Patagonia, Argentina and Chile

The End of the World team

This was our last, all-included-trip, organised through GAP adventures, called the End of the World tour, visiting Patagonia on the Argentinian side and the Chilean side. We finished up in Ushuia, the southern most city in the world. Patagonia is a region rather than a country. We were travelling with 14 other people from Australia, England, Peru, Croatia, Denmark and Hong Kong. Our guide was a Spaniard who has been living in Chile for about 5 years, Anna, and our assistant guide for the 3 days of walking was a Chilean, Rodrigo who comes down to Chilean Patagonia in summer for the tourist season and back up to Santiago for the other 6 or so months.

Ammon and Sharon

Fortunately there were many avid photographers on the trip, and we are most grateful to Ammon and Sharon from Hong Kong who shared some of their photographs with us. But it has got to be said, a lot of what we saw really couldn´t be adequately captured by camera. Many of the views were just too large, an others, like the glaciers, were difficult to photograph because of the contrasts, or lack of contrasts.

Perito Moreno Glacier, Argentina

That said, Ammon got a great photo of the Perito Moreno Glacier, the largest moving glacier in the world. It is 30km in length. The middle part of the glacier moves on average at about 2m per year, but the front part moves only at about 20cm per year (I think that´s right – please correct me if I´m wrong!). This difference creates the cracks and fissures that give the glacier the light blue colour. We visited this glacier by boat and then saw the top from platforms. You can no longer go right up to the base of the glacier as many people have died that way from falling ice. A piece can fall off that´s the equivalent or 10 (or maybe 20?) floors of a building. The above-water height is about 70m and the below-water height is about 170m.

A hanging glacier

Here is a different kind of glacier – a hanging glacier. This is because the glacier is coming down the side of a steep mountain and then it stops short of the base of the mountain. If part of this kind of glacier falls to the bottom of the mountain, it is then called an alpine glacier, I think. The bottom part of this glacier, where you can see a grey area with some white, has collected soil from higher on the mountain where it falls when the ice falls. There are also strong winds around here. And here´s some basic information that I didn´t know – glaciers are formed from snow on the top of the mountain that has an enormous amount of pressure on it from gravity so that all the air is squashed out of the snow and it turns into the ice of a glacier! There´s some useless information for you!

Sheltering from the wind

Wind. Let me tell you about wind in Patagonia. It is very rare for there to be no wind in Patagonia, and the area gets its fair share of rain as well (or maybe more than its fair share!). On our first day walk it rained nearly the whole time, and I´m pretty sure the wind was fairly relentless as well, and some people quickly realised that either their waterproof gear wasn´t very waterproof, or they really did need some of those waterproof pants (that was me)! It´s difficult to describe to you what it is like to be in a place where there are strong winds nearly all the time. It´s quite exhausting, apart from anything else! But in Patagonia you kind of just have to put up with it if you want to see some of the amazing views and glaciers and mountains. I guess it´s understandable that there is so much wind, as there is not much land mass around the very south of the continent. I´m sure there´s a more technical meteorological explanation for the wind, but all I know is that after a few days of constant wind there was a sigh of relief on the odd days or places where there wasn´t much wind. And the sound of the wind from a little tent? Noisy! It was even loud in some of the hotel rooms! So we´re glad we´re up in Buenos Aires again. I love Patagonia, but really, the wind is really a force to be reckoned with and I think it would start wearing away at my sanity.

We are now in our last week of travelling – kind of hard to believe! Our itinerary now is stay in Buenos Aires tonight, fly to Iguazu Falls up near the Brazilian border tomorrow and stay up there a few days. I will go to the Brazilian side of the falls using my British passport, but Jordan´s not prepared to pay for a visa to go to Brazil for 1 day. Damn the Australian Government who now charge Brazilians to visit Australia! Means us travellers have to fork out USD100 to go into Brazil or to fly in to Argentina and Chile. Oh well, I´ll take photos and she´ll go trekking in the National Park near the falls and we´ll both check out the Argentinian side of the falls.

Then we take a long bus trip to Gualeguaychu just north of Buenos Aires where we will spend the weekend enjoying Carnivale before returning to Buenos Aires to catch our flight back to Australia on Monday 8th. Might get to see you soon! Yay!

Advertisement