South America Sabbatical

After our amazing two months in Argentina and Chile, we have returned to Buenos Aires on our way north to Brazil. We enjoy some quiet days at a hotel in the Palermo Soho neighborhood where there are lots of cafés on beautiful treelined streets.

Amy has quickly returned to form and you can see how delighted she is to discover the neighborhood origami store. Palermo Soho is where creative Buenos Aires retail shops appear, so Rob is professionally obligated to take note of a few of these.

We spend one of our days on the Paraná River delta where residents of Buenos Aires spend their leisure time at river houses that can be reached only by boat.

The Paraná River empties into the Rio de la Plata, separating Argentina from Uruguay. Enormous quantities of water flow south from Brazil into this fresh water river that is so wide you cannot see across its width.

Continuing with our theme of visiting by boat, we catch a ferry to Colonia, a small city across the Rio de la Plata in Uruguay. Colonia was built during the colonial era and is now preserved as a World Heritage Site.

Mendoza, the fourth largest city in Argentina is the country's center of wine production and is also known for its food and art culture. Located just below the Andes, the views and weather make a dramatic settling for the vineyards surrounding the city. We could spend a week visiting all of the wineries here, but we have to limit our visits to three.

The highlight of our visit is our lunch at Ruca Malen where the chef serves us by far the best meal we have had in South America. This meal, the view of the Andes and the Malbec make for a near perfect afternoon.

Our visit to Mendoza also includes time to visit the studios of some local artists who graciously show us their work and some horseback riding in the foothills of the Andes.

The history of Mendoza is fascinating. Located in a desert, the city is irrigated by an extensive grid of canals that line both sides of virtually every street. This system was originated by the indigenous populations and expanded by the Spanish beginning in the 16th century. This results in a very lush environment of many parks and plazas and beautiful treelined streets.

This week in Mendoza is the grape harvest festival and the local regions each have nominated a candidate for queen. This generates incredible excitement and the city is filled with advertisements for each of the candidates and there are fireworks at night. Unfortunately, we have to move on before hearing the results of the elections.

The Cruce de Lagos is a route through the Andes from Puerto Montt, Chile to Bariloche, Argentina by way of several mountain lakes connected by backcountry roads. We elected to take two days to make the crossing, spending a day and night at Peulla, a resort hotel built 80 years ago. The first crossing, at Lago Todos de los Santos, provides spectacular views of mountains and volcanoes, of which there are over 2,000 in Chile.

These mountains were formed by glaciers that created long narrow lakes and valleys with steep sides. Peulla and Todos de los Santos are under 2,000 feet in elevation, so the temperature is warm and we are unusually lucky to have no rain. Amy the gaucha rides the horses again and the rest of us take a long kayak paddle up the Rio Negro where we see absolutely no other humans. It is difficult to believe that places like this still exist.

As we enter Argentina, we climb higher into the mountains and the lakes become glacial - the water is the color of melted glacial ice. The landscape becomes more dramatic as the valleys and gorges become steeper and narrower. The forests have trees with shapes, textures and colors unlike those of North America.

On the eastern side of the Andes, we enter the huge Nahuel Huapi National Park and sail across the lake of the same name to reach Bariloche, Argentina´s destination for mountain recreation. We hike and then continue on to the smaller town of San Martin de los Andes where the pace is much slower and we discover Quila Quina National Park and its more deserted beaches. Accessible by boat from the town (one of two boats on a lake that is the length of Lake Tahoe), we have found a mountain paradise.

We have arrived in Patagonia, beginning our visit in the south of Argentina. El Calafate is on the "Patagonian Steppes," a near desert on the eastern side of the Andes. There are incredibly vast open spaces, huge rivers and lakes and incredible views to the mountains when the weather cooperates.

Because of the inclement weather on the western coast of this tip of the continent, the Andes are topped by the Patagonian Ice Sheet and huge glaciers spill down both sides. We visited the Perito Moreno Glaciers, one of the only (or maybe the only) glaciers that is growing. We put on crampons and took a hike on the ice..yes, Amy did it too.

North of El Calafate is the town of El Chaltén, devoted very nearly exclusively to hiking and climbing. Dave, Larry and I took a day-long excursion into the hills for a taste of the backcountry and some inspiring vistas of the Fitz Roy ridge.

We have enjoyed three days of hiking at Iguazú Falls, located at the very northeast corner of Argentina. The falls are enormous, made up of over 300 waterfalls where the Iguazú River flows from the Brazilian jungle. This is a spectacular sight in a beautiful rainforest setting.

Larry May who is a friend from many years ago joined us at the Buenos Aires airport and will be with us through our Patagonia travels. For another perspective, his trip can be viewed at http://web.mac.com/thanksdna

It is much hotter and more humid here than in Buenos Aires. Hiking trails lead above, below and among the many falls and various boats navigate the river and falls. It is an absolutely amazing national park. Amy has spotted blue morpho butterflies and we finally encounter a pair of toucans in the trees on our last morning here.

The falls are shaped in an assymetrical "U", with the longest extent along the Argentine side. The bottom of the U is the Garganta del Diablo ("Devil´s Throat") which separates Brazil from Argentina.