Estero de Iberá, Argentina - May 3-6

Toward the northern border of Argentina, these wetlands have more crocodiles, birds and "carpinchos" (the world's largest rodent) than you can shake two or three sticks at!!!  It was all great, but the crocodiles really caught my interest!  Sadly, my pictures of baby crocodiles didn't turn out, but it was super cool seeing them!

You gotta love a bird named Southern Screamer!  Being protective of their babies, this mom and dad let us know why they got their name, too!

A relative of the guinea pig among other rodents, these gus can weigh 60 kg.  I thought the definition of rodent included 'small'.

We took a 10+ hour overnight bus, then a bumpy gravel road for 3 hours to get there.  This place hasn't hit the main tourist circuit yet, which makes it even better.  There are a handful of very decent places to stay but we opted for the very nicely situated campground, right on the water, right in site of crocodiles.  I decided to believe that they don't hurt humans, or I wouldn't have been able to sleep.  And, of course, yet another dog befriended us at the campsite.  Even though we never fed him.  This dog had a collar which means he has a home, so I am happy.

There are boat tours that get you close and personal and you can go out in canoes which feels even closer...

There is a pet fox at the ranger station, a trail where monkeys are often seen, very tame deer walking around.....

Might be hard to see the dad in the tree here, but...  We got to see a family of howler monkeys playing around in the trees.

 
Most people retrace their steps to get back to civilization.  But for anyone who can't stand going back the same way, there is the option to continue on what becomes an even worse road going north.  Guess which way we went!?

Colonia, Uruguay - Apr 19-28

 Just to get a bit of a taste of Uruguay, we took the ferry from Buenos Aires across the Rio de la Plata to Colonia, Uruguay and spent a bit over a week there.  Colonia being so close to Buenos Aires, was a smuggling port town back in the day.  The country of Uruguay is minute in comparison to Brazil and Argentina -- the two countries it had to fight off to become independent.  This smallish city (population ~22,000) is a draw because of its historic quarter in a pleasant setting.  Anyone wanting bite-sized museums, this is the place!

The engineer studying the restoration of the city wall and door.

Something we have noticed over and over in SA is that the rivers are often quite brown.  The Rio de la Plata is huge -- you barely can see across it and it is brown.  That is a lot of erosion going on up river!

Part of the historic center with the light house in the background.

Unlucky for the one who put up the money for this bull fighting ring, Uruguay outlawed the sport only 8 fights after completion of the stadium.

From our experience most kids in SA wear uniforms to school.  The variation to that in Uruguay is that both guys and girls wear a white coat over their own clothes.  Given my background in hospital and labs, at first it looked like kids playing "adult".

We camped a couple kilometers out of town and rented clunker bikes to get back and forth.  There was wifi available in the mall, at the tourist information center, at a restaurant on the river beach and in the main plaza...  kinda crazy. 

Single speed clunkers - did the job!

A fellow camper - Gian Carlos is a traveling artesan.  We had a couple meals together at the campsite.

A moped rental one day made for some fun riding around the countryside -- lots of pastures for cattle and fields of corn!

Buenos Aires (Apr 11-19) and Rosario, Argentina (Apr 28-May 3)

The Casa Rosada (the Pink House) - residence and workplace of the Argentinian president.

A few days before flying from Ushuaia to Buenos Aires, Argentina, I started to prepare myself mentally for the switch to a metropolis of 13+ million.  Good thing!  As it was, I had a tough time with the concrete, pollution and noise.  However, after several days it became obvious that there is some green to be found, some really lovely neighborhoods, and - certainly - plenty of impressive architecture.

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There is an incredible amount of impressive architecture and marble sculpture work at La Recoleta cemetery.

Most of the city buses seem to be these old refurbished buses - cool looking, if a bit rickety on the inside.

As expected...  both....

Downtown Buenos Aires. This was on a bike ride in the nature preserve along the restored river front area.

Some in Argentina have the opinion that Rosario, about 4 hours from Buenos Aires, is more beautiful than the capital.  For anyone liking a smaller city (just over 1 million), it is an easy choice.  There are many tree lined streets, a river where the parks fill with families drinking mate (tea), skating, strolling or playing fútbol.  This is the birth town for both Che Guevara and Lionel Messi, but for us the huge draw was our friend, Leo, who lived in Portland for a couple of years and whom we played soccer with.  His incredibly gracious family treated us like royalty.  It was great to see Leo and his family again, to spend a day on their farm, and to see how life off the hostal track and in a real home is like. 

With Leo at the Monumento a la Bandera (monument to the flag).

The farm had lots of things to entertain Duane's engineer-brain, including this ~70 year old windmill/well that still provides water.  Even my non-mechanical brain was intrigued and impressed.

Apparently there is a breed of sheep where the males have tails!

One of the family & friends fútbol games with a Messi fan, of course.  It is nice to see some girls involved!

At Leo's family's home - Mari, Duane, Celeste, Verna, Leo, Alfonso, Laura.

It really was the perfect time in our trip to see familiar faces!  We certainly hope that Leo's family will let us return the favor sometime in Portland!

The "end" of the world - Chile and Argentina - Mar 29-Apr 11

The view out the ferry window the morning we arrived in Puerto Williams, Chile.

Both countries claim they have the most southern city on the planet.  It apparently comes down to your definition of city.  Puerto Williams, Chile sure seems like a city to me and it is on the southern side of the Beagle Channel.  We thoroughly enjoyed the owner of our hostal - Cecilia!  We overlapped with a brother and sister from Switzerland.  The first night we were there, we had cooked some food for dinner and Cecilia arrived with a HUGE king crab.  So we all shared both our food and the giant crab.

Cecilia, Sybil, Yogi, me - and the remains of a King Crab, etc.

Typical house with the typical wood supply for heating.

Looking out over the Beagle Channel with the ferry that we took from Punta Arenas.

One of the more colorful abandoned boats.

We set out on a 4 day loop to Lago Windhond with decent weather forecasted until day 5 when snow would hit.  We had to borrow boots due to the swampy nature of the area.  When we tried them on we both knew they were bigger than what we normally wear (they were in european sizing).  Come to find out, I was wearing size 10 when I usually wear size 7.  Let's just say that both of us would recommend not being overly optimistic about how much thick socks will do with oversized boots!    

Destination Day 1:  Lage del Salto with Los Dientes del Navarino in the background.

Day 2:  Beautiful, however... this is right before the wrong turn which led to the extra day...

Parts of days 2,3,4 involved walking on a lot of peat bog -- crazy stuff.

Day 4:  A tiny spot in the trees - trying to stay out of the wind.

Day 5:  It snowed 4+ inches.  In the end it made for a good adventure and was beautiful.  Here Duane is formulating a sentence in Spanish.  This was before it got difficult to find the trail.

The beaver action - in the foreground made for some rough going.  On the other hand, loved the combination of the snow and the red fall colors up further on the mountains.

This is the view across the Beagle Channel toward Ushuaia, Argentina where we took the boat over.  That is fresh snow - winter is definitely on the way!

With just 3 or so days in Ushuaia, Argentina we didn't get to know the area all that well.  It definitely is a much larger city and a more popular tourist destination than Puerto Williams. One of the most striking things is that the Falkland Island war of 1982 is still very much on the minds of the people...

Argentina is still wanting to claim the Falk Islands as their land.  They are called Las Malvinas here and there is no shortage of graffiti telling the British to get out.  With the 30th anniversary of the war with Britain, there is also new plaza dedicated to the memory of soldiers, etc.

From here our next stop would be, Buenos Aires.  Although sad to leave Patagonia, I was happy to be going in the direction of warmer weather.