After leaving Mexico, we made our way to Buenos Aires where we spent 4 days checking out the city awaiting our new party member Heerey to arrive.
Ears: Kishi Bashi - this guy is amazing and is one of my most played albums at the moment
We were lucky that our first day in BA was actually a public holiday, this meant that we could hang out with my favourite Argentinian, Laura, who I travelled with in Europe three years ago.
To Old Friends and New - Me, Laura and her boyfriend Javier. Celebrating the art of international hand signals to order a beer.
She quite correctly claimed that there really isn't that much to do in Buenos Aires, and with that notion we soon found ourselves in Trip Advisors #2 thing to do in Buenos Aires, that is walk through a cemetery. The Recoleta Cemetery is however not like any other cemetery around, it is full of tombs that look more like houses where al the family will eventually lay to rest under the one roof. Many famous and well off people are buried here, being non-Argentine, I didn't know any.
Guard
This was probably the most derelict tomb I saw, most of them were spotless, draped with flags and a small altar. Note the shelves for the coffins on the left.
Buenos Aires #1 thing to do on Trip Advisor is to visit the Obelisk, basically it is a big pointy stone in the ground. More impressively it is located on the worlds widest road.
This isn't from the worlds wides road, but one of the side streets, I just like the photo.
La Boca is a small suburb in Buenos Aires, it translates to "The Mouth" as it is located at the mouth of the river that services BA. 100 years ago it was a hub for ships and dock workers, many of which were of Italian decent. The area soon made it's own identity, highlighted no better than by the fact that it created the Flamenco Dance. Another reason you may know La Boca, is because if you have ever googled any images of Buenos Aires or Argentina, or looked at travel websites there, you will see pretty much the same photo as the one following. This is pretty much one little street "The Caminino". La Boca is also the home of Boca Juniors, the home of Argentinean football and where Diego Maradona once cut his teeth, I had the chance to get my photo with him, he was in the street sitting in a deckchair dressed in his Argentina jersey begin for a photo. I declined.
This guy sat on the road just looking at La Bombonera
Saw a Tango Show
La Boca Stock Photo #11998
We did see a show called Fuerza Bruta one night, I don't have photos but it was amazing and if you ever get to BA, then do it. If not, it is currently doing a world tour so it may come to you. It cost us $14 to see it, tickets in New York are $100.
Finally once heerey arrived, after flying PNG-BNE-DUB-RIO-BUE, the next day we made our way down to Patagonia and the town of El Chalten. Here we did a few hikes, the first being a simple 25km hike to Laguna de los Tres, an amazing lake that provides the perfect landscape to sit and enjoy the view of Mt. Fitz Roy.
Laguna de los Tres with Mt. Fitz Roy in the background.
One rule of hiking or any shoe wearing activity is to wear in your shoes before the main event. Heerey didn't and soon found himself doing this.
He reckons he took his shoes off because thats what the sign says.
Typical terrain for the barefoot bushman
We did however get off the track once, we looked for a "not well marked track" to take us around another lagoon. turns out it didn't exist, and after 2 hours of bush bashing we found ourselves back on the normal persons path. We weren't lost, we new exactly where we were, just the path no longer was where the map said it was!!
Getting our bearings
Being off the track did give us views like this though!
All in all that hike took close to 10hours, which meant the last hour was in the dark.
We made it!
Evening Mt. Fitz Roy walk
El Chalten by night
The next day we did another walk, a quick 5hour hike to Laguna Torre. It has a small glacier feeding into it and is full of ice chunks from it. It was a much simpler walk with no issues, but the rewards were just as spectacular.
The colour of the water actually goes grey from all the sediment and minerals that the glacier picks up off the rock, when that ice breaks off and falls into the water, the minuscule sediment stays suspended in the water.
After a few days of hikes from El Chalten, we made our way back to the big smoke of El Calafate, El Chalten's population is 41, El Calafate's is a whopping 6,143!
Mt. Fitz Roy from El Chalten the morning we left.
From El Chalten we did a trip to the Perito Moreno Glacier to have a look around and trek on the glacier, definitely one of the coolest experiences we have all had.
This thing is 5km across and 30km long at
The remnants of the ice cracking in falling into the lake. The face of the glacier is around 40-60m high, we saw this huge chunk fall in. It's spray and ice flew to basically where the ring is in the water. Do your own calculations but I reckon that's about 120-180m from the glacier face!
For a sense of scale, see if you can pick the people on the glacier.
What is in these boxes you ask?
Whiskey! On the rocks with glacier ice!
Another Ice Fall - just caught the start of this whilst taking my crampons off.
Gone
The ice face above the water is generally 40-60m, under the water at the face it is around 110m deep, stuck to the rock. In the middle they believe it is around 300-500m thick!
