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Travelblog Patagonia 2018 Chile Argentina English Text Page 1 This journey will touch both Chile and Argentina. Start is the city of Puerto Montt (1) in Chile where we simply end our flights to continue to Puerto Varas (2), followed by the waterfalls of Petrohue. This quick visit of Chile will end by crossing the Andes mountians for the first time via a mountain pass close to Entre Lagos. Villa la Angostura (3) in Argentina is the first city we will visit and use for a hike through the Bosque de Arrayanes situated on the peninsula of Quetrihue (4). Done this we will go up north to the city of San Martín de Los Andes (5). On our way we will pass by the so called „seven lakes“ area, we would like to explore a bit more. All dependent on the weather. Finally we shall see real and unique forests of Araukarias, we may see in the front yards of our neighbourhood. This part is the so called Switzerland of Argentina due to the similarity of the landscape. San Carlos de Bariloche (6) will be the next stop on this travel. It will be a short stay before we will head further south to the city of Esquel (7). Maybe we will have the chance to book a ride on the vintage train called „La Trochita“. For sure we will spend a whole da in the National Park „Los Alerces“. The following day we have to leave the Andes Cordillere to show up at the eastcoast of the continent. Trelew (8) and later Bahia Bustamante (9) will be the basis to spot some of the bustling birdlife. First and foremost we would like to see the famous Magellan-Penguins nesting and hopefully growing the chicks. Two days later we will cross the continent again to visit a famous location of pertified forests close to Sarmiento (10). After this we will most likely see the real Pampa, having a lunch stop at the town of Perito Moreno (11) and ending at the UNESCO world heritage site of Cuevas de los Manos (12). El Chaltén (14) and later El Calafate (15) will help us to enjoy the mountains in the most direct manner again. Several hikes will allow us to come very close to the famous peaks as Fitz Roy or Cerro Torre. In the southern part of this national park „Los Glaciares“ we shall gaze one of the last growing glaciers in the world. We hope that we have adequate weather conditions for both experiences. Back to Chile we long for a glaring hole in the clouds to get a glimpse of the alltime cloud hidden Torres del Paine (17) mountains. We hope for only a few minutes nice sunlight falling onto them. The most southers part of the South-American continent will be the last stage of this journey. Ushuaia (19) the southernmost city of the world will be our basis to enter into the National park „Tierra del Fuego“. Also here it is all dependent on the weather conditions which could be even harder than 300km further north but we expect to do walks in this park as well. Already on our way to Punta Arenas (the final stop of the journey) we will stop at Onaisin. This location hosts a fairly nice community of king penguins and we guess they are waiting for our visit. We already know that telecommunications infrastructure in both countries is not comparable with other parts of the world. We will visit places which will be cut off from every common infrastructure. Some of them will have electric power for only a few hours a day. All this means that this blog cannot be updated every day. However, we are very curious about this exciting destination hoping to be able to upload as many pictures and reports as possible. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ultimately arrived: After very long flights via Madrid/Santiago de Chile and Puerto Montt we arrived at real start of this journey: Puerto Varas. We have to recognis that the people there are very friendly and a pleasant ambience fills this little town. Maybe the „sandwich day“ between „Dia de Muertos“ and the weekend does its own task. The streets are full with people strolling around town or at the beachfront. Additionally there is a bike race around the Lago Llanquihue taking place this very weekend where the upbeat is performed by the final ceremonies of the „Carneval del Sur“. Many actors are very imaginatively costumed as flowers or animals presenting themselves on stage. Every step reminds us about the immigrants from Germany or German speaking countries becase of the names of Hotels, Bars Cafes. Also names of towns follow the nostalgia of those people. Unfortunately none of the persons we got in touch with reveals himself as German descendent. At the far end of the lake and covered by clouds we can only anticipate the existance of the perfect volcano Osorno. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- German words and terms are quite omnipresent. Firstly you may not think about it because it seems to be normal to you but after a while you will recognise that especially this particular word was NOT Spanish. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Endless amount of water: one may think by watching at the roaring and soaring waterfalls of Petrohué. These masses of water are the overflow of Lago Todo los Santos. We may think about all the saints spending their blessing to the area. From the background volcano Osorno is still overlooking the scenery in its own shape and appearance. On a lower niveau auf the lively waterfalls we could find a nice and calm – we may say idyllic – place a small waterfalls runs. All the scenery is surrounded by lush forest and bushes creating a nice contrast to the more rugged place upwards the stream. By leaving this more or less wild area we were reaching quickly rolling pasture land sprinkled with many farms. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Borders: in todays' Europe you are accustomed to cross country borders without any recognition. In most cases you will not see any remains of the old border buildings unless you knew them from the past. Here it is different. Especially between Chile and Argentina. Both countries are still in a certain crises condition. You may not see it by crossing the borders but you feel it personally when passing all the formal procedures for both countries. By entering Chile at the airport you received a printed bill you have to keep until leaving the country again. This is the Visa. We are simply not accustomed with this paperwork any more. Similar things happen by entering Argentina. Firstly the car will be checked about the number of passengers. At the next stop you have to queue at the immigration followed by customs (you have to declare the rented car on a special form). When all that was done you can proceed to the final booth where they collect your routing slip. Between both posts you are driving through no mans land. In this specific case it is exactly looking as such. Volcanic shaped mountains, remains of snow from the last winter, rough ice-cold wind is ripping through the geographical border at the hight of the pass Cardenal Antonio Samoré at app. 1300M elevation. Somewhere a rocky needle erects into the cloudy sky. It is the remain of a lava dome where the rest is already eroded. Just after the Argentina boder the landscape resumes its lush appearance. It becomes more quainted and greener. Also animals appear the scenery. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Villa la Angostura: is the first town you are reaching after the pass. It is the gateway to the National Park Nahuel Huapi surrounded by mountains and the sprawling lake Nahuel Huapi. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chocolate and Icecream are weets which could be consumed at any time of the year, under any conditions and by evreybody – touristst or domestic people. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Event in the rain: it could happen, that spring time is falling through but unless those conditions a planned event has to be started and continued. This happened at the long weekend. Many people took off that Friday used this time for travel or planned contests. Villa la Angostura arranged a Triathlon that very wekend. It contained a Kajak-regatta followed by a Mountainbike ride and finally a run. All very pleasant at 5 degrees Celcius, but participants (all ages) seemed to be prepared and had fun. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- … all observed by some onlookers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Quetrihue peninsula hosts a tiny National Park Los Arrayanes. This is a special kind of trees covering this area with a big number. Special character of those trees is the specific cinnamon like colour of the stems. Especially in direct sunlight they are glowing somehow surreal in shades of aellow/brown inside the green coloured forest. The lake itself is said having more than 50 shades of blue, but due to the rainy wheather we only saw max. three different colours.