Eden and Josh

After our chilly, but beautiful trek in Bariloche, we were thrilled to arrive in Mendoza where it was glorious t-shirtweather! We knew we were going to love Mendoza because on the 13 hour bus ride to the city, the bus attendant had all passengers play a game of BINGO and Josh won a bottle of delicious, red wine from Mendoza. Good thing we've been practicing our Spanish numbers!

The small city was quite charming. It had been destroyed by an earthquake about 100 years ago so as a result, the new city was built with wide, tree-lined boulevards to protect the streets should there be another quake. These spacious, shady streets made Mendoza a real pleasure to stroll around. Josh was also pleased to find food prices -especially ice-cream prices- to be lower than in Patagonia. We spent a lot of time there, sitting in outdoor cafes and people watching. We also took a tour to some near-by towns, a natural bridge made from hot spring sulfur, the base of Mt. Aconcagua (the highest mountain outside of Asia) and "El Cristo" -a Christ statue erected on the border between Chile and Argentina at 4300 m. The highlight of our time in Mendoza, however, was touring the bodegas (wineries). Josh and I, and two friends we made, rented bicycles and spent a glorious day biking from one bodega to the next. Some were very old fashioned where most processes were done by hand, others were modern and completely mechanised. ALL had delicious wine to taste. Our unanimous decision was that we enjoyed the "Malbec" varieties the best. Luckily, we were all able to bike home tipsy even though our bicycles were on their last legs and difficult to ride even when completely sober!

On to Cordoba! ...after another wonderful over-night bus ride, of course. Cordoba is a large city but still has a charming downtown with pedestrian streets and of course, a large town square. Josh couldn´t believe his eyes when he saw you could buy 1/2 Kg of delicious ice-cream for 7 pesos (about $2.50). Needless to say, I had a hard time convincing him that ice-cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner was a bad idea. Plus, at this point, since we haven't been trekking in a while, out pants are getting a little tight in the waist! Besides enjoying the city of Cordoba, we also visited near-by Alta Gracia. This town is famous for being a former Jesuit settlement where they ran a huge ranch and grist mills while converting the masses. It is also famous because "Che" Guevara lived there for a time as a child and his former home has been turned into a museum. Both sites were very interesting to tour. Che was a lot chubbier than the usual picture you see of him!

So we headed back to Argentina to finish our time in Patagonia with two final treks. The first was a 3-day one outside of El Bolson that we completed in two days, and the other was a 3-day trek around Cerro Catedral near Bariloche. Both treks were superb and had brilliant fall colours. The one in Bolson had several rickety bridges, and due to the condition of one, required us to ford a knee-deep river! Cold, strong, and not one I´d cross twice.

From Bariloche we headed up to Mendoza, wine country. Sitting in the warm sun we were able to count up some of the stats from our time in Patagonia. They are as follows:

Lodging:

Tent - 54 night (25 free)
Hostel - 29 night
Boat - 13 night
Bus - 1 night

Trekking:

Total km - 605
Total days - 41
avg km/day - 15
avg calories/km - 100
avg calories/km when hiking uphill - 150

Top 3 views: Ushuaia and Cordilla Beagle from the top of Cerro Guanaco in Tierra del Fuego National Park, Glacier Gray from the top of John Garner pass in Torres del Paine National Park, Cerro Castillo.

Hardest day: day 2 of Sierra Valdivieso. 11 hrs, 3 mountain ¨passes¨, no marked trail (Thank God for 16 hrs of sunlight).

Longest day: day 2 of Torres del Paine Circuit. 30km.

Temporary addictions:
Empanadas - like pizza pockets but stuffed with ham&cheese, beef, or chicken
Dulce de Leche - caramelized sweetened condensed milk
Helado - ice cream
Pancho - hot dogs with excellent toppings
Churrasco - thinly sliced steak sandwiches (best with cheese, guacamole, and chili sauce)

It´s been a while since the last update so I´ll try to keep this short and up to where we are now. Also, I used up all of the photo storage for the month here so more photos are on Flickr.

In the tiny town of El Chalten we did a 4.5 day trek around the jagged mountain peaks of Cerro Torre and the Fitz Roy massiff. These two peaks are highly prized mountaineering peaks and until somewhat recently the Cerro Torre was believed to be unclimbable. The Fitz Roy was named after the French captain of the Beagle and the first European to see it was Charles Darwin.

We decided to save our ice trek/climb for Chalten since it was the better (and cheaper) location to do it in compared to Torres del Paine and Calafate. I should get some photos of this up on Flickr.

Camping at the first camp near Cerro Torre was horrible. We were warned the first night that there were mice but nothing would have prepared us for it. They were climbing all over our tent chewing ANYTHING plastic. Basically we stayed up all night hitting the tent to knock them off. Not very enjoyable.

The trek itself was excellent and not nearly as long as our Torres itinerary.

March 7 we arrived in El Calafate and plan to visit the famed 25-km long Perito Moreno glaciar tomorrow. This glaciar is considered stable and is advancing at approximately 2m/day. It calves in spectacular fashion regularly. We hope to get wet! (Not quite... we´ll be quite far away).

After Antarctica, we returned to our campsite in Ushuaia and prepared for the next trek. The following day, Feb 19, we hired a taxi to the Valdivieso trailhead to begin a challenging 4-day journey.

The largely unmarked trail passes through two wild valleys and a number of difficult mountain ¨passes.¨ The passes were almost as high as the peaks themselves.

Some of the sites included peat bogs and moors, beaver dams, meandering rivers, glaciated peaks, alpine valleys, azure-blue lagoons, Fuegian beech forests, and soaring Andean condors.

The difficult hike was a highlight of our trip so far, except for our encounter with an extremely viscious dog at the end.