Charmed by Uruguay

After our travels through Patagonia, Argentina, Lisa and I ended our trip with a short stay in Uruguay. There is much more to see in Argentina, of course, but we were trying to do an inexpensive trip and we discovered a South American Air Pass that provided significantly discounted flight tickets -- except that we had to visit at least two countries. Since Montevideo, Uruguay, is only a 40-minute flight from Buenos Aires, we decided to finish up with a few days in Uruguay in order to be able to use the airpass.

Besides, when else would we visit Uruguay, right? Well, actually, we really enjoyed our time in Uruguay. Montevideo was a smaller, faded, but more relaxed version of Buenos Aires. The food and the wine were as good, if not better. And the people were very welcoming. Even the taxi drivers.

We also hopped on a public bus one day for a two-hour trip to Colonia, Uruguay, and fell in love with this small town by the water. The old part of this colonial city has narrow, cobblestoned streets and is overflowing with flowers and friendliness. Here are some photos from Colonia:









All in all, we were thrilled with our two-week jaunt into Argentina and Uruguay, and are looking forward to future explorations of South America.

Standing at the edge of the world

Ushuaia, Argentina, bills itself as the southernmost city in the world. It is virtually an island within an island, as it sits at the southern tip of Tierra del Fuego, trapped between the Andes Mountains and the sea. The Pan-American highway ends (or begins) here, at the edge of the South American continent, just 600-700 miles from Antarctica. And if one were to set sail east or west in a boat from Ushuaia, you could travel all the way around the globe and not hit another piece of land until you returned to your starting point.

In fact, when we were on a plane to Ushuaia, the man sitting next to Lisa asked her, "Are you going to Antarctica?" (The city is the main port for Antarctic cruise ships.) Truly, there are not many places in the world where one would be asked that question.

Lisa and I arrived in Argentina when it was late springtime in the southern hemisphere. In Buenos Aires, the temperature was in the 80’s, flowers were blooming, and people walked the streets in shirtsleeves. In Ushuaia, it was a good 30 degrees cooler, with a chilly wind blowing down from newly fallen snow in the Andes.

Here is a picture of Ushuaia:



The writer Bruce Chatwin, whom I also quoted in the previous post, was here in the mid-1970’s, before tourism changed the local economy and before cruise ships began to leave regularly from here for Antarctica. This is how he described Ushuaia in his book, In Patagonia:

Mornings in Ushuaia began in flat calm. Across the Beagle Channel you saw the jagged outline of Hoste Island opposite and the Murray Narrows, leading down to the Horn archipelago. By mid-day the water was boiling and slavering and the far shore blocked by a wall of vapor.

On another day he wrote:

It was drizzling. Snow smears came down close to the shore. It was high summer. Behind the settlement the trees disappeared in the clouds.

While in Ushuaia, we visited Tierra del Fuego National Park and cruised the Beagle Channel. During our afternoon boat trip there, one of the more interesting stops was at an island inhabited by penguins. Here is a photo of three of them strolling along the beach.



As an interesting aside, the Beagle Channel was named for the ship that carried Charles Darwin on his famous voyage. The HMS Beagle came through here in the early 1800’s and the crew interacted with the local Yamana Indians before continuing on up the west coast of South America. Hence, this lonely settlement so far from the rest of the world played a bit part in Darwin’s observations that led to his theory of evolution.

Journeying through Patagonia

Argentina is too large of a country to explore in one trip, unless you have a couple of months, and so we decided to focus our efforts this time on Patagonia. The first place we visited after Buenos Aires was the town of El Calafate and nearby Glacier National Park.

The Patagonian landscape is something to behold. Spectacular and stark, dramatic and barren, all at the same time. While traveling here, I’ve been reading Bruce Chatwin’s famous travel narrative, In Patagonia, which is a worthwhile companion for any trip to this part of the world. Here is one example of how Chatwin describes the region:

The Patagonian desert is not a desert of sand or gravel, but a low thicket of grey-leaved thorns which give off a bitter smell when crushed. Unlike the deserts of Arabia it has not produced any dramatic excess of the spirit, but it does have a place in the record of human experience. Charles Darwin found its negative qualities irresistible. In summing up The Voyage of the Beagle, he tried, unsuccessfully, to explain why, more than any of the wonders he had seen, these arid wastes had taken such firm possession of his mind.

While in El Calafate, we experienced some of what Chatwin wrote about. On the Patagonian steppe, the land stretches vacantly for miles and the wind howls. The solitary homes of the local farms are all protected from the wind by rows of planted trees. Otherwise, there is little vegetation aside from grass. It’s an apt landscape for the southernmost region of the world.

The most popular attractions here are the glaciers. One day, we visited the nearby Puerto Moreno Glacier:





And on a second day we took a boat trip to five other glaciers. This experience included having a picnic lunch on the shores of Bonelli Lake, where there are floating icebergs.

Argentina and Buenos Aires

It had been more than a year since we returned from our round-the-world journey. It was time for a vacation and we had frequent flyer miles to spare, so we decided to explore a bit of South America. In conjunction with our trip, I decided to revive this blog, keeping the account of our 2005 travels and adding to it with posts and photos from our newest adventure.

With only two weeks available there wasn't time for any extensive journeying, but we were able to carve together a trip, mostly to Argentina, that included a week in Patagonia. First on the agenda was a stop in Buenos Aires.

The capital of Argentina is an entrancing city in many ways. With wide boulevards and cafes on many corners, the city is similar to some of the major cities of Europe. Argentines also love to eat, and the wine is excellent, so it seemed at times as if we'd stumbled into Italy or Spain by accident.

After an overnight flight from Arizona, we spent a couple of days just wandering the streets of Buenos Aires, admiring the architecture and the springtime flowers, enjoying the food, and of course taking in the tango shows. If there is one overriding symbol of the city, it has to be this sensual dance. There are tango shows everywhere, even on street corners and plazas.

Here are two tango dancers in a square in the San Telmo section of the city: