First stop: Buenos Aires, a city you really need some time for - visiting the different areas of the city (colorful La Boca, atmospheric San Telmo), night out in Palermo, attending a tango show or just enjoying the great Argentinean BBQ ("parillada"). We did it all and had a wonderful time in a great city!
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| Beautiful but dangerous "La Boca"... |
When exploring the city by bike with my girlfriend, who was just visiting, we took a wrong turn and found out why La Boca does not only have the reputation of being a nice tourist area, but also of being one of the most dangerous places - we were threatened and mugged by two guys who were suddenly standing behind us. They took one of our bikes and all our belongings. Luckily they did neither harm us nor take anything important. Shit happens!
Next stop was Salta up in the north, a colonial town with a friendly atmosphere and surrounded by the Andes. At the time of our stay, the Rallye Dakar was just passing Salta, and we also got to see some of the impressive rallye trucks.
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| Colorful mountains in Salta region |
Shortly leaving Argentina, we went to Iguazu and stayed at the Brazilian site of the waterfalls, where we had more meat than I ever had in my life. Brazilian all-you-can-eat BBQs are not exactly, what I would call healthy, but so good! The falls (on both sites of the border) were one of the highlights during our time in South America and absolutely breathtaking!
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| Iguazu waterfalls |
On our way back to Buenos Aires, we stopped in Cordoba, a nice student city with the flair of Che Guevara having lived close-by in the mountains (in Alta Gracia for his asthma) during his childhood.
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| Little Che |
From Buenos Aires, we had a flight to the "End of the World", the Southern most city of the world - Ushuaia. At our arrival, the temperature was 6ºC, and all mountains surrounding Ushuaia were covered with snow. This explains why Ushuaia had in the past more prisoners in the local prison than people living there. Day trips to penguin and sea lion colonies, hiking in a beautiful national park and a lot of other activities attract nowadays more and more travelers, so the city is booming and the prison a museum now.
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| Penguins at the end of the world |
In many parts of Patagonia, the local forests are endangered by an increasing number of beavers. The interesting point is that the beaver was not a local animal in the past, but was brought there by people who had planned to sell the beaver furs. The plans failed, but the beaver stayed without a natural predator down there in the deep south.
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| Dangerous creature... |
On the way back up north, we stopped in El Calafate from where we made a day trip to the giant 60m-high Perito Moreno glacier. You can see chunks of ice bigger than houses breaking off and dropping into the water causing tremendous noise. Very impressive!
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| Gigantic glacier near El Calafate |
Before crossing the border to Chile, our last stop in Argentina was Bariloche. Visitors from all over South America come here to ski in the winter and to enjoy the beautiful landscape in the summer. It is sure a beautiful region and very different from the busy streets of Buenos Aires.
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| Beautiful landscape in Bariloche |
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