One thing that surprised me about hiking on ice is that even with crampons digging in, a hiker leaves no trail. Every time I turned around when taking up the rear of the group, I found it impossible to determine where we had come from. There was simply no trace of our trail. So, it … Continue reading →

Yesterday, Sunday, we went on a 13-hour adventure called “Big Ice.” After being picked up by shuttle and transported to a larger bus, we drove west about 60 miles to Perito Moreno Glacier, the third largest glacier in Los Glaciares National Park. Here’s the view of Perito Moreno Glacier in three photos from the “balcony” … Continue reading →

For the trek out onto the glacier, our party consisted of 21 hikers and 3 guides, which were split into two groups; we were the oldest hikers by about 25 years, but we had no trouble keeping up. Here we are heading off onto the ice. We were normally at either the end or the … Continue reading →

It was only a 20 minute ride across the Brazo Rico to the start of our hike up the lateral moraine of the Perito Moreno glacier. We had a good view from the boat of the area of last year’s rupture of the ice bridge that I described in my prior post. Once on shore, … Continue reading →

We’re now in southern Patagonia, below Latitude 50° South, in El Calafate, a city of 22,000 people at the edge of Argentina’s Parque Nacional Los Glaciares. We’re getting near the bottom of the world (although that honor belongs to the city of Ushuaia, which we will be visiting in a couple weeks). There’s not much … Continue reading →

We’re leaving Bariloche today for the latitudes below 50° South and we won’t have a car again until the last week of the trip. From here on, we’ll be relying on planes, buses and shuttle vans to get from place to place. But here in northern Patagonia, we’ve managed to drive over 600 miles, not … Continue reading →

It was a short ride from Isla Victoria back to Puerto Puñuelo. Along the way, it started to rain, resulting in one of the most vibrant rainbows we had ever seen; a double rainbow, in fact. And it was a complete semi-circle. Dale listed the colors from a mnemonic she learned as a child: red, … Continue reading →

The Parque Nacional Bosque de Arrayanes was created to preserve the great stands of Arrayanes trees on the Quetrihué Peninsula. The Arrayanes is in the Eucalyptus family and is a very slow growing tree. The one that Dale is leaning against could be as much as 600 years old! The Arrayanes propagate by seed and … Continue reading →

This afternoon, we journeyed around Lago Nahuel Huapi on the “Cau Cau.” The boat was scheduled to leave Puerto Pañuelo at 2:00 p.m., with a return at 7:00 p.m. When we arrived at Port Pañuelo at 1:30, there was only one boat in port and we thought, “what have we gotten ourselves into?” But, soon … Continue reading →

It’s been nice having our own transportation here in Bariloche. It’s enabled us to see much more of the area than if we had relied on buses, taxis and excursions. Here’s a picture of our rental car, a compact Chevrolet. Everything is manual: transmission; windows; door locks; lights; and, there is no alarm. But I … Continue reading →

The town of El Bolsón sits in a valley about 75 miles south of Bariloche. The first non-native inhabitants of the area were German immigrants arriving from Chile. In the 1970s, hippies from Buenos Aires settled in the area, resulting in the town gaining a reputation as a crafts center. At least that’s what the … Continue reading →

Our excursion today was to the base of El Tronador, “The Thunderer,” an 11,500 foot high extinct Andean volcano. To get to El Tronador, we had to drive south from Bariloche along the shores of Lago Guitteriez and Lago Mascardi for a distance of about 30 miles, turning east at Villa Mascardi where we entered … Continue reading →

There are pros and cons to having a rental car here in Argentina. In this post, I’ll tell you the pros; I’ll save the cons for a later post. We spent the entire day Tuesday driving the road less traveled: the Seven Lake Drive through the northern half of Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi and the … Continue reading →

The Circuito Chico drive ends at the base of another “hill” with a commanding view of the area, Cerro Campanario. This one, however, is on the tour bus circuit and has been made much easier to climb – there’s a chairlift! We had coffee at the observation deck on the summit. There was a great … Continue reading →

We decided to stretch our legs yesterday and hike to the top of Cerro Llao Llao, one of the foothills of the Andes Mountains which separate Argentina from neighboring Chile. This “hill,” as they call it, has a peak elevation of 3,600 feet, rising from the trailhead at 2,500 feet (which is also the approximate … Continue reading →

We arrived in Bariloche in northern Patagonia late this afternoon, picked up our rental car and drove straight to Chiado Restaurant to meet Germán, the owner, who is our home exchange partner. Here’s Germán (left), hard at work… …and here’s Dale enjoying a cup of tea in Chiado. Chiado overlooks a finger of Nahuel Huapi … Continue reading →

Other than what we had seen, there was only one more vantage point from which to view Iguazú Falls: from the water at the basin below the waterfalls. We had made reservations for the Aventura Náutica earlier in the morning to do just that, so after our leisurely drift in the inflatable, we walked back … Continue reading →

Although we took the tram up to the Devil’s Throat lookout, we returned to the main park by water on a 10-person inflatable. While we were waiting to launch, two unusual butterflies landed on Dale, posing for my camera. As soon as we launched our raft, our helmsman steered us underneath the boardwalk we had … Continue reading →

After the upper walkway, we took the tram upriver to the boardwalk on the Argentinian side of the Devil’s Throat. It was around noon and the crowds had now made their way into the park, as you can see, above. At the terminal station, we trudged along with the crowd to the viewing platform perched … Continue reading →

Leaving the lower circuit, we followed the second pathway, the Paseo Superior, up to the top of the falls. Although you can’t see it in this photo, the walkway runs right along the edge where the water rushes off the plateau. Every vantage point made for an amazing photograph (I took far too many pictures … Continue reading →

The Sheraton sits on a bluff overlooking the Rio Iguazú. Leaving the hotel, we headed down toward the river to the Circuito Inferior, the lower walk. Being the first hikers on the path, we found the walkway to be a little slippery, due to the pervasive mist from the waterfalls that covers everything (as you … Continue reading →

The Sheraton, where we stayed, is located inside the Parque Nacional Iguazú, the Argentinian national park. By staying inside the park, we were able to get a head start on the crowds because the park is open to hotel guests at 7:30 and the trailhead to the Falls starts right at the hotel. Other visitors … Continue reading →