Don't Cry for Me, Argentina

For us, the term "Wild Goose" means a wandering spirit and a lust for travel. It is that spirit that led us to travel aboard our boat Wild Goose and to continue to trek about the earth after we moved to Sisters.

Argentina is a BIG country@

Our latest trip was to Argentina. We spent almost six-weeks there traveling from Buenos Aries to Cape Horn, through the southern Chilean archipelago and along the wild Patagonian spine.

Here's a link to a short slideshow of our trip.

Most of our travels within the country were via the excellent Argentina bus system. The buses are spacious with seats reclining for sleeping and they serve food and beverages. However, since less than 25% of Argentina's roads are paved, it often means some very long bus rides to get to a short overland distance.  Oh well, it's part of the adventure and we actually enjoyed the view on the long trips (one was 37 hours-honestly!).

Juan & Eva "Evita" Peron

We landed in Buenos Aires, one of the 20 largest cities in the world and the capital of Argentina. The residents of Buenos Aires are known as portenos and they love tango, Evita, strong coffee, beef and beautiful clothes. We must have walked a hundred miles touring the city and even learned their (very crowded) subway system.

Behind us is the infamous
Beagle Channel

Cape Horn

From Buenos Aires, we flew to Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world. It's located at the edge of the Beagle Channel, a strait on the archipelago island chain of Tierro del Fuego. We could feel the presence of Charles Darwin and Captain FitzRoy on the bow of the HMS Beagle slowly surveying the coast of South America. We hopped onto a lovely Chilean ship, Australis, and began a cruise along the Chilean archipelago for four days. The highlight had to be the opportunity to take a small boat and land on Cape Horn. The weather is very unpredictable (after all, it is Fin del Mundo-the end of the world). Walking on this island overlooking the Drake Channel and knowing that clipper ships and square-riggers beat their way around this point (many still lie on the bottom there) was a lifetime bucket list thrill.

So cuddly!

From the ship, we made another thrilling excursion. Within the Straits of Magellan lies Magdalena Island one of the largest breeding sites of Magellan penguins. Imagine walking amongst 100,000 nesting little penguins. No, it didn't smell. Yes, they would walk right up to you. They were so cute. I wanted to cuddle one but we weren't allowed to touch them.





We traveled a bit in Chile going to the world renowned Torres del Paine National Park and Los Glaciares National Park. Chile is striving to have more national parks than any other nation in the world and their parks are wonderful, varied and well-kept.

Mark looking back at Mt. FitzRoy

Back into Argentina to travel along the southern spine of the Andes called Patagonia. Patagonia is an area shared by Chile and Argentina and has the most dramatic scenery and wildest wind I've ever seen. We spent several days the great little mountain town of El Chalten. Thousands of trekkers come here every summer to explore the many trails and hike to the base of Mt. FitzRoy. We did the hike to the base of FitzRoy, saw a massive avalanche into a mountain lake and met people from all over the world. This is a place I would highly recommend anyone add to their list if visiting Argentina.

My beautiful rainbow trout!
I released it back to its home.

Then onto Bariloche in the Lake District of Argentina. There are over 20 lakes and a plethora of rivers and streams in this area with world-class fly-fishing. We did a lot of fishing often times fighting with the wind more than a big fish. But, it was fun, an adventure and we met some new friends along the way.





We traveled Argentina in what I call a trekking mode meaning we had no checked luggage (only a backpack) and no prior plans other than a place to stay when we landed in Buenos Aires. The country is safe, you can drink the tap water and WiFi is available everywhere. Do be aware that Argentina has had a 50% inflation rate in recent years, so traveling there, while not overtly expensive, it's not cheap either. We used the Lonely Planet Argentina guide and found it to be an excellent source of information.

Let me know if you have any questions about traveling in Argentina. If you like this blog, please feel free to post it to your Facebook page and post a comment below.

Salud!