November started off well, when my mum arrived in Buenos Aires on the first, her first time in Argentina. We spent four whirlwind days in the capital city seeing all the most important sites and spending some time with the rest of the BA family. On the fifth we set out for Puerto Iguazu, a border town on the edge of Parque Nacional de Iguazu, the second largest waterfalls in the world. We spent two days hiking through jungles and treetop walkways seeing the multiple waterfalls and a little of the local wildlife. It was really a one of a kind experience, and a truly unique piece of argentina. I, the girl who can eat anything, actually got sick in Iguazu and after we lost two days of travel, we headed straight for Cordoba, which I was happy to visit again.
On the 13th we arrived in Mendoza, Argentina's wine capital. We actually stayed in a suburb called Chacras de Coria, because it was closer to the vineyards, and the next morning we took a really special tour with a company called Adventure Wines to four wineries. Over the course of the day we sampled 20 wines and at one of the wineries we enjoyed an over the top FIVE course lunch amidst chardonnay and malbec vines, and in the shadow of the Andes. The next morning we headed out on our own for our last wine tour...mum was getting too accustomed to drinking at 9:30AM. We also went on a mountain tour that winded and weaved across narrow mountain highways and included a light hiking excursion to a viewpoint of America's highest mountain peak, Aconcagua.
After Mendoza we stopped in Neuquen, a sort of obscure state capital of Rio Negro...it would be like a tourist visiting Pierre, South Dakota. It was a nice place to relax before meeting up with Cassidy in Puerto Madryn and starting a whole new set of adventures. We did meet up on the 20th and spent the next whole day on Peninsula Valdez seeing penguins, southern right whales, dolphins, seals, sea lions, armadillos, foxes, and plenty of birds. It was beautiful.
The next day was Thanksgiving, so we went for a traditional Argentian barbeque dinner, with mashed squash, beef and plenty of wine. Then we moved on to Trelew which is a small coastal town that became a launch point for us to visit a traditional Welsh town...yes, in the middle of Argentina...called Gaiman, where we admired rose gardens and partook in a traditional welsh tea. Then on south to Punta Tombo, which is home to thousands of penguins during their mating season. At the beginning of our walk it was a novelty to see them on the side of the desert-like paths amongst the shrubbery, but after an hour we were literally stepping over them as the ran across our paths and wondered at our long legs.
Now Cassidy and I are deep in Patagonia, spending a few days in El Calafate to see the world's only growing glaciar (the rest, of course, are melting because of global warming) Perito Moreno, and then we will continue on to "the end of the world" Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego, the closest city to Antarctica. By December we will be on our way to Chile's Patagonia, and then to a week long cruise through its glaciars and fjords.
1 - me and mum at las cataratas de iguazú
2 - me and mum outside of the Catena Zapata winery at the foothills of the Andes in Mendoza
3 - a shot from our whale watching trip on the península valdez
4 - the adorable penguins i wanted to steal from punta tombo
5 - the Perito Moreno glaciar, growing strong!