La Boca - the now famous and quintessential Buenos Aires image.

Caminito, La Boca

Tango and and a few copa's de cerveza in Plaza Dorrego, San Telmo.

Clare and I enjoyed a couple of tango lessons, which was excellent fun and brought a realisation that a steamy tango number will most likely not make the wedding come April!

A treat of the week (Clares shout for my bday) was a seat at the Boca Juniors stadium for their weekly Sunday fixture. This was an awesome experience and insight into the religous devotion to futbol Argentinians have. To tell you the truth we didn't soak up much of the game, mostly watching and listening to the #12 Players - the Boca hooligans in full noise! For those who dont know the Boca Juniors are the famous B.A working-class team with massive following. It was an eye-opener pre and post game with huge riot police/vehicle presence encircling the stadium to prevent inter-team antics. Even to the point that at the end of the game the Boca fan sections (opposite end in the photos and the tier we were in) were kept locked in for 30 mins post game to allow the Hurucan fans to get away without fuss!

Boca Juniors playing Huracan

Rowdy Boca hooligans, complete with brass band and
deafening bass drums beating non-stop!

Argentine Congress, modelled on Washington DC's Capitol Building.

A welcomed surprise, Santiago Calatrava's Puente de la Mujer.
Please contact me if you would like the back catalogue of images.

The centre section pivots to let ships pass.



Birthday snack. Clare, beer, meat platter, and bridge! Perfect!



Whilst I was checking out steel splendour, Clare was photographing a
nearby boob sculpture exhibition (breast cancer awareness exhibit).

Birthday dinner, another meat shot!
Beef de Lomo, ensalada and champagne out of picture.



Argentinians love to queue - this was a rush-hour block-long line for a public bus!

After a fantastic week, we pointed our sights north again - now covering alot more ground to northern Argentina.



Puerto Madryn de Argentina. Sabado, 9 de Octubre.

One overnight bus trip and the temperature rose 20 degrees. So there we were arriving in Puerto Madryn in our jeans, icebreaker and puffer jacket to a balmy 27. Fair to say we were pleasantly surprised and quickly hauled out the summer get-up.

Puerto Madryn is a small city on the Argentinian coast, I was saying east coast initally but as its their only coast, thats really not necessary!
The attraction here from June to December is the Southern Right Whales (ballena's) that come to give birth and rear their calves up for the migration south.

The one thing we struggle with every blog entry is the photo content as a) we remain trigger happy tourists and b) everything is just  too photo-worthy! So this entry is no different and is full of pictures. Photos will do this experience much more justice than words could describe.


Peninsula Valdes sits just north of Puerto Madryn and is a wildlife reserve for whales, penguins, sea-lions, seals and in the right season, orca's. Rather than spending all day in the bus driving around Peninsula Valdes, we opted to catch the public bus to Puerto Piramide so we could soak up the sun and focus our day on the whales.

Peninsula Piramides - whale just off-shore showing off.

Mother, approx 17m long.



Madre y bebe.

Again, the weather fairy was on our side (bless her) and the bay was like a giant pond.
The boat takes you out for 1.5 hours and just sits amongst and follows various whales around.
We would not be exaggerating to say that we saw 50+ whales and it was unbelievable as for moments you just didn't know which one to watch. 

I think all onboard were both surprised and nervous by their inquisitiveness as they swam around and directly underneath the boat numerous times. All around us, tails were flapping and fins banging on the water while the mothers watch on and potter about. The noise alone of the mothers inhaling and blowing out their blowhole is amazing.
I found myself saying, 'this is the best thing I've ever seen'..........for probably the 8th time this trip!

This year they have counted 214 calves, with as many mothers in the bay with them. They cannot trace the males as they are swanning around somewhere, but they believe there are 500 whales in this bay.
This would've been great to know pre-boat trip as I perhaps wouldn't have been so nervously thinking, I hope we see a whale!! Little did I know that we were in for a treat.

almost made eye contact.......



One of the most beautiful sights in the world, right next to the boat!



This whale posed to perfection for this one!





As we didn't know much about these whales, after the excitement of the day we consulted wikipedia for some info.
These whales can't cross equitorial waters as they are too blubbery and can't regulate their body temps enough, so they migrate from Antarctic waters to Argentina (NZ, Aus & Africa).
You boys especially might be interested to know that these big guys have the largest testicals of all mammals, weighing in at up to 500kg each!!



Had to celebrate our whale watching excitement with a glass of wine, that 
quickly became a bottle and snacks after a spanglesh conversation with
the owner who was proudly wearing his Kaikoura Whale Watching shirt.

The following day we hired bikes and pedalled to Dorradillo which is a big bay 17km north of town where a lot of the whales also choose to hang out. At high-tide they can be seen meandering 50m off shore.
As we arrived the day was cloudy and the whales were considerably sleepy but true to word, were just offshore. As the sun came out the whales slowly woke up.

Mother showing of her white belly and baby poking nose out to see whats going on.


The next photo was almost scripted and couldn't have been better timed. For two hours the whales had been mellowly swimming so we decided to head back, as we got up to leave I said to Matt, 'right now, all we need one to breach just out there..........' Sure enough, 5mins later while jumping on my bike I took one last glance backwards and saw this guy leaping out of the water next to his friends. Thankfully it was a multi-repeat performance which gave me enough time to get the camera back out.
Pretty amazing to see and hilarious as each one decreased in height and size as the poor fella tuckered out. Fair enough as lifting up to 80 tonnes out of the water like that would be a fair struggle.

These photos are all whales but Peurto Madryn itself was a beautiful low-key and relaxed seaside town. Our scheme of wandering to find a hostel on arrival failed us as we didn't realise it was an Argentine public holiday weekend and everything was solidly booked. So we were forced to splash out on a B&B we found with a vacancy.
Made a dramatic change as we went from a tent to an overnight bus to a B&B which really was quite lovely!!


We missed camping so much that we cranked out the gas cooker in our B&B room.

From PM we took another 19 hour bus trip to the big smoke of Buenos Aires, for no doubt a very different experience to what we have had over the last 2 months.

El Calafate y El Chalten de Argentina, 4-8 Octubre.

From Puerto Natales we decided to forego Punta Arenas and Ushuaia and begin our journey north. This takes us to back into Argentina to the small towns of El Calafate and El Chalten - which will be the final week of Southern Patagonia for us.

This region of Argentina is where all of the mammoth glaciers live (Parque Nacional Los Glaciares). We intended to get a boat up to the largest glacier (Glacier Upsala - 65km long) but because so much ice had broken off it recently, the lake’s arm entrance is completely blocked by icebergs.

You apparently can see it from the arms entrance 12km away but we decided to save the pinger’s and go to a different one.

Glaciar Perito Merino

Glaciar Perito Merino is the star of El Calafate. This is because it is very active and you basically take a picnic and spend the day wandering the 3.5km of board walk right up next to it.

You spend all day there because the glacier is constantly active with numerous icebergs up to the size of small houses falling off it. We also took a boat ride right up next to it which was awesome, very dwarfing!

North face

I can’t help but leak some facts here as this was a truelly amazing experience and one of the most incredible things we have seen.

This is one of the only glaciers in the world to not be receding. The front wall has been in the same position since 1970 and it moves up to 2m per day.

The photos don’t give any sort of scale so to give you an idea of size, here goes - The front wall is 5km wide, the ice face is 50-65m high and the glacier is 30km long.

House size iceberg, moments after fracturing off.

Just to try and give some perspective, this is the 120 person boat we were on earlier in the day and infront of it is the massive iceberg that broke off a few hours before this pic was taken. The sound is deafening and the splash is awesome.

Lago Argentino is 60 km long and the drive to the glacier is 80km from El Calafate. These icebergs fall off and because of the 0.6 degree average water temp in winter, these bergs don't melt so fast. Instead they use the prevailing winds and sail into town.
As you drive around the region, Lago Argentino and all of the surrounding lakes are dotted with giant icebergs just cruising along, eventually breaching themselves on the shore. Pretty surreal to see!

That evening we packed up the tent and tramping packs again as we were leaving early the next morning for El Chalten (3 hours drive North) to spend another 3 days tramping - still in the Parque Nacional Los Glaciares.

This is where another group of the ‘big gun’ Andes lie, Cerro Torre and Monte Fitzroy.

We only ended up spending 2 days there as weather forced us out but we had a beautiful walk in and atleast managed to see both peaks. 

Cerro Torre 3102m (L) y Monte Fitzroy, 3375m (R).

Cerro Torre y Glaciar Grande.

Cerro Torre, difficult to believe people climb that!!

Do not poo under the lollipop tree next to the water!

Patagonia has to be one of the most incredible places on earth!

Most valuable items in Patagonia have been our snowboarding pants and puffer jackets - which I (C) have literally lived in (day and night).

From here we say goodbye to the snow capped Andes, glaciers and lakes and head north up the east coast of Argentina towards Buenos Aires. We have two 19 hour bus trips ahead of us to get to BA so will spend a couple of days in Puerto Madryn on the way.