The Southern South

As promised, this blog post will be less text-heavy but contain many colourful pictures - ideal for those of you who have developed very short attention spans due to high internet usage. 

Anyway, after our first few days in Buenos Aires, my parents, Judith's sister Lene, Judith & I flew down to Patagonia. The climate again came as a pleasant surprise, with temperatures reaching ~+15°C during the day. 

 
Patagonia really is a must-see for all people who love the outdoors: endless plains, mountain peaks, glaciers, and fascinating wildlife (sheep for example). Patagonia also features beautifully-maintained roads sponsored by taxes collected by President Kirchner's administation. Coincidentally, the Kirchner family also own a lot of land and hotels down there.

The first trip we did was to visit the Perito Moreno glacier in the Glaciares National Park. When you manage to avoid the tourist hordes, the Perito Moreno really is one of the most impressive natural structures on this planet. Millions of tons of ice moving at 2 meters per day, reaching the Lago Argentia with 60 meters in height above the water surface and roughly double that underwater... but see for yourself...

Oh yeah! Btw, clicking to enlage is actively encouraged.

That's right!

We also engaged in some serious hiking action in El Chaltén, Argentina's self-proclaimed hiking capital. We got up at 6am that day (!!) to start our 12 hour tour along a beautiful valley to Glaciar Grande. On the way, we saw the sunrise lighting Mount Fitz Roy and the Cerro Torre, both of which are very impressive peaks.

The hike was a bit challenging, but we were happy to see that having spent years in a comfy office chair hadn't killed our ability to cope with this.

 

Arriving at the glacier, we put on our crampons, and started walking across the ice. Thankfully, the number of visitors to the glacier is limited, so we didn't contribute to too much damage. 

 

I never would have thought that walking on a proper glacier could be both that impressive and fun.

So that's it for today. As I post this, we are on our way to close this first chapter of our trip, Argentina, and preparing to cross into - wait for it - Braziiiiiiiiiil!!!!