El Chalten is a small village near El Calafate and everybody whom I met on the trip said that I should definitely go there. It calls itself the capital of trekking and once you are there you understand why. It is situated in the national park of glaciers and you don´t need to take bus or book a tour to do the trekking, the trails start in the village itself. When I arrived the weather was perfect and everybody said how lucky we were, because usually it is bad. In this perfect weather you could clearly see the Fitz Roy mountain, which is very impressive with it´s two huge grantite peaks. The first evening in the hostel I met a guy from Israel and we agreed to go trekking together the next day. The trail we chose was leading to the Fitz Roy and Lagunas de los Tres. It was about 12 km one way and the first part was ok, but the last one hour a half was real pain and I thought I would never make it. It was so steep and the sun was burning. But I made it and the view was rewarding. Even though the lagoon was frozen but you could see the Fitz Roy peaks very close.

The next day I had planned the ice trekking tour. After the first day I thought I wouldn´t make it, because the ice trekking trip started at 7am and we were back at 7.30pm. We were walking all the time for 12 hours. The first part of the trail was pretty easy and it wasn´t hot in the morning. Once we reached the camp of the tour agency we had breakfast, had tea and put on the harnesses because later we had to cross the river on the robe which was really fun and then continued all the way up, which at one point was almost vertical and felt like rock climbing and then it continued all the way down on the stony and almost invisible path. But finally we reached the glacier Torre. It is called like that because it is near the mountain Torre or the Tower Mountain and it looked once again very impressive. On the glacier we put on the crampons, got the instructions how to walk with them and went off. It was not that easy, especially when you have to go up and down. And then our guide found the wall, fixed the robe and we started climbing it:) It was great!! The first time I didn´t make it to the top but the second time, I said I have to do it and I did it!:) Unfortunately, we didn´t stay on the glacier long because a long way back waited for us, although we didn´t look forward at all to all that rocky up and down path. It was tough and at the end we were all exhausted but it was definitely worth it:) In these two days I went something like 55 km, and today I feel it in my muscles but as I said it was worth it!

Why Ushuaia? Some travelers on the way said that there was nothing there. Well, it was more the idea itself to go to the most southern city in the world, from where there are only 1000 km to the Antarctica. And if you want to go to Antarctica, it is in Ushuaia where you take the ship. Next time I will go there, now there is no more time left..

The first day I came here, I saw all seasons in one day. First it was raining, then snowing, then the sun shining, then everything repeated, plus strong and cold wind. And that was the first day of summer here. But that´s Patagonia and such weather is a part of life here. The next two days were beautiful with sunshine and little wind and then it´s really beautiful here.

I took the boat to the Beagle channel where you can see sea lions, birds´ island and the famous light house of Ushuaia and if you are lucky – wonderful colours of the sky, clouds and sun.

Yesterday, after staying in the hostel until midday I decided to do some trekking to the Glacier Martial. The weather promised to be nice so took the taxi to the base of the mountain, then the chairlift and then continued walking on the snowy path uphill. The first part of the path was quite easy, although everything was covered with snow but then it went really steep uphill and no matter how much up you went, there was no sight of the glacier because it was also under snow.. Anyway, it was very good walk. I love the mountains and the feeling when you reach the top. I didn´t reach the top in this case but still I could see the city of Ushuaia down far away and the mountains all around and you feel such peace and tranquility.

Otherwise I was just relaxing here and walking around the town. It´s very touristy and expensive here. I think the most expensive place that I have visited so far. You can see penguins everywhere – in the shops, in the restaurants, on the walls, on the postcards. You can see the sign Fin del mundo everywhere and you can even get the stamp in your passport saying fin del mundo, which I did of course:)

I also met one traveller, whom I got to know at the Iguazu Falls, which are in the very north of Argentina. Such encounters makes you once again think, that the world is small.

Here, in Ushuaia, there is no more south (except for Antarctica). So today I am heading north again to El Calafate, to see the glacier.

In the morning I was really nervous because I had images in my head of me falling into the water every time the boat hits the rapid, or the boat flipping over and hitting the rock, or something like that..:) The level of river was classified as III+ – IV, which means that it´s not for kids. Knowing this, didn´t help, but then once we were there, put on the waterproof clothes, helmets and went into the boats, I felt more excited than scared. Our guide was really nice, always making jokes and there were more girls in our group who have never done rafting.

Well, I will not elaborate on the rafting itself, because it´s the thing that you have to experience. But I can tell that it was amazing experience and looooots of fun!! And I didn´t fall into the water, actually nobody did:) But at the very end we all jumped into the river voluntarily, although the very first second I did it, I regretted it, because it was freezing! At the end of the day I was exhausted but very happy that I did it!:)

After sunny and  warm weather in the north, Bariloche was much colder but not unpleasantly cold. It was actually quite nice. You just put a hat, gloves and a scarf and everything is ok. The city is very beautiful. It is located on the big blue lake surrounded by snow-capped mountains. In winter you can ski there and in summer do lots other outdoor activities, like rafting, horse-back riding, kayaking, cycling or trekking. Another great thing about the town is chocolate. I don´t know why but it is famous for good chocolate and you can find dozens of chocolate shops where you can get chocolate of all possible flavours.

From Santiago it was very close to go back to Argentina to the city of Mendoza, which I did. It took about 7 hour by bus through the mountains with very beautiful scenery. Finally in Mendoza I found my hostel which turned out to be one the nicest hostels I have stayed so far. People working there were extremely friendly, there were hammocks and the pool, two cute dogs running around, breakfast until midday and free wine in the evenings!

I thought it´s was the middle of my trip and I felt really tired so I decided to go to thermal baths for one day. And it was great! The spa centre was in the middle of the mountains, really small and not crowded. There were hot and cold thermal baths and you could get yourself covered all by mud or simply lie in the sun, which turned to be a little bit dangerous for me. After some 20 minutes I got sunburnt even with the protective cream. Anyway the day was so relaxing. I had one of the best massages and also huge lunch! They really love to eat here and to eat a lot!

Mendoza region is the biggest wine producer in Argentina. There about 2000 wineries there which produce about 70 per cent of all Argentinian wine. So you can go one tours to different wineries for tasting. And it´s almost a must to do that once you are there:) So I went on a tour which took us to one huge industrial winery, one organic winery and one small-scale winery. The tour started at 10 am in the morning and we started drinking:) Not all wine that I tried was good but I also tasted some very good wine. Most common is red wine here. And then after the tasting they served the most amazing lunch! With table full of appetisers, with four small hot dishes, dessert and of course lots of wine.

I was even tempted to stay longer in Mendoza, because it felt so relaxing. It wasn´t so hot as in the north and with all this wine around and nice people – simply pleasure:)

I took the bus from Argentina to Chile going through the mountains (you always have to cross the mountains if you want to go between these countries) and first time experienced veeeery slow Chilean customs procedures. Later I found out why they are so scurulopusly checking everybody and everything. The reason is that in Chile they do not have many of the diseases that they have in other latin countries and they want to prevent them from coming into Chile, therefore you cannot bring any food into the countrie´s territory and therefore, very strict checks at the borders.

Just after the border the bus stopped and the driver said San Pedro de Atacama. All foreigners looked a bit surprised because it literally looked like in the middle of nowhere with the big volcano looming on the side. No bus station, nothing that would resemble one of the most touristic places in Chile, except for a bunch of people offering you cheap hostels. But they are in every bus station and one thing that I learnt in this trip is to say no, or to say gracias, I will think about it and go your way.

The first impression of the village was that it is very touristic. And it is very touristic. There are only hostels, hotels,restaurants and dozens of tourism agencies. The thing is in such a place as San Pedro that it is almost impossible to go somewhere on your own with public transport, you have to do it with the agency or hire a car. So the first thing I did was to book a tour. Most of the tours are early in the morning, so I decided to start with the one in the afternoon – the Moon Valley and the Death Valley. It was hot, very hot and we did a mini trekking, running down the dunes, going into the cave and finally watching the most amazing sunset on the top of the hill. It was very exciting experience.

The next day was the flamingo and lagoon´s day. I went to the Atacama salt flat to see the flamingos and I learnt why the flamingos are pink:)  So they are pink because they are eating a type of shrimps which give them this colour, otherwise they would be white:) They looked graciously walking in the still water reflecting them and the mountains behind. After the birds we went to see two lagoons which as I learnt were the craters of the volcano.  Here are some pictures.

And the last tour that is one of the most common was the geysers. The most ¨exciting¨ thing about the tours that you leave at 4am to be at the geysers at the sunrise. You could do anything for that:) Was it worth it? No doubt it was, although I was expecting something more spectacular I must admit…or probably it was because I was not feeling very well, after having wake up so early, going to over 4000 m above the sea level and freezing temperature.

The pictures will follow a little later:)

The closer we got to Salta, the more landscape and people´s faces changed. On the bus I asked the bus attendant if it was hot there, and he said, not it´s not hot – just 30 degrees. After the green landscape at the falls, this region looked really dry, not many trees, small brown houses, almost the colour of the earth and brown faces of people, looking more like Bolivian or Peruvian than Argentinian which we saw in Buenos Aires. You could really see how the climate influences the way people live. The same day we had a short walk in Salta city which looked quite nice, some colonial houses, the square with many young people sitting around, the church and you could also see some mountains around.

Church in Salta

And if in Buenos Aires we didn´t stand out so much in the crowd since Buenos Aires was a metropolitan city, almost like many big European capitals, here in the North we noticed that we really looked like tourists and many people were looking at us passing by.

We decided not to stay in Salta but go somewhere around since there are so many places to see in the area. We booked a last-minute trip to Cafayate (many things in this trip have been done last-minute but so far everything worked very well:). I usually don´t like tours but in this case there was no another option. We could have hired a car, but I didn´t want to drive so we went on an organised tour which started at 7am. needless to say – to early for me, but you could do everything to see something new and beautiful. And it was beautiful! We passed some small towns with tobacco plantations and learnt that 80 per cent of all the tobacco in Argentina is produced in that area. And then we entered the so-called Quebrada de Cafayate, which is the mountain range with different rock formations and different colours. It was really impressive to see, the mountains of red, green, yellow or white colours. Some of the rock formations were given names according to the shape, they resemble, for example, the obelisk, the windows, the elephant skin, ship cemetery and even titanic with a small rabbit ready to jump off it:)

Titanic

The most important ones were the Garganta del Diabolo (the Devil´s Throat). It´s seems they like it a lot, because we have seen already three of them during the this trip. And also there was an amphitheatre, which was given this name due to it´s perfect acoustic. There was some musicians playing there and it really felt like in a concert hall. We were told that once the Argentinian national orchestra played there.

At the end we visited the city of Cafayate which turned out to be much smaller than I imagined but is famous for it´s wineries. The tour also included the visit to one winery but it was a bit disappointing. But all in all, although tiring, the trip was very interesting.

Here are some more pictures.

All rivers are dry there

The first night in the hostel we met one traveller who, as we learnt, took early retirement and now was sailing with his boat around the world. It´s always inspiring to talk to such people and we found out from hime some useful information about the Iguazu Falls which we went to see next day in the early morning.

The Iguazu Falls are included in the Unesco world heritage list and after seeing them, I would be surprised if they hadn´t been. There are several trails and we started with the upper trail which gave a close look of some of the falls. You can hear them already from far away and when you seem them the very first time, you say wau and them the more you go, the he more beautiful it gets and the bigger this wau becomes . Every new angle seems to be more and more impressive and then you either start taking hundred of pictures or simply stay long watching them. I did both:)

Then we took the lower trail which leads down to the river and where you can take the boat bringing you close to the falls. The Nautical Adventure, and we of course took it. First of all they take you with some distance to the falls so that you can take pictures without your camera getting wet. And then you put all your stuff into the bags and go really close to the falls. When you are there, it seems that you are directly under them, so you get completely soaked and get enough adrenaline for another hour.

A little bit exhausted after this nautical adventure we needed to change clothes and eat something. But as  it turned eating in the park can be dangerous. There are plenty of animals called coaties, which are very cute but they can literally be dangerous and steal food from your bag if you loose your attention just for one second. And there are even signs in the cafe informing you about that. But my friend Ruta put her bag on the ground and one second later one of these cute animals was getting into her bag and stole our last sandwich.

The highlight of the day and of the falls was the Devil´s Throat, the biggest waterfall in the park. You have to cross very long bridge to get to it, but again you can hear it from the far away and even see the drizzles high in the air. The only thing that is a bit annoying in the park is the crowds of tourist groups but even that does not bother you anymore when you get to that big waterfall. Really when you see it, you open your mouth. It´s so hypnotising, it´s so magical, you watch and you feel like you want to jump there and go with the water… I was standing there for about two hours and could have stayed even more. There was a big rainbow and when the drizzles got very high, you could even see a double rainbow! That was spectacular!

The next day we went to Brasilian side of the falls. It gives a different perspective of them, and it´s worth doing both sides. In Argentina you can get a closer view of them and in Brasil you have a broader view. The park is much smaller though, so you can do it easily in one day. It´s a little bit less impressive than the park in Argentina, but still very beautiful. The only thing that was killing me during the day, was the heat, so I wasn´t able to really enjoy everything as the previous day. The sun, heat and humidity were impossible to bear. Even the water from waterfalls didn´t help this time:)

Then there are buses and this is something scary. They are driving like crazy, they open the door when they haven’t stopped yet, and in rush ours or when the metro is on strike like yesterday, they are impossibly crowded. Even if you are not taking it, you have to be careful. If you see the bus coming and it’s not green for you or you are not sure if it’s green for you, don’t cross the street in any way if you want to stay alive! It took me a couple of days to understand how the traffic works here. In any case, before crossing the street I look all possible directions several times and only then go, because the cars and especially buses will never stop at the pedestrian crossing.

The metro here is fast and good. It’s better to avoid rush hours when it’s too crowded. Yesterday we happened to take the metro  when its workers started their strike – at 7 pm when all people went back to home from work. Fortunately it stopped close to our hostel so we didn’t have to walk too much but many people living far away became really mad and started hitting the train and the constructions around. It was even a bit scary at some point.

We also took the boat yesterday to go t0 Uruguay, to Colonia. Since we bought the tickets last minute we got only the first class and travelled luxuriously, with coffee served in the morning and champagne in the evening:)

Tomorrow we take the internal flight to Iguazu Falls. Let’s hope there won’t be any tropical storms, since the weather now is impossibly hot:)

We probably  imagine that people dance tango everywhere in the streets in Buenos Aires. In fact you can see tango street dancers only in  some neighbourghoods like San Telmo and La Boca, where the tango was born. San Telmo is an old part of the city with a nice atmosphare and a small square where you can sit in the cafes and whatch tango dancers. But even more special is La Boca. I was a bit afraid to go there since I was told and read on the internet that it’s very unsafe for tourists. Anyway, we tried our luck and ended up in a very nice area called Caminito.  These days it’s only full of tourists. This is the place where the Italian immigrants settled and built colourful houses. They really look cute in bright yellow, green, red and blue. So this is where you can see tango dancers in the street or restaurants.

I don’t know how many tango schools and teachers are here but it seems hundreds.  In tango shoe shops you can find tango maps and magazines listing classes and milongas (dance evenings) that are taking place every day. I have went to one tango classe and was a bit frustrated because it seemed difficult and I found that the teachers were not explaining very well and didn’t have to pay much individual attention to you. I guess for learning tango here, you definitely need stay more than one week and concetrate only on that. Because now with trying to see Buenos Aires and dance tango, it can be bit stressful. I will have to come back here just for tango one day. Milongas take place every day. And you have lots of choice. I have so far been to only one and I was so impressed by all the dancers and really felt like I am not able to dance…So I watched more than danced this time which was, however, no less interesting.