Hola from El Calafate!

It´s been my dream for a while now to spend time in Patagonia and now here I am and I´m falling in love with this part of the world. For those who don´t know Patagonia... it´s the region covering the mountains, lakes, glaciers, lenga forests, flat farm lands, dusty dirt roads, and small laid-back towns of southern Argentina and Chile. The landscape is stunning, and I have a feeling that each town and natural wonder that I visit in Patagonia will deliver its own beauty incomparable to the others. For example, I am now in El Calafate, a small town on the shores of Lago Argentino, the largest lake in Argentina. It´s very dry, windy, and desert-like here with the snow-capped mountains far off in the distance and the glorious blue lake providing a stark contrast to the brown-ish dusty hue of town. It reminds me a bit of the Eastern Sierras in California. It is a completely different landscape from Ushuaia where I was last week.

My week at the end of the world (AKA Ushuaia) was nothing short of awesome. Wow, what an introduction to the Andes mountains. After the heat, humidity, and craziness of Buenos Aires, I felt at home in this small mountain town. The town is right on the Beagle channel and is completely surrounded by snow-capped mountains and quickly receding glaciers. Its claim to fame is that it´s the southernmost city in the world... well, this is mostly true... technically Puerto Williams in Chile is, but since it´s such a tiny village, Ushuaia gets the credit as the southernmost ¨city¨. I had a full week there and I did nearly everything there is to do there, except for jumping on a last-minute cruise to Antarctica. Boy, was I tempted though! Lots of travelers in my hostel were coming and going from Antarctica, some were quite literally hitting every continent in their world travels. Lots of cool stories shared by fellow travelers... that is becoming one of my favorite parts of my trip... the traveler camaraderie. 

Ushuaia´s other claim to fame is the extremely variable weather. The saying goes that there are 4 seasons in one day. This is so true. It was hard to plan what to do... just had to be prepared for anything! I seriously wore a t-shirt one morning and my down jacket that same evening. In the span of 5 days, it snowed on us while climbing up to the Martial glacier, it felt like the wind would blow me over while climbing Cerro Guanoco in Tierra del Fuego national park, several rainbows were seen during periods of similtaneous sun and rain, and I watched a most amazing sunset over the bay, made possible by the fast-moving clouds. You get the point. 

So what did I actually do while in Ushuaia? Pictures describe it best:

climbing to the Martial glacier

at the foot of the Martial glacier

on my boat tour of the Beagle channel, looking back towards Ushuaia

Our docked boat on Bridges island, we hiked around the island

viewpoint on Bridges island

along the boardwalk in town

first viewpoint of my hike in Tierra del Fuego national park

made it to the top of Cerro Guanoco! It was quite a climb!

sunny moment in town

stunning sunset

I visited the penguin colony too!

so cute!



I have given up on getting pictures onto Picasa albums. Instead, I´ll back them up on Shutterfly. Link coming soon. In the meantime, I´ll keep posting albums on Facebook.

I am excited to meet Sean, my friend from San Francisco, here in El Calafate this evening. It´ll be great to see a familiar face and have a hiking buddy for the next 10 days as we explore the more famous parts of Patagonia. From here, we have an early bus tomorrow morning to the famed Torres del Paine national park in Chile where we will trek til Friday. Then we head back to El Calafate to see what everyone comes here to see, the immense glaciers, that are 80 km outside of town. After that, we have another bus ride to the town of El Chalten, where we´ll hike the Fitz Roy sector of the ¨Glaciers¨ national park. I hope to update the blog soon after that. Til then...

Cheers!