From quiet backwater Patagonian towns to the hustle of Buenos Aires... The city is amazing! This is "Caminito" the most touristy part of the whole city. It sits within the rough neighbourhood of La Boca (this will mean something to international soccer fans - it's the home of the most famous BA team). Julie met me in the city & we covered many urban miles each day - shopping, sightseeing & soaking up the sun! 

LOOK OUT FOR THE TRAFFIC!!! Yeah, El Chalten was abuzz...  

Camp kitchen. Yes, it's all glamour and skittles on the trail. Most of the sites had no tables, so you had to find a relatively level spot and set up the little stove, wind guard, fuel bottle - then wait for the "primus inferno" to calm (this stove had a terrible "pre-heat" cycle which consisted of about two minutes of three-foot-high flames. Pretty impressive.). So then you drool as the water slowly heats to boiling for your large dish of instant mashed potatoes. To be fair, Lu and I ate really well on the trail. We added yummy condiments n' stuff to our mash!  

This was our goal from El Chalten: The Cerro Torre. Apparently, it's a really challenging climb. Huh...wonder why? 

I got a kiss from a wandering guanaco (WAN-uh-ko, related to the llama) on the way to El Chalten. So much for anti-habituation! No, I did not feed it, for those of you Parkies who might balk at this behaviour...This animal was so domesticated, it was actually begging to be let into the cafe! People fed this baby guanaco tidbits of things it probably shouldn't have been eating. I had no idea where the rest of the herd was - it seemed like this little one had been abandoned, and was living in harmony with the other animals on the property: a German Shepherd dog, a brown and white calf, assorted chickens and a grey cat.  

One of the most haunting experiences of my time in Argentina was an impromptu visit inside this defunct Casa Grande (the "big house" of an estancia or ranch). This was the only photo I took of the house - any more would have felt intrusive & disrespectful to it's history. The house had been unoccupied since the early 1980s, but everything was just left inside. Patagonia was a prosperous area around 1905, when Estancia Bon Accord was founded, and the ranch boasted the first short-wave radio in the district when they became available. It was a hub of life around El Calafate, and close to 100 people lived in and around the activities of the ranch. The big house hosted dances and parties. Now, it sits, filled with treasures collecting dust. I itched to give it all a shine and set the place up as an interpretive centre. The ingredients were all there - they just needed a nudge. I guess when I make my million dollars and perfect my Spanish, I can go back & put my plan into action... 

This was a real gaucho! (batteries and brandy not included) Gustavo (or Chavon, as most called him) took us for a bum-jolting day-long ride across the scrub-lands to the Estancia Bon Accord. This was our lunch stop. There wasn't much chat while we were riding, but when he pulled out the booze at lunch, we knew we'd get along! 

These dashing young men were demonstrating some local folk dances and songs in a public square in El Calafate. Their costumes are a slightly more showy version of the gaucho's attire.  

It's pretty easy to come to this conclusion: "Patagonia is spiky." Nearly every thing that grows on the arid pampas has spines, thorns, needles or is just downright prickly in some way. The foreground of this picture features the ubiquitous Calafate bush. Legend has it that if you consume the Calafate berries, you are destined to return to Patagonia. I don't know if I needed magic to entice me back. Aside from the inhospitable plant life, I found southern Argentina to be exactly the kind of place you'd want to revisit. 

We had been suffering Nescafe Instant coffee for a month in Chile. This was our first morning in Argentina, and the hotel was a bed and breakfast deal. Joy of joys, the man in the background came out with a piping hot carafe of BREWED COFFEE!!! and some hot milk to go with it. Heaven... Well, the hotel kinda sucked in other respects, plus it was an hour's hike from downtown after the tourist info girl had assured us that it was "not far." Hiking over an hour with your pack is nothing, if you are expecting to do so. Hiking through town with a full pack and an empty belly, plus a full bladder when you have no Argentine cash for a taxi and no bloody idea why the hotel is not where they said it was on the map is quite another thing. Two blessings in disguise came out of that trauma, though. Lua and I enjoyed an exquisite meal at a restaurant very near to our (eventually found) hotel, and we got real brewed coffee in the morning. We liked Argentina immediately. 

This was our welcome to El Calafate - a frontier town in Patagonian Argentina. Horses are still a way of life here, and the Gauchos (cowboys) roam the pampas to care for the wandering sheep and kill lurking pumas.  

The border crossing to Argentina. The photo makes it look like a town. These three were the only buildings for miles around. Must be a lonely post for the crossing guards. Nothing around you but rolling pampas (grassland) and the occasional guanaco. (Don't know what a guanaco is? Stay tuned...) 

We celebrated the circuit properly, with a big dinner of fresh veggies at a fantastic restaurant in Puerto Natales - El Living. Julie was on the road to recovery from her flu, and Lu and I were about to hop town for more adventures. 

Never trust "pie" in Chile - at least not in Puerto Natales. After 11 days on the trail, Lu and I were easily lured into a cafe promising espresso coffee concoctions and strawberry-apple-rhubarb pie. Talk about false advertising! If it hadn't been for the intervention of a shaving of apple and rhubarb, the top and bottom crusts of this pastry would have met. Be warned, friends... Pie is not always pie.  

After 11 days on the trail, we still looked hot... 

Wringing out socks from a dip in the drink... The night that we were camped at the base of the towers was filled with torrential rain. That made the river across the trail back to civilization swell from a boisterous creek to a raging torrent. In the process of placing logs across a particularly tricky section, I went in up to my thigh. Fortunately, I wasn't wearing my pack, and I was able to stay on the log & get back to shore. One boot was thoroughly soaked, so I had to finish the last two hours of our momentous hike in my sandals. 

That's what it's all about. Getting up at dawn to see first light on the Torres del Paine, and noshing on chocolate for breakfast. This bar was Julie's Celebration Chocolate, given to Lu and I when she left. See, Julie didn't make it to this event - she was struck by a bad flu after our toast to the completion of the circut, and she took the bus back into town to recover. The flu had nothing to do with the beer, honest! Hey, Ju - thanks for the chocky!!!  

Beer never tasted so good. We'd made it to the Hosteria Las Torres - right back where we'd started. That meant we'd done the circuit, right? Oh, if it had only been that easy... 

Feelin' like a champion after a quick dash up 500 vertical metres of trail (without our heavy packs!) to view Valle de Frances. The wind was completely insane, and glaciers were thundering down all around us. Wow. 

Good equipment can make life on the trail so much more enjoyable. By day 7, we felt that a little homage to our Therma-Rests was in order. We love them. We love them. We love them. Oh, yeah, the tent was pretty good too.