Patagonia: Puerto Natales

The long drive from the airport at El Calafate to the Chilean border, tantalising glimpses of flowers, birds and mountains.

Puerto Natales, home of the fossilised giant sloth, and many living birds, condors, rheas, caracaras.., as well as this unidentified cetacean, there were several, but fast and far enough for this to be a really lucky shot.

Some lupins are native, but these mostly blue ones are introduced, but still a fantastic sight along the roads, and not on a problem scale. 

Lake with apparently white or salty shore, but made from microbes, like the stromatolites in Australia

Patagonia: miscellaneous man-made

One of our hotels had this rather fine lampshade, cut out of thin plastic. Easy to copy with a good knife and some patience

Plenty of real ones, but the Quentin Blake characters here are very appealing.

One of our smarter camp/lodges. Sadly the food wasn't quite as good as the location.

Like Iceland, the long dark winters are brightened by the sea-side-coloured houses.

Unaccustomed luxury in hotels and lodges, we must be getting softer.

                                     

               An ingenious device for automatically repairing punctures, the road surfaces are "intrepid"

Patagonia is rather famous for its gales, and quirky signs.

Friendly competition between our guides!

Patagonia: food & shops

One of the many things I love about travelling is exploring different shops, and particularly market stalls. The cheeses were delicious, but the salami a bit too mature and tasty.

Supermarkets don't have quite the same exotic feel, although the selection of vodkas was impressive.

The mate is much thicker than the stuff you get here, almost more leaves than water, and intensely bitter, I don't think I could ever get used to it. The ritual of brewing seems almost as important as the drink itself, then shared through a silver straw to filter out most of the sludge.

Not a good place for herbivores, they get barbecued!

?

Excellent local beers, perfect with cheese & salami as a starter,

and after a long day fighting gale&deluge...

The food was mostly so good there was no need for the usual trekkers food-talk, maybe we weren't away from civilisation for long enough.

Buenos Aires

A fascinating city, some very cutting edge architecture making best use of the space like this narrow edge.

My favourite of the many city sculptures.

The curious graveyard, plants plant and nourish themselves.

Eve Peron's family tomb. Some are highly ornate with several floors underground.

Valuable property, rented and sold like any home, strange to our way of thinking,

Many beautiful statues, not always well cared for.

La Boca is the Bohemian region of Buenos Aires, artists and tourists mingle in cafes and bars with an international  feel.

The guerilla crocheters have been out in force,

                                                                   along with the surrealists

Yeti-crab, yes really!

The yeti-crab has to be one of the strangest creatures I've met in my deep oceans MOOC. The hairy arms are thought to be bacteria which remove toxic metals from its feeding area,

although the dumbo-octopus has to be a close second.

Patagonia, a start. 52 & 53 New

Just back from Patagonia, brilliant, some pictures will follow when I'm organised. We did many things, including two more new ones. Walking on a glacier with crampons, v easy if you waddle to prevent catching the opposite leg. I always thought the turquoise to violet was photoshopped, but it's real.

Tia Maria with glacier ice is a fitzroy expeditions tradition, support them to keep it going!

Much more intrepid were a couple of Tyrolean traverses, luckily there had been too much rain to wade (done that, & it's cold if glaciers are involved) The national parks have brilliant signs, this one on a boat tells the locals about the life jackets, gringos are obviously less important!

and for anyone doubting me...

So much better than mouse traps.

I digress, back to the Tyrolean traverses, the first was quite genteel, feet only just out of the water, 

but as the rivers were high and we'd all passed the initiation we did the Big One, having watched poor souls without our lovely guides wade thigh deep in stuff the temperature of a good G&T

Strange weekend!

Just back from Patagonia, more about it soon, then off on normal walking weekend in Wales, but the weather forecast was dire, it was actually variable, cold & windy but not the threatened 80mph gales, with some sunny bits.

 Lots of floods and a powercut, so we had to have Danny's birthday cake by candlelight.

 It must be spring, in spite of the weather, I'd forgotten how lovely hazel catkins are close up.

This morning we visited St Martin's Church Cwmyoy, an interesting piece of architecture that I'm sure wouldn't satisfy building regulations nowadays, but has survived 600 years or so. It really is as squiffy as it looks.

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