After 2 weeks of extreme relaxation with Sugs and Kev on the North Island (and with Sheetal trotting around New Zealands South Island with Nina) it was time for us to reunite and head into the final vast chapter of our joourney - South America. We were really looking forward to it cos neiher of us had been there before.
Oyr 1st stop was Santiago de Chile. The airport was ultra modern and within minutes we were being whisked to downtown Santiago. This place looks like any other large modern european city, but with year round sunshine and with the huge Andes mountain range as a backdrop. Within 12 hours we were on a plane to near the Southern most tip of Patagonia, Punta Arenas. This place was COLD, the most cold we had had since the Himalayas in Pakistan. Battered, weathered metal rooved houses lined the streets, which all looked the same against the ever present grey sky. The next few days were spent sorting out what we would be doing in Patagonia, and sampling numerous Pisco Sours, that potent cocktail that Chile is famous for.
We booked ourselves passage on Mare Australis, which would take us the the southernmost part of the world, Cape Horn. It started from Ushuaia, Argentina, cruised through the Magellan Strait, and back to Punta Arenas over 4 days. The open bar was fully utilized. We would be takem on little motor boats from the ship to the bottom of towering glaciers amd islands. Huge chunks of ice would fall into the fjords, and we were surrounded by icebergs. Being only about 80 miles from Antarctica, the climate here was extreme, no rain fell; only ice. The fjords were magnificent and we were given various lectures on the regions discovery and geology. We also saw a vast colony of penguins, over 3 foot tall.
The 4 days on the boat past quicly and befroe we knew it we were back on land, trekking in the pristine Torres del Paine mountains in Patagonia. We were 2 small dots in the towering, vast landscape, carrying on our backs sleeping bags, water and food for 4 days. staring at glaciers soaring into the horizon, seeing all shades of blure in the ice and the sky and the beautiful lakes was awe inspiring.
after the trek, we made our way back to Argentina to check out Moreno Glacier, the largest advancing glacier in the world. The vastness of the glacier could only be appreciated from 10-12 miles away, the two vast faces of the glacier (north and west) merging to form this huge block of ice, stretching high into and between the mountains out of sight. As we approched the glacier in the bus, we could see little chunks of ice breaking off the glacier and silently disappearing into the lake below. It was not until we were immediately facing the wall of ice that we could see that these "small" pieces of ice were instead 10 ton blocks crashing into the blue green abyss with a thundering roar. The glacier would creak uncontrollably then another roar would be heard, to be repeated every few minutes.
The following day we got back to Punta Arenas and flew to Santiago. Desperatley hungry for some decent food, we succesfully searched for the Hare Krishna mandir in Samtiago, and were treated to a nice meal (very hard to obtain here in South America).
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