Jauja

Thursday 29 November 2007

In El Bolson, there is an ice cream place called Jauja, which serves the best ice cream in Argentina. No joke. Which means that this ice cream right here was the best ice cream I have ever tasted in my entire life. (And I've eaten a lot of ice cream.) It was so good, Ryan and I ate it every day we were here. They had flavors like cardamom, cinnamon, mate, black current, dulce de leche with mulberries, dark chocolate, just to name a few. My personal favorite was lemon with elderberry flowers, so light and complex, absolutely heavenly. This ice cream was practically a religious experience.

Mountain Graveyard

Wednesday 28 November 2007

Ryan and I went for a hike up in the hills today, searching out a hidden waterfall and some interesting rock formations. On the way, however, we stumbled upon something much more beautiful. This sprawling cemetery tucked amongst the mountains was full of wooden crosses, and the grass was covered with orange and white flowers. This probably sounds morbid, but it looked like a lovely place to rest.

La Trochita

Tuesday 27 November 2007

On our way out of Esquel today, Ryan and I watched "La Trochita," the local train, pull out of the station. It is an old steam engine, one of the last in service. Really old fashioned - think Anna Karinena, the Hogwarts Express, old westerns. It stopped for a while in town, as it has become something of a tourist attraction. I was even allowed up into the driver's section here, where I was chatting with the engineer. (Finally, an engineer who really does drive a train!)

Welsh Tenor

Monday 26 November 2007

This was the star tenor at the concert last night. It was a Welsh choir, with this guy, singing mostly Welsh songs. I was really surprised by the number of Welsh people in the audience who had traveled along with the choir - family members and whatnot. They sang along for the more popular songs. All I know is, Welsh sounds funny.

Welsh Tea

Sunday 25 November 2007

We managed to get ourselves one more Welsh tea, this time in the town of Trevelin. We were here for their anniversary day, which was celebrated with a parade (which we missed) and a concert (see tomorrow's pic). The tea was just as heavy and sinful - the cream pie wasn't quite as good, but the black Welsh cake was much better. Overall, I was just glad to get one more of these special treats in! Oh, and the teahouse was full of Welsh people speaking Welsh, so that really added to the authenticity of the atmosphere. We talked to one guy later who said that the tea was really authentic, the pastries like his grandmothers, so not bad!

Patagonia

Saturday 24 November 2007

Another long day of traveling today. (Argentina is far too big, in my opinion.) The bus dropped this guy off down near Tierra del Fuego, and I thought it was a pretty stereotypical Patagonia landscape and farm, so I snapped a shot from the window.

More flowers . . .

Friday 23 November 2007

The whole day today was spent traveling, so I couldn't resist putting up my absolute favorite flower picture from Torres del Paine.

The end of the trail

Thursday 22 November 2007

Ryan and I on the way back from Torres del Paine, the end of the trek for us. In the background there you can see some dark spikey mountains - those are the towers for which the park is named.

By the way, you should be very glad that your computer is not equipped with smell-o-vision, as we were quite rank by the end.

Orchids

Wednesday 21 November 2007

I tried very hard to find the name of this little orchid, but was unable to. We saw a few different kinds of orchids in the park though, yellow ones and white ones.

I figured this an appropriate picture for today, because I myself was staying rather close to the ground. Ryan went up the last valley today to view the torres, or towers, which are the tall thin mountains that the park is famous for. I, however, have been having some foot troubles. I wore some boots that I bought about six months ago. They were uncomfortable at first, but I wore them in, and wore them in some more, and got them comfy. Or so I thought. As it turns out, however, they were not quite ready for such a long hike. At the end of the first day, I had a few blisters. At the end of the second, I had a few more. By the third, I had about 10 blisters all in different places, each place painful in its own way. I was hobbling by the end of the third day, and decided not to join Ryan on the last day's hike, as staying at the campsite seemed preferable to having my feet actually rub off, and having to be left on the side of the trail somewhere. Ah well.

Actually, looking at my photos, I have more pictures of flowers than I do of mountains, so I guess that's a good clue as to where my interests lie. I'm not very disappointed at having to stay behind and watch the birds and the flowers, not by a long shot.

Buena Vista

Tuesday 20 November 2007

A nice view in the Chilean national park Torres del Paine. The lakes are all glacial run-off, and so are freezing cold and bright whitish teal. The color is caused by the minerals suspended in the water, and is so distinctive that they actually call it "glacial milk."

The Trail

Monday 19 November 2007

I tried to take a lot of pictures of the trail itself as we hiked through the trek named "The W" (The path roughly resembles a w as it winds up three different valleys) because the trail itself changed constantly. At times it was soft earth through green forest, sometimes it was all rocks and boulders, sometimes it was through scrub desert, sometimes it seemed completely vertical, sometimes it would actually be water, as streams found a better way down the mountain.

A word about the streams. The water in the rivers was melting directly off the glaciers above. There is no pollution, and it's too cold for parasites and whatnot. Meaning, you could drink the water directly from the streams. Just bend down and take a sip. There are so few places on earth where you can do that anymore, it was a luxery I cannot describe. To be honest, the water was my favorite part of the park. It wasn't as good as Redfield water (as those of you who know will agree, the minerals add flavor!) but it was the most pure, tasteless, cold, simple water I have ever tasted. It was just plain water, but it was delicious.

Glaciar Gray

Sunday 18 November 2007

Today Ryan and I started a hike through the Chilean national park Torres del Paine. We hiked from our starting point about 3 and a half hours to our campsite, and then another hour (without our packs full of food and tents and such, yea!) up to Gray Glacier. It was a pretty impressive view, to look out over the glacier, not just up at its wall, and we happened to see a huge tower of ice fall off! It was so loud, it sounded like thunder that just went on and on and on. I know, this is technically four photos for today, but I thought a sequence should count for one.

Glaciar Upsala

Saturday 17 November 2007

Just to give you an idea of the size of these glaciers. That boat is huge. You can just barely see the people on top of it - those little black dots. And it goes back for miles and miles.

Iceberg

Friday 16 November 2007

Ryan and I took a boat tour of several more glaciers today. It was cold and rainy, but the clouds actually make for better viewing of the ice, as the blue really comes out. There was a ton of ice in the water - here is a particularly impressive berg. It was probably five stories tall, towering over our boat.

Glaciar Perrito Moreno

Thursday 15 November 2007

I know, judging from my pictures you probably think that Ryan has a camera glued to his face 24/7. That's only mostly true - he puts it down to sleep.

We visited the most famous glacier in Argentina today, Perrito Moreno. It really was quite impressive - especially due to the fact that it is one of only two glaciers in the whole world not receding. It advances about 2 meters a day, although about the same amount of ice falls off every day, so it stays in more or less the same place. We saw some amazing pieces of ice fall off the front, which split off with cracks like gunshots and hit the water with a rumble like thunder.

A snake eating an elephant? Or a hat?

Wednesday 14 November 2007

Today was another long bus ride, so I figured I'd show you this little gem of a photo. For anyone who has read the book The Little Prince, the shape of this island may look familiar. Antoine de Saint Exupéry spent a lot of time in Patagonia, and several of the drawings in the book are supposed to have been inspired by the landscape down here. This little island, called Isla de los Pájaros, was supposedly the inspiration for the narrator's first childhood drawing.

Ahhh! Dinosaurs!!!

Tuesday 13 November 2007

Down here in Patagonia we are in the heart of dinosaur country, so we decided to visit the Paleontology Museum in the town of Trelew today. It was an amazing museum, absolutely chock full of bones. Different dinos from the normal North American ones, too, which was neat to see. The absolute best part of the whole museum, though, was that they had a real, actual dinosaur bone (an Argentinasaurus femur, I think) that you could touch!!! I touched a real bone, a bone that was once inside of a real dinosaur! Where else could you do something like that?

Parque el Desafío

Monday 12 November 2007

We visited the town of Gaiman today, a little ways inland. It was originally founded by Welsh settlers, and still preserves a lot of that tradition. Welsh is spoken by the elders, and is seen around town, and having a Welsh afternoon tea is a big attraction. (Ryan and I shared one and could barely walk away after so many delicious cakes and scones!)

Another big attraction in town is the Parque el Desafío (Park Challenge). It is the work of one man (with a little help from his daughter, I believe) who for the past 27 years has been collecting trash and turning it into art. It is full of statues made of old wine bottles, a maze made of old cans, flowers from plastic pop bottles, dinosaurs made from scrap metal, all kinds of amazing things. All around the park are little plaques with wise or funny sayings on them - the one above says "You can buy a dog, but you can't teach it to wag its tail."

The whole thing was a little tacky, but simply wonderful all the same.

A whale of a tale or two . . .

Sunday 11 November 2007

This was my 1000th picture with this camera, and what a picture, huh? We went out on a whale-watching boat off the Peninsula Valdéz today, and saw probably about a dozen whales. What luck! We even saw some mothers swimming with their calves. It was an impressive sight - the whales were bigger than the boat. At one point, a big male swam right under the boat. I watched him the whole time, a little unnerved by the huge creature just under us (imagine what he could do with a flick of his tail!) but it was exhilarating and beautiful all the same.

Elephant Seal

Sunday 10 November 2007

An elephant seal pup, lolling around on the beach. There were many more seals on the shore, but he was the most interesting. We were fairly far away, and they were just resting - they just looked like gray blobs. Still, it's pretty cool seeing all this unique wildlife!