Argentina

Basically every town has a Plaza de San Martin , an avenue de San Martin and an avenue Rivadavia . Some towns don´t have anything other than a Plaza de San Martin , an avenue de San Martin and an avenue Rivadavia .
Argentina , like the continent South America itself is shaped like a cone with one site more straight and the other more curved . We start our travels in Buenos Aires which is roughly one third down the curved site and travel to the tip of the cone , the self proclaimed city at the end of the world , Ushaia . We then travel North again (have to because South of us there is a sea and then Antartica) on the more straight site passing through a bit of Chilean Patagonia on the way .

Buenos Aires Cementario de la Recoleta
Among the crypts and statues of the dead there lives a colony of cats . A certain General Rosas is buried here . He originally was one of the Federalists (big cattle farmers and the rural elite) . Apparently he ruled with an iron fist . His mazorca (police forse) was very notorious . After twenty years he had to flee Argentina and he ended up in Great Britain where he became a milk farmer . He died in Hampshire and was buried there . In the 1980's his bones were transferred to Argentina with great ceremony . However rumour has it that Rosas grave was destroyed during the Blitz krieg . Some cows got killed during the same bombardment . The bones transferred to the tomb in Recoletta may well be that of a cow .

Plaza de Mayo Thursday afternoon around four o'clock
It all started in 1977 when during the reign of Videla fourteen women marched into the Plaza de Mayo demanding information about their missing children . The police did not dare to touch them as they carried out the protest as mothers . Thus something was borne which eventually grew into a powerful political movement . Now the mothers are still meeting every thursday on the Plaza de Mayo . Not many more than fourteen women are gathered here today . Courageously marching among the busloads of tourists .

Puert Madryn
I have heard stories about the wind in Patagonia but it is during the bicycle ride to Punta Loma that I experience it first hand . The wind seems to come from every direction in this country . Sometimes it comes from your left and then all in a sudden it comes from your right . Sometimes it pushes you forward and you hardly have to peddle and then when you go downhill it rushes at you and it stops you halfway and you have to put in all your effort to reach the bottom of the hill . The wind materialises itself with a cloak of dust . I am dressed in black trousers and a black jacket but by the time I have reached Punta Loma I am dressed in white like Don Quichotte .

Trelew Paleontologic Museum
The museum displays among other things the bones of the gigantic Argentinosaurus . This animal could grow 40 meters long and 20 meters high . Why this fascination in dinosaurs all in a sudden you may want to ask me . Well where I come from the most ancient of the land animals is the wild rabbit . I am not sure though if fossiled bones have been found .

Reserva Punta Tombo 03 March
Between half a million and a million Magellanic or Jackass penguins nestle here between august and April . In March the first and youngest birds start their 6000 kilometers migration North to Brasil . In April the older ones follow . Punta Lombo lies at the Atlantic on the edge of a thorny desert . The birds dig holes under the bushes to escape the heat . In february and March Penguins lose their feathers . I feel like walking through a pillow factory .

Gaiman Parque El Desafio
Following the yellow flowers cut from plastic bottles you like Dorothy and Toto will be taken through a magical landscape . All you will see is made out of recycled material like soda bottles cans and cable . Joaquin Alonso the creater of the park says that he dreams about his creations and then builds them . Among other things there is a replica of the Tai Mahal , a fairy castle and there is monument in honour of the Tehelchue Indians . The park is in stark contrast with the rest of the town Gaiman . The town is best described as a paradise for old ladies with well kept rosegardens and tea houses .

Comodore Rivadavia
The town smells of petrol . That is the most remarkable thing I can say about this place . The hotel we stay in is owned by an old couple and the tiles floor resembles an Escher drawing .

Rio Gallegos
Another non descript town . If there was a highlight it must have been playing spotting the gaucho . I counted two .

Tierra del Fuego
When Magellan reached these parts he was amazed by the many fires he saw everywhere . The Yamana Indians had always a fire lighted . Even when they paddled out to fish or to hunt seals they would have a small fire going in the middle of the canoe . They made their canoes from the bark of the lenga tree . They would light the fire on top of some clay or a pollen of grass the roots turned upwards . Magellan named the Island land of fire or in Spanish Tierra del Fuego .
there were four different tribes that lived in Tierra del Fuego . Three are now extinct . There are only about a hundred Yamana alive in Southern Chile .
In Museo Yamana I saw some pictures of of these indians . I can see that they must have looked strange to the first European explorers . They would dress in nothing else but a loincloth and a seal cap . They walked steeped over , their feet not pointing forwards but inwards . To me the pictures ion the museum looked haunting as the eyes of the people in the pictures were white without a hint of an iris . The eyes were that of ghosdts or people already dead .

One guy is playing a serenade on his guitar to a girl . The girl smiles tenderly at him . she is making a necklace out of twine and beads . A couple is preparing a vegetarian meal . They are talking about Che Guevarra the way nuns talk about the pope . Four french men are sitting in the middle of te room . They have long hair and beards and they are discussing the lyrics of a Lennon song . That is till we enter the room , sit down at the only empty table left and start butchering our roasted chicken . A deadly silence descends on the room . I open a bottle of Malbec and pour myself a glass . After a drink of the red stuff I face the people in the room and start whisling `Free as a bird . I do love these communal spaces on camping grounds .

Punta Arenas
Famopus explorers like Shackleton and Amundsen walked the streets of Punta Arenas . Shackleton was here to organise a rescue party for his crew . Amundsen was on his way to explore the South pole . We are also on a mission . We have to find a suitable pub because tomorrow is Paddy´s day . We end up taking the bus to Puerta Natales where we find a pub run by a man from Leeds . We spend the night drinking and playing table football . From Puerta Natales we arrange our trip to the Torres del Paine .

Torres del Paine
I cannot get over the fact that this park used to be part of a estancia and that the valleys and mountain slopes were mere breeding grounds for sheep . Today the park is home to many bird species and other animals , guanacos and pumas among them . Ironicly enough most animals we see in those six days we spend in the park is from the bus when we enter the park . While hiking we hardly see any animals apart from sparrows and blackbirds . The park is about a two hour drive from Puerta Natales . As we start at the far end of the park our bus ride takes a bit longer . We get dropped off at one of the many refugios from where we take a catamaran to cross Lake Pehoe . By the time we have settled ourselves on the campground we will spend the first night it is two PM . We decide to hike part of the way up to Lake Grey and Glacier Grey . Lake Grey is actually white , contaminated as it is by tiny fragments of rock , disposed by the Glacier . From a distance it looks like the advance of the Glacier into the Lake is stopped by an island although it may be the case that the presence of the island has made it possible for the glacier to extend this far . I am not sure what the truth is . We do not get much sleep the first night as the wind is fierce and relentless and the camping ground hardly offers any cover .
The second day we take it easy and only hike up Campemento Italiano . Although this camp lacks facilities ( it only has two toilets nothing else ) it is in the middle of a pine forest so we do not feel the wind that badly .
The third day I hike up alone into the Fernch Valley . The word valley made me think that there would not be much climbing to do . How wrong I was . When I reach the view point past Campemento Brittanico I am out of breath . All my efforts are rewarded though as a rainbow appears in the sky over the valley and Lake Nordenskjold with its islands . I take many pictures . When I arrive back at Campemento Italiano we take down the tent and continue to Los Cuernos . We arrive at the campment shivering from the cold as it is windy and the whole time since leaving Campemento Italiano it has been raining .
The fourt day is miserable as it is raining hard and there is so much wind that once or twice we almost get blown of the path . We arrive at Las Torres cold to the bone and in order to recover a bit we have a hot meal in the restaurant of the refugio . A luxury we have not granted ourselves sofar .
On the morning of the fifth day I do some laundry and as we have to wait for the clothes to dry it is one thirty PM when we set off for Campemento Chileno . On our way we meet a man who broke his jaw and split his bottem lip the day before . Bandage and tape keep the jaw in place . His lip still bleeds a bit . Because the man did not want to be a burden to his friends he did continue the hike up to the three Torres del Paine . It is only now that he hikes back to Las Torres from where he can take a bus to civilisation . It will be at least another twelve hours before he will see a doctor .
The sixth day is our last day . We hike up to the three Torres del Paine . As the day is overcast we do not get the views we were hoping for . From the viewpoint we hike back to Las Torres and the bus .
Sitting in a hotelroom in Puerta Natales and reviewing our experiences in the Torres del Paine I think the best bits about that wild land of sparrows and blackbirds are the many stars at night , the fresh air we breathed and the water we could drtink from the streams and rivers . It is only after the experience of walking through such a clean mountain site that you realise the dump we have to live in . I take another sip from the plastic bottle of mineral water ( Vital: clean and pure water fromn a spring in France ) as it is advised not to drink the tap water .

El Calafate
This is our access point to the Perito Moreno Glacier . The glacier , a huge river of ice seems to stem from different sources as two huge icy riverbeds merge and advance slowly into the Canal de los Tempanos . Every so often you can hear something which resembles a gunshot and a chunk of the glacier breaks off and floats away in the channel . In order to see the glacier we have taken a tour from el Calafate . There is a guy from Switzerland on the tour whose laughter sounds like a cross between the sound of a car which will not start on an early wintermorning and the sound a big dog makes when it has eaten too greedily and is coughing up its food . The anticipation for the sound like that of a gunshot is even higher with him around . If only to drown his laughter .

El Chalten
The town is just over twenty years old . It was founded in 1985 in order to make claim to the land around it before Chile could . This was during a period that the politicians both in Argentina and Chile were driven by expansianism . Anyway the reason we are here is not the town itself but the surrounding mountains . During one of our walks in the area we met a parkranger . I tried to tell him a joke which went like this .¨"Once there was a woman who went walking in the forest . At a certain moment she met a parkranger . They started talking and the woman asked the parkranger if it was not lonely living in the forest .¨Yes¨, the parkranger said .¨It can be very lonely . Especially because there are no women in the forest¨.¨But¨, the woman asked him .¨Dont you have sex at all then¨.Well¨,the ranger said .¨I do it with the trees¨.¨That is terrible¨, the woman exclaimed .¨I tell you what¨.¨You are a handsome young man . You can do it with me¨. The parkranger happily agreed . The woman took off her clothes and lay down on the forest ground . The parkranger instead of taking his clothes off kicked the woman hard in the stomach . ¨What did you do that for ¨, the woman cried out . ¨Just making sure there are no squirrels ¨, the ranger replied .
I dont know if it was my Spanish but the parkranger was not laughing .

We fly from El Calafate to Esquel but as the plane gets diverted we end up in Bariloche .

Bariloche and the Lake District
¨We set off again , passing greatly varying lakes , all surrounded by ancient forest , the scent of wilderness caressing our nostrils . ¨
Ernesto Che Gueverra 1952
This description is of the Sieta Lagos Route from Bariloche to San Martin de los Andes . Unfortunately when we travelled this road after filling our bellies with chocolate and icecream in Bariloche we did not catch the scent of wilderness . Without a doubt the lakes and forest are beautiful . But it is the beauty of a well kept garden where when you pass through you are watching every step you take , afraid to step on something .

From San Martin de los Andes we take a bus to Mendoza . We pass a place called Plaza Huincul where on the main square there is a replica skeleton of the Argentinosaurus build from scrap metal . The construction is about 40 metres long and 20 metres high . We play bingo on the bus . The winner gets a bottle wine .