Argentina_English

	Days 378 - 385 February 6th 2011 - February 13th 2011 Buenos Aires Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo.It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent. Greater Buenos Aires conurbation, which also includes several Buenos Aires Province districts, constitutes the third-largest conurbation in Latin America, with a population of around 13 million. The city of Buenos Aires is not a part of the Buenos Aires Province, nor is it its capital; rather, it is an autonomous district. In 1880, after decades of political infighting, Buenos Aires was federalised and removed from Buenos Aires Province. The city limits were enlarged to include the towns of Belgrano and Flores (both are currently neighborhoods of the city). The 1994 constitutional amendment granted the city autonomy, hence its formal name: Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires (English: Autonomous City of Buenos Aires). Its citizens first elected a Chief of Government (i.e. Mayor) in 1996; before, the Mayor was directly appointed by the President of the Republic. Buenos Aires is considered an Alpha World City as listed by the Loughborough University group's (GaWC) 2008 inventory.People from Buenos Aires are referred to as porteños (people of the port). Buenos Aires is the capital of Tango. Tango dance and tango music originated in the area of the Rio de la Plata, and spread to the rest of the world soon after. Early tango was known as tango criollo, or simply tango. Today, there are many tango dance styles, including Argentine tango, Uruguayan tango, Ballroom tango (American and International styles), Finnish tango, and vintage tangos. What many consider to be the authentic tango is that closest to that originally danced in Argentina and Uruguay, though other types of tango have developed into mature dances in their own right. In 2009, Argentina and Uruguay suggested that the Tango be inscribed onto the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists and in October of the same year UNESCO approved it. We spent a week in Buenos Aires. Why so long? We love Buenos Aires. It´s one of the most beautiful cities on this planet "The Street that never sleeps" - Avenida Corrientes is one of the principal thoroughfares of Buenos Aires. The street is intimately tied to the tango and the porteño sense of identity. Like the parallel avenues Santa Fe, Córdoba, and San Juan, it takes its name from one of the Provinces of Argentina. It extends 69 blocks from Eduardo Madero Avenue in the eastern Puerto Madero neighborhood to the West and later to the Northwest, and ends at Federico Lacroze Avenue in the Chacarita neighborhood. Automobile traffic runs from west to east. Line B of the Buenos Aires Metro runs most of its length underneath the street. The Asociación Amigos de la Calle Corrientes ("Friends of Corrientes Street Association") is a group that collaborates on the urban planning of the street. They have placed commemorative plaques on 40 street corners bearing the distinguished figures from the history of the tango. Avenida Corrientes with view of theObelisk Another "must see" of Buenos Aires is Recoleta. Within the walls of the Recoleta Cemetery is the grave of Evita Peron. Evita´s Signature ...and her grave Wir visited the Obelisk of Buenos Aires on Avenida 9 de Julio, which is the widest road in the world.... The Obelisk and.... ...die Strasse des 9. Juli (Avenida 9 de Julio) and the Florida Street, one of the main shopping streets in Buenos Aires. Two of our all time favorites are the old harbor Hafengebiet Puerto Madero with lots of great Restaurants, Shops and an amazing atmosphere and the colorful neighborhood of La Boca - one of the birthplaces of the Tango Puerto Madero Puerto Madero In the 1990s, local and foreign investment led to a massive regeneration effort, recycling and refurbishing the west side warehouses into elegant houses, offices, lofts, private universities, luxurious hotels and restaurants that conform to a gallery of options for this new district in a city that grew up turning its back to the river. Led by the 1999 opening of the Buenos Aires Hilton, luxurious hotels, state-of-the-art multiplex cinemas, theatres, cultural centres, and office and corporate buildings are located mostly in the east side Puerto Madero has been redeveloped with international flair, drawing interest from renown architects such as Santiago Calatrava, Norman Foster, César Pelli and Phillippe Starck, among others. Today one of the trendiest boroughs in Buenos Aires, it has become the preferred address for growing numbers of young professionals and retirees, alike. Increasing property prices have also generated interest in the area as a destination for foreign buyers, particularly those in the market for premium investment properties. The neighborhood's road network has been entirely rebuilt, especially in the east side. The layout of the east side consists currently of three wide boulevards running east-west crossed by the east side's main street, Juana Manso Avenue. The layout is completed with some other avenues and minor streets, running both east-west and north-south, and by several pedestrianised streets. Every street in Puerto Madero is named after women. The Puente de la Mujer (Women's Bridge), by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, is the newest link between the east and west docks of Puerto Madero; a museum inaugurated in 2008, the Fortabat Art Collection, itself resulted from an initiative by Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat (the wealthiest woman in Argentina). Puerto Madero currently represents the largest urban renewal project in the city of Buenos Aires. Having undergone an impressive revival in merely a decade, it is one of the most successful recent waterfront renewal projects in the world. At Puerto Madero Dock 2 (between Azucena Villaflor and Rosario Vera Peñaloza - teacher and La Rioja educator) buildings belonging to the Universidad Católica Argentina stand successively to the west, and the Faena Hotel + Universe (first hotel designed by Philip Starck in South America) is located to the east of Dock 2. Located on the corner of Aimé Painé (Mapuche Princess and indigenous rights activist) and Rosario Vera Peñaloza, the modern Iglesia Nuestra Señora de la Esperanza was inaugurated in 1996 and is dedicated to the Virgin Mary, who under the title of Stella Maris, or "Star of the Sea", is the patron saint of the Argentine Coast Guard. The docks aligned with Dique 2, between 1400 and 1500 of Avenida Moreau de Justo, are mostly occupied by various apartment buildings and offices of the Universidad Católica Argentina and its Pabellón de las Artes (Arts Pavilion), a space for art showings with access from the pedestrian side of the dock. Here, there are some bars and coffee shops. La Boca La Boca retains a strong European flavor, with many of its early settlers being from the Italian city of Genoa. In fact the name has a strong assonance with the Genoese neighborhood of Boccadasse (or Bocadaze in Genoese dialect), and some believe that the Buenos Aires barrio was indeed named after it. The conventional explanation is that the neighborhood sits at the mouth ("boca" in Spanish) of the Riachuelo In 1882, after a lengthy general strike, La Boca seceded from Argentina, and the rebels raised the Genoese flag, which was immediately torn down personally by then President Julio Argentino Roca. It is known among sports fans for La Bombonera the home of Boca Juniors, one of the world's best known football clubs. La Boca is a popular destination for tourists visiting Argentina, with its colourful houses and pedestrian street, the Caminito, where tango artists perform and tango-related memorabilia is sold. Other attractions include the La Ribera theatre, many tango clubs and Italian taverns. It has also been a centre for radical politics, having elected the first socialist member of the Argentine Congress (Alfredo Palacios in 1935) and was home to many demonstrations during the crisis of 2001. As one of Buenos Aires's 48 barrios, La Boca is located in the city's south-east near its old port. The barrio of Barracas is to the west; San Telmo and Puerto Madero are to the north. In La Boca many of the residents are of mixed European descent. Mainly Italian, Spanish, German, French, Arab and Basque. This is it...now it is time to go back to "real life". But what is real life ?? Days 356 - 377 January 15th 2011 - February 5th 2011 San Martin de los Andes - Junin de los Andes - Zapala - Las Grutas - El Condor - Monte Hermoso - Miramar - Mar del Sur - Villa Gesell It was time to leave the beautiful lake district and turn east/north towards the Atlantic Coast. We've been on the road for one year now and - as you might be able to read between the lines - a litte bit tired. People say " how can you be tired ? You've been on vacation for over a year..". It is not easy to describe but I'll try. At home everybody is in his or her comfort zone. The drill is the same every day. You wake up, get to work or school, you come back home, go to the gym or yoga and after that you go to bed. It might be stressful but you know what's going on. When you go on a 5 day cruise you need 2 days to figure out what's going on on that ship. You get lost looking for the bar or the pool. This is how we felt the last year. Almost every day we had to figure out what's going on. We got lost looking for the damned bar every night. We had to find safe places to spend the night, get problems solved, get the truck fixed, deal with border officials and police and all of this in a foreign language on foreign turf. After a while of this you just want to sit on your own couch, turn on the TV and watch American Idol because it's easy and you know how to do that... Now, I know that might sound like we didn't enjoy this trip. We did enjoy it a lot ! We just want to take a break from traveling for a bit... All of the above being said we didn't feel like sightseeing anymore. It is summer here in Argentina and we just wanted to enjoy this summer. We drove cross country to the Atlantic Coast. we started in Zapala, where we spent the night at a campground that probably gets the 1st prize for the "Dustiest Campground" we've been to. The drive was long but uneventful. We only had to stop for a while somewhere between Zapala and Las Grutas because the employees of the local fruit company went on strike and blocked several roads. People outside of Latin America always thing of the Latinos as people with a hot temper. But we never encountered someone who complaint about things. I wrote that before. Don't know if you read the report of the delayed flight in Columbia. Everybody just sat back and enjoyed the doubled flighttime. Same here. Cars were backed up on the road. The workers of the fruit plant set fire to tires and other stuff. The police was there and just watched. All the drivers got out of their cars and chatted with others. The situation didn't seem to bother them at all. People in the US or Germany probably would go beserk... We finally reached the Coast and stayed the first night in Las Grutas. We then moved around to find the best campground which we finally found in Villa Gesell. The town gets its name from Don Carlos Gesell, the son of German economist Silvio Gesell. In 1931 he bought 16.48 km² (6.36 sq mi) of sand dunes on the Atlantic coast of Argentina. In that year he built a house for his family; this has now been converted into the Gesell family museum. Carlos Gesell transformed the sand dunes by planting thousands of trees there. The settlement gradually expanded stretching along the coastline, and today continues its growth by annexing three more cities to the south, namely, Mar de las Pampas, Las Gaviotas and Mar Azul. Villa Gesell has been a popular tourist destination since the 1940s. In January 1952 the town was visited by Che Guevara as he set out on his journey across America immortalized in The Motorcycle Diaries. We spent two weeks in those beach towns and it was like being in Rimini, Italy. The beaches here are so crowded it's not even funny anymore. But we still enjoyed the beach, the sun and the water. It was good to relax a while before we start the last part of this trip: Buenos Aires. Days 337 - 355 December 27th 2010 - January 14th 2011 Ushuaia - Rio Grande - Pali Aike - Puerto San Julian - Caleta Olivia - Camarones - Gaiman - El Bolson - Bariloche - Villa La Angostura On December 26th we said Good Bye to Olaf, Christiane and Wim. They started their drive north as they have a plane to catch. We spent some more days in Ushuaia before we started heading north as well. Our last days in 2010 and our first days in 2011 were filled with not much more than driving. Our first stop after Ushuaia was Rio Grande. We spent a night here on our way south and stopped at the same campground this time. On the last day of 2010 we crossed the border into Chile. If you want to go - or get out off - Tierra del Fuego you have to go through Chile. There is no way around it. We decided to spend the night in Pali Aike National Park. If you think about a National Park you might think about lots of trees or any other beautiful landscape. Not here. Pali Aike is just flat with some hills. Some bushes and lots of Guanacos (the ancestor of the Llama). We spent New Years Eve alone with the company of some Guanacos that ran by our camp. That night I missed the great New Years Eve parties of our friends Michael and Michaela. It was wired to spent that night alone in the middle of nowhere. Even the Champagne we bought didn't taste good. The new year started like the old one ended: W I N D Y and cool. By now we really have enough of that wind. Camping in high winds is one thing. Driving in it is just a big pain in the ass. It's not really funny anymore when a 9000 lbs vehicle jumps like a young horse. It is even worse when you see the camper being lifted off the bed of your truck by the wind. And a whole other thing is it when the wind pushes the vehicle onto the other side of the road - with big 18 wheelers coming at you. Wind or no wind - we moved on. After weeks of beautiful landscape the Pampa hit us hard. Thousands of miles of nothing. Dust, dirt, Sheep, Guanacos and not much more. So we basically just tried to escape that "Landscape Nightmare" by pushing the "pedal to the metal". Our first sightseeing stop in a long time was "Bahia dos Cabos" near Camarones. Bahia dos Cabos is one of the major breeding grounds for the Magellanic Penguins. Magellanic Penguins are medium-sized penguins which grow to be 61–76 cm (24–30 in) tall and weigh between 2.7 kg and 6.5 kg (5.9-14.3 lbs) The males are larger than the females and the weight of both drops while the parents nurture their young. Adults have black backs and white stomachs. There are two black bands between the head and the breast, with the lower band shaped in an inverted horseshoe. The head is black with a broad white border that runs from behind the eye, around the black ear-coverts and chin, and joins at the throat. Chicks and younger penguins have grey-blue backs, with a more faded grey-blue color on their chest. Magellanic Penguins can live up to 25 years in the wild, but as much as 30 years in captivity. Magellanic Penguins mate with the same partner year after year. The male reclaims his burrow from the previous year and waits to reconnect with his female partner. The females are able to recognize their mates through their call alone. Marissa couldn't get enough of those cute animals so we spent quite a while watching them. After a stopover for the night in Gaiman we drove across the country to El Bolson. El Bolsón is situated in the southwest of Río Negro Province, Argentina, at the foot of the Piltriquitron Mountain. Due to a series of valleys through the mountains of Chile to the Pacific Ocean, El Bolsón has an unusually mild climate for its southern location. El Bolsón area's first non-indigenous inhabitants were German immigrants that arrived to the valley from Chile as an offshot of of the colonization of Llanquihue. In the 1970s hippies from Buenos Aires migrated to El Bolsón, some of them practised orticulture and made handcrafts. It's a great place to break for a couple of days, especially when there is such a great campground as the "Aldea Suiza", a place run by Swiss emigrants. The area around El Bolson is great. Not as boring as the Pampa along Ruta 3. I mentioned that to an Argentinean couple we met at Lake Puelo, about 10 km west of El Bolson. He didn't like that - it turned out that he was born in that "boring" part of Argentina. He insisted that there are very pretty places along Ruta 3. We had a nice chat with them and after a short while they had to leave. We said and kissed good bye. There is something great about the Argentinean people. They are warm and really, really nice. I can't imagine kissing someone good bye who I met 5 minutes ago in New York or Germany. The cold handshake has to do there... The Lago Puelo National Park has an area of 276.74 km². It was created in order to protect its wonderful landscape and the Valdivian flora, as an annex to the Los Alerces National Park, and declared National Park and independent reserve in 1971. The protected area is named after the Puelo Lake, and belongs to the Patagonic forest and steppes and High Andes eco-regions, with maximum heights of two hundred meters over sea level. The valley has a trans-Andean connection and a particular microclimate. The mountainous zone where the park lies was modified by the action of glaciers, which created many rivers and lakes, including the one that gives the park its name. The rivers of the region show high levels of glacier sediment, which gives Puelo Lake its blue color. After some days in El Bolson we drove 90 miles north to the town of Bariloche. We’ve been here sex years ago and wanted to see whether it had changed a lot. And yes, it had. It’s bigger and much more touristy than before. But the landscape around is still very beautiful and that’s what matters anyway. We rented bikes and cycled around the lake. It really hurts when you only ride the bike once a year but it was worth it. We enjoyed beautiful views and stopped several times to enjoy the scenery. We also bought some great chocolate which Bariloche is famous for before we drove some 50 miles to the north where we stopped in Villa La Angostura. Days 327 - 336 December 17th 2010 - December 26th 2010 Rio Grande - Tolhuin - Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego Another border crossing - the last one for this year. We met up with Olaf and Christiane at the ferry that crosses the Magellan Strait. If you want to go to Tierra del Fuego there is no way around a ferry. We crossed the border late in the afternoon and drove for another hour to the town of Rio Grande. It's one of the biggest towns in Tierra del Fuego and we found a spot at the water to camp. A party close by kept everyone awake that night - except me. I slept like a baby. Next morning we drove another 80 miles south to Tolhuin and camped at the Fagnano Lake. Fagnano Lake is a lake located on the main island of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago, and shared by Argentina and ChileThe 645 km² lake runs east-west for about 98 kilometres, of which 72.5 km (606 km²) belong to the Argentine Tierra del Fuego Province, and only 13.5 km (39 km²) belong to the Chilean Magallanes y la Antártica Chilena Region. It has a maximum depth of 200 meters. The southern bank is steep compared to the northern, and expands in a considerably wide and flat piedmont from which both levels of the plateaus can be appreciated. From its western end, the Azopardo River drains towards the Almirantazgo Fjord. On its eastern end is the town of Tolhuin.The lake is located in a pull-apart basin developed along the Magallanes-Fagnano Fault zone. From the Fagnano lake it was only another 80 miles to the "End of the World" - Ushuaia, Argentina. We took it slow and stopped at a Husky Farm. The farm breeds and trains Huskies for competitions worldwide. Right now they have 120 of them. Nicole, Marissa, Christiane and Wim took a ride on a sledge pulled by eight Huskies. Well, it was more like a sledge on wheels as there is no snow right now. They loved it. So did the Huskies. They went beserk when they realized they were going for a run. A little further south we stopped at a huge beaver dam with the hope to spot some of the beavers. They didn't show up - probably siesta.... Early evening we reached Ushuaia. Finally. Not that Ushuaia is the most beautiful city of the world. It's just because it's some kind of accomplishment for us. New York to Ushuaia. Until now the only direction for us was "south' and from now on we only go back north. We are going to spend some time here to celebrate Christmas. For Christmas we exchanged our camper for a nice room in the only 5 star Hotel in town. We spent the first two nights on the Andino Campground. Many German travelers here - too many. We left Ushuaia for a couple of days and drove to the Estancia Harberton, a huge farm and one of the oldest in Tierra del Fuego. They allow camping so we spent a quiet night there before we moved on to the Tierra del Fuego Nationalpark. We spent another night there and drove back to Ushuaia the next morning. We spent Christmas at the "Los Cauquenes Resort & Spa" (www.loscauquenes.com) and enjoyed all the amenities the Hotel offered. Pool, Sauna, Spa, great rooms and a beautiful view over the Beagle Channel. Christmas Dinner on Christmas Eve was part of our package and we wanted to enjoy it without the kids so we let them play all day in the pool and on the playground. They fell asleep as soon as they hit the pillow and we enjoyed our 7 course dinner. On December 26th it was time to say Good Bye to the Hotel and the Braehmer family whose company we enjoyed so much the last couple of weeks. They have a plane to catch on January 26th and are heading north. We moved back to the campground where we met Sharan and John for lunch. They are riding their motorbikes through Central and South America and we met them on the cruise from Panama to Colombia. They are also driving back up north as they have to be in Houston, TX on the 26th of January. As you probably can read between the lines - we are a little sad. Reaching Ushuaia for Christmas was our goal and we made it. But now we have to say good bye to people who joined us for parts of our trip and we realize that we don't have much time left either. We are going to spent a couple more days here before we start our trip north. Days 319 -325 December 9th 2010 - December 15th 2010 Los Antiguos - Bajo Caracoles - El Chalten/Fitz Roy - Glacier Perito Moreno/El Calafate We offered Franziska, the girl from Berlin, a ride and she was happy to join us for two days. The border to Chile is shortly after Chile Chico and I was anxious to see whether our unpaid speeding ticket from Mendoza would pop up in their system. It did not...uffff.... After the border another legendary Road begins - Ruta 40. It is the Argentinean answer to the Carretera Austral. Imagine long and longer stretches of washboard - gravel roads and Pampa. Mostly flat with a lot of cows and even more sheeps. Kind of like Nebraska but without the corn fields and with a little bit more flair.... We stopped for the night in Bajo Caracoles. It looked like a town straight out of a Western Movie. Dust and more dust, couple of houses, a gas station (ok, in the movie that would've been the blacksmith) one hotel and a bar next to the gas station. We parked behind some trees next to the hostel to avoid the fierce winds a little bit. I then walked to the gas station to ask whether they have Diesel and at what time they open up in the morning. It felt like the scene in the movie when an "out of town Cowboy" enters a saloon. The swinging doors open and close. A bartender. Three banditos (in my case truck drivers in urgent need of a shower and a shave) are sitting at the bar, drinking whisky and beer. Silence. All eyes on me. The bartender spits out his tobacco and says "Diga me" - Talk to me. I ask what I have to ask, get the answer I wanna hear and leave. I get back on my horse - uhm - to my truck and the banditos go back to their conversation about the Wells Fargo train.... The camper was shaking all night from the fierce winds. It felt like on a ship. No reason to stay longer than necessary so we hit the road again. We want to get to El Chalten and the famous Fitz Roy today. Franziska, the hitchhiker from Berlin joined us again for this trip. The village of El Chalten was built in 1985 to help secure the disputed border with Chile. Today the sole reason for its existence is tourism. It is 220km north of El Calafate. "Chaltén" is a tehuelche word meaning smoking mountain, as they believe it was a volcano for its peak is most of the time covered by clouds Monte Fitz Roy is a mountain located near El Chaltén village, in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, in Patagonia, on the border between Argentina and Chile. The mountain is also known as Cerro Chaltén, Cerro Fitz Roy, or simply Mount Fitz Roy. Cerro is a Spanish word meaning mountain, while Chaltén comes from a Tehuelche (Aonikenk) word meaning "smoking mountain", due to a cloud that usually forms around the mountain's peak. Fitz Roy, however, was only one of a number of peaks the Tehuelche called Chaltén. The mountain is the symbol of the Argentine Santa Cruz Province, which includes its representation on its coat of arms. It was first climbed in 1952 by French alpinists Lionel Terray and Guido Magnone. The mountain has a reputation of being "ultimate", despite its average height (although being the highest peak in the Los Glaciares park, it is less than half the size of the Himalayan giants), because the sheer granite faces present long stretches of arduous technical climbing. In addition, the weather in the area is exceptionally inclement and treacherous. It also attracts many photographers thanks to its otherworldly shape. The area, while still fairly inaccessible, was even more isolated until the recent development of El Chaltén village and El Calafate international airport. The mountain climb, however, remains extremely difficult and is the preserve of very experienced climbers. Today, when a hundred people may summit Mount Everest in a single day, Monte Fitz Roy may only be successfully ascended once a year. We met Olaf, Christiane and Wim again. The three Germans we first met in Coihaique. Together we park on one of the campgrounds in town. It doesn't get dark until 10.30 pm so we sit and talk the evening away. El Chalten is famous for its long and beautiful trails. We just hike to a Mirrador from where we have an amazing view of Fitz Roy and the other mountains. We returned after three hours and started the short but very windy drive to El Calafate. We spent a total of three nights in Calafate. The first night on beautiful Lago Roca, the last two on a campground in town. At Lago Roca we met Christiane and Olaf again. We also met Bernhard, a guy from Nuremberg here. He is on his way up north. We decided to travel the rest of the way to Ushuaia together with Olaf and Christiane. We also are going to celebrate Christmas together. The main reason to go to El Calafate is the famous Perito Moreno Glacier. The history of El Calafate began in the first decades of the twentieth century. Originally, it was simply a sheltering place for wool traders. The town was officially founded in 1927 by the government of Argentina to promote settlement, but it was the creation of nearby Perito Moreno National Park in 1937 that sparked growth and the building of better road access The Perito Moreno Glacier is a glacier located in the Los Glaciares National Park and is one of the most important tourist attractions in the Argentine Patagonia. The 250 km² (97 sq mi) ice formation, and 30 km (19 mi) in length, is one of 48 glaciers fed by the Southern Patagonian Ice Field located in the Andes system shared with Chile. This icefield is the world's third largest reserve of fresh waterThe Perito Moreno Glacier is one of only three Patagonian glaciers that is growing. Scientist have no idea why. The terminus of the Perito Moreno Glacier is 5 kilometres (3 mi) wide, with an average height of 74 m (240 ft) above the surface of the water of Lake Argentino, in Argentina. It has a total ice depth of 170 metres (558 ft). Periodically the glacier advances over the L-shaped "Lago Argentino" ("Argentine Lake") forming a natural dam which separates the two halves of the lake when it reaches the opposite shore. With no escape route, the water-level on the Brazo Rico side of the lake can rise by up to 30 meters above the level of the main lake. The enormous pressure produced by the height of the dammed water finally breaks the ice barrier holding it back, in a spectacular rupture event. This dam/rupture cycle is not regular and it recurs naturally at any frequency between once a year to less than once a decade. The glacier first ruptured in 1917, taking with it an ancient forest of arrayán trees. The last rupture occurred in July 2008 and it ruptures, on average, about every four to five years The Perito Moreno Glacier was only the second Glacier in my life but it will always be one of the most impressive. Maybe the fact that you can basically walk all the way to the edge of the glacier makes it so special. We spent a couple of hours and listened to the noises and watched some ice fall to the lake before we returned to the campground and had an "all you can eat BBQ" in the restaurant. We left El Calafate the next morning for yet another short trip to Chile. We are going to meet Olaf and Christiane in two days in the Torres del Paine National Park. October 31st 2010 - November 14th 2010 Days 280 - 294 Purmamarca - Salta - Cafayate - Villa General Belgrano - Mendoza - Portreillos As you read in our last report from Chile, we drove over the Paso de Jama to Argentina. We spent the last couple of days in San Pedro de Atacama, to get used to the altitude. The highest point on the Paso de Jama is about 15000 feet. We thought that that the road through the Andes should be full of switchbacks. But no. Basically it's one straight shot. But the drive was not as boring as it sounds. Quite the opposite. There is a lot to see - snow covered mountains, colorful lagoons with Flamingos, Llamas and more. We've never been that high up with our vehicle and were curious to find find out how it would handle at such an altitude. We were pleasantly surprised. Everything went well and the only sign that our "Harry" was suffering anoxia was the thick black smoke coming out of his exhaust pipe. Once we reached the highest point at over 15k feet, it was so bad - we thought we caused an eclipse. Sorry to all the bikers behind us... The plan was to drive all the way to Salta. But I had a bad headache - probably because of the altitude. So we stopped for the night in the small town of Purmamarca. The name of the town can be interpreted as the combination of Aymara language words purma (desert) and marca (city), though desert in that language can refer to uncivilised or not touched by human hand, thus the name is often interpreted as Town of the virgin land. Purmamarca is famous for its seven colors Mountains. The landscape shortly after the border reminded us of the one on the Baja California in Mexico. Lots of cactus and rock formations. That changed the more we moved into the country. On the next day we drove to Salta. One of the reasons to go to Salta was the famous "Train of the clouds" (Tren a las Nubes). We wanted to do the roundtrip. The problem with Salta is that there are no parking lots for rigs our size. We had planned to stay at the Municipal Campground in the city but it was closed for renovation. We moved to another campground about 20 miles outside of town. The Train of the clouds leaves at 7am and returns at 11.30 pm. There was no way for us to get to Salta that early and find a way to get back to our campground that late. There are no taxis driving that far. For that reason we skipped the train and just spent some time in Salta to do some sightseeing. Salta is the capital city of the Salta Province. Along with its metropolitan area, it has a population of 464,678 inhabitants making it Argentina's eighth largest city. Salta was founded on April 16, 1582 by the Spanish conquistador Hernando de Lerma, who intended the settlement to be an outpost between Lima, Peru and Buenos Aires. During the war of independence, the city became a commercial and military strategic point between Peru and the Argentine cities. Between 1816 and 1821, the city was led by local military leader General Martín Miguel de Güemes, who under the command of General José de San Martín, defended the city and surrounding area from Spanish forces coming from further north. Salta emerged from the War of Independence politically in disarray and financially bankrupt, a condition that lingered throughout much of the 19th century. However, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the arrival of Italian, Spanish and Arab immigrants, particularly Syrians and Lebanese, revived trade and agriculture all over the area while further enhancing the city's multicultural flavor.The city center features a number of impressive buildings dating back to the 18th and 19th and early 20th centuries. Clockwise around the Ninth of July Square are the neoclassical Cathedral, the French style Museum of Contemporary Art, the Cabildo (in former times, the city's town hall, nowadays a historical museum) and the neoclassical Museum of High Mountain Archeology, which houses artifacts from the Inca civilization, including the magnifically preserved mummies of three Inca children. The Plaza is almost completely surrounded by a gallery, and its beauty inspired a Chivas Regal TV ad, aired in 2004 Next stop was Cafayate. A town with about 12000 inhabitants that is famous for its wine. There are wine cellars everywhere. The town is pretty laid back. We spent the night on a dusty campground and took a tour of the town and the surrounding area with some famous rock formations (i.e. a frog...) before we moved on to Villa General Belgrano. This drive was the longest so far on our trip. It is over 600 miles from Cafayate to Belgrano. It was a long day but we take advantage of the longer days here in the south. The sunset is around 8.30 pm down here. Villa General Belgrano, a small mountain village of 6,260 inhabitants is named after the creator of the Argentine flag and located in a lush green valley of Calamuchita in the hills in the Province of Córdoba in central Argentina. Villa General Belgrano was founded in 1930, by two German speculators attracted by its agricultural potential. The Alpine quality of the village attracted immigrants from Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Austria. In 1940, after the Battle of the River Plate, German seaman scuttled and sunk their battleship, the Admiral Graf Spee off the coast of the Montevideo harbour, and 130 of its surviving sailors settled in the village along with the original settlers and landscaped the mountain ranges of Córdoba with red-roofed, wood-frame homes, microbrewerys and pastry and chocolate shops which gave it that unique style that distinguishes it today. The village, characterized by its typically Bavarian style architecture, survives on a steady flow of tourists with an appetite for German delicacies like apple strudel, leberwurst and spätzle and beer even if German cuisine recipes aren't strictly respected by local restaurants. Oktoberfest here is hailed as the third-most important Oktoberfest site after Munich and Blumenau in Brazil. The village offers an above-average (considering surrounding villages) quality of accommodations to the visitors in hotels and cabins, including a local Howard Johnson's. Newsstands sell the German language weekly, Argentinisches Tageblatt among other German newspapers, and the church offers Sunday services in German and Spanish. Like many isolated immigrant communities, Villa General Belgrano has respected traditions that fell out of favor in Germany long ago, however even though the mother tongue can still be heard, it's being lost in time We stayed for a week on the Campground "La Florida" owned by the two Germans Ralf and Bettina who came to Argentina "by accident and only with a bathing suit in their bag" sixteen years ago. We hoped that the German speaking mechanic would be able to fix our car. Unfortunately that was not the case. Turns out the guy is not that great as promised. We enjoyed our stay in Belgrano and liked the company of Ralf and Bettina. There where other travelers from Germany - considerably older than we - and we didn't really get along. We met so many travelers on this trip and we got along with everybody - but not with this crowd. One of the great experiences on this trip was the Gaucho Festival we visited near Belgrano. It was a Party from Gauchos for Gauchos and we were the only "Gringos" around which made the whole thing even better. It was great to see those proud men and women ride their horses and celebrate. FYI - a Gaucho is the pendant to the North American Cowboy. We also visited Cordoba, Argentina's second city,, but we were not overly impressed. In general you can tell that Argentina has much more problems with poverty and crime than its neighbor Chile. The country's inflation is unbelievable. Prices for Vegetables and meat rose 200% in the last year. Two years ago Ralf was able to buy three big bottles of Gas for 200 Pesos. Today he has to pay 300 Peso for one ! After a week it was time to move on. We drove a couple hundred miles to Mendoza. On March 2, 1561, Pedro del Castillo founded the city and named it Ciudad de Mendoza del Nuevo Valle de La Rioja after the governor of Chile, Don García Hurtado de Mendoza. Before the 1560s the area was populated by three tribes, the Huarpes, the Puelches, and the Incas. The Huarpes devised a system of irrigation that was later developed by the Spanish. This allowed for an increase in population that might not have otherwise occurred. The system is still evident today in the wide trenches that run along the city streets. It is estimated that fewer than 80 Spanish settlers lived in the area before 1600, but later prosperity increased due to the use of indigenous and slave labor, and the Jesuit present in the region. When nearby rivers were tapped as a source of irrigation in 1788 agricultural production increased. The extra revenues generated from this, and the ensuing additional trade with Buenos Aires, no doubt led to the creation of the state of Cuyo in 1813 with José de San Martín as governor. It was from Mendoza that San Martin organized the army with which he won the independence of Chile and Peru. Mendoza suffered a severe earthquake in 1861 that killed at least 5,000 people. The city was rebuilt, incorporating innovative urban designs that would better tolerate such seismic activity. Mendoza was rebuilt with large squares and wider streets and sidewalks than any other city in Argentina. Avenue Bartolomé Mitre and additional small squares are examples of that design. Tourism, wine production, and more recently the exploitation of hard commodities such as oil and uranium ensure Mendoza's status as a key regional center. Nicole wanted to visit one or several vineyards in Mendoza. But our timing was a little bit off. It was weekend and off season. Everything was closed. That's one of the disadvantages of traveling in the off season. But we will find other highlights later - I am sure. It is time for Chile, again. From Mendoza we drove to Portreillos where we spent the night at a secluded campground. Then we took the mountain road towards Chile. Shortly before the border with Chile at 10000 ft. is the small village of Puente del Inca. Puente del Inca or "The Inca's Bridge", is a natural arch that forms a bridge over the Vacas River. It is a pretty cool sight. Puente del Inca is also the name of the nearby hot springs. Scientists speculate that interaction of extreme elements like ice and hot springs was involved in the origin of the formation. They suppose that in ancient times ice covered the river and acted as support for avalanches of snow, dust and rocks. So the dust over the ice over the river would have served as a path for the sulfurous water and petrified the surface, so when the snow melted, the bridge remained by itself. Charles Darwin was one of the visitors to this natural marvel, and made some drawings of the bridge with great stalactites. In the early twentieth century there was a big thermal resort and Spa that used the hot springs to cure some illnesses (a spa still survives further down the river at Cacheuta). There was a train station that is still standing there, and tourists arrived by train to the resort. This was one of the last Argentine stations of the Transandine Railway before the train continued into Chile, traveling through a long tunnel under the Andes. A couple of miles after Puente del Inca is the Chilean Border and we had to deal with the fussy Chilean Customs Agents - again. I am still waiting for one of those guys to climb up to the Thule Box on the roof of the camper just to make sure we don't smuggle 500 lbs of contraband veggies.... The whole procedure was over faster than anticipated and after a little bit over an hour we were on our way to Santiago de Chile. Read the next reports on the page "Chile Reports"

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Frohe Weihnachten, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2011 !