For the first two days Boi and I went to Montevideo and Colonia, Uruguay, while Dan and Angelica went to Buenos Aires. We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas in Uruguay just walking around the cities and celebrating with a little wine and chicken. Uruguay was pretty cool, but very flat with lots of farms and cows.
Then all four of us bet up in Buenos Aires and flew to a tiny town called Rio Gallegos way in the south of Argentina. We spent quite a few hours in the bus station waiting for our bus, which we finally took to El Calafate. It was very windy and the coldest weather we had experienced since last december in the states, but it was oh so nice not to be sweating every minute. Anyways, El Calafate basically is a tiny town with one long tourist street, with
lots of souvenir and clothing stores for a few blocks, and that's about it. Very touristy, but pretty cute. I was happy to get to do some light shopping for once! The town serves as an entrance to a beautiful glacier named Perito Moreno. We spent a day walking on the trails around the glacier, and of course taking lots of photos. The glacier is huge and blue and very close to land actually. We were blessed with excellent weather. It is especially cool to listen to the big chunks of ice falling off the glacier and hitting the icy water beneath.Our next s
top was El Chalten, a mountain town a couple of hours north. Now here was the coldest weather we felt all trip, and man was it chilly. The town of El Chalten is nestled between the mountains of the Fitz-Roy Range and a river, and was only founded in 1985! It, in stark contrast to Calafate, is a bare-bones town with very very very few stores and shops, and even houses. It basically serves for a gateway for backpackers to go into the national park for a few days. We hiked the first day to a nice campsite besides a river and took a mini-hike to a lake surrounded by some mountains, which were unfortunately covered by clouds. But the next day was clear blue skies which gave us a great view of Cerro Torre. We hiked along the trail to a beautiful alpine lake, where the boys decided to go swimming (waaaay too cold for me), and to views of Cerro Fitz-Roy. These peaks are world renowned, but are way too technical of climbs for the average hiker. The hiking was hard and I got some nice blisters, which led me to have to buy hiking boots in the next city.Then we made a long journey, through a part of Chile and crossing the Straight of Magellan on a ferry, to Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost city in the world. This was my favorite place of the trip. The cute little sea-side town of Ushuaia also had its fair share of touristy shops, which again I loved, but it had a little more character to it. We
spent a couple day walking around the town and a couple of days hiking in the national park. Boi and I went on an afternoon boat excursion on the Beagle Channel to see some Cormorants, two penguins, sea lions, and a cool lighthouse. We spent New Years camping and just hanging out with a fire and the guitar, pretty chill and fine for me. That's about it. Then we took a long bus back to Rio Gallegos (a crappy town with nothing important), flew back to Buenos Aires, and took another long bus back to Iguazu, where we were greeted with 90 degree jungle heat again.Overall, a pretty awesome vacation!
