photoblog
We took the “alternative” tour bus, via a dirt road, with a stop at a ranch. This allowed for some wildlife sightings along the way, notably including condors, rheas, and a fox.
The name of the town has nothing to do with Islam – it’s the name of a Patagonian thornbush (a barberry), which was once used by Magellan’s fleet as a source of oakum for ship caulking (from the verb calafatear).
Travelers compare El Calafate to Iceland – it’s got a similar windswept aspect. Even the stray dogs spent much of their time hunkered behind whatever windbreak they can find. The outlying houses don’t blend with the landscape; they seem to have landed, as if from space.
Our first stop was a bird sanctuary on the lake shore.
We barely stopped in San Martin itself, except to get a tire repair; mostly we drove around and took in the scenery from lonely dirt roads.
Sort of a younger, smaller Geneva, or a grander Lake Placid. We fell asleep listening to waves through the open window..
A side trip from Buenos Aires. A quiet, relaxing town. Two things I disliked: 1) restaurant prices were higher than in Argentina; 2) our ferry had mechanical problems and we almost didn’t make it back to Buenos Aires.
A gigantic city – nearly sixteen million people, a third of the population of Argentina, live here. In a week we barely scratched the surface, visiting a few parks and landmarks in the city center: Japanese garden, botanical garden, rose garden, Casa Rosada, Teatro Colon,…
We also happened to encounter some young people training for a national hip-hop competition the very next day. So we went to check it out.
In most of Buenos Aires, taxis are plentiful and cheap, the subway is prompt and clean, and there are more buses than you can shake a stick at, most of them using dedicated bus lanes most of the time. But if you take a taxi an hour away from the center, say to find a hip-hop competition, you may not find a subway or taxi to get back. (There were still buses, but no direct route, and it was getting late.) We were about to start begging the competitors for rides, when someone suggested we try Uber. Success! Uber doesn’t offer service in most of Argentina, but greater Buenos Aires is an exception.
