18/11/2010

This week I have survived paragliding and glacier trekking without any major incidents. Paragliding was on my second day in Bariloche, a beautiful area in the Lake District. My first day there was spent relaxing at the campsite, then on day two those of us who wanted to go paragliding were picked up after lunch and taken to the landing area. Only two could go at once so the others waited here for their turn. I was in the first group with Loretta. A taxi took us two passengers, the two pilots and all the gear up the hill. It was a reasonable day, not too windy, but a little bit cloudy which made the thermals not as good as they could have been. There were a couple of condors cruising around above us and we took that as a good sign. We scrambled up the last little bit to the launch pad and got dressed in our flight suits and harnesses, and instructed on how to take off. Getting a bit nervous now. Loretta and her pilot went first. They took off easily and as they swooped around the hilltop she called back to me "it's so cool". My pilot got everything set up and called me over to get hooked on. The wind caught the parachute, we ran forward a bit and then we were in the air. It was awesome! With a bit of effort catching thermals we climbed higher. The view of Bariloche, the lake and mountains was beautiful. It was so much fun to be up in the sky with no real barriers, the wind in my face, flying above the condors. We were in the sky for close to half an hour, climbing thermals then dropping down lower again. Eventually we started aiming for the landing field. Loretta had just landed and they were starting to pack up the parachute. Landing didn't go quite so smoothly, we came in a bit high and ended up flying quite close over a very startled horse and landing, quite safely, in its paddock. Collecting up the parachute we crossed back over to where we were meant to be and packed it up properly ready for the next lucky person. It was a great experience, something I'd definitely do again.

Coming back down to earth Loretta and I then took the bus into town for a bit of shopping. Icecream in Bariloche is not to be missed. It seems like every second shop is an artisan chocolate type place and many also sold amazing icecream flavours. I couldn't just try one place, I tried two, and two flavours at each, and if I had longer in town I could have done more. Who knew there were so many flavours of icecream.

Next up was a two day drive to get to El Chalten. We are staying in a hostel here with central heating, lucky because outside is windy and freezing. We are getting very far south now, in just over a week we'll be in Ushuaia, the most southern city in the world. Today we've been on a boat trip out to Viedma Glacier, the largest in Argentina, over 900 square kilometres of ice. First we floated around the front of the glacier where it meets the lake, I wasn't expecting the ice to be blue, and so many shades, it looked a bit like blueberry ripple, then we hopped off the boat at a landing point and hiked across the rocks to reach the edge of the glacier. It was very windy, with gusts that would threaten to knock us over, quite dangerous when trying to keep our balance on slippery rock. As we reached the ice we were given crampons to attach to our shoes and started our trek out on to the glacier. It was quite hard going getting used to walking with the crampons, but they were great, just dig them in and you don't have to worry about slipping at all. Just watch out for holes. We walked up and down different areas, stopping to take photos of the glacier from different angles. I think if it hadn't been so windy we would have gone into some more exposed areas but I guess they couldn't risk having us blown over and falling down a crevasse or something. From here the ice looked a bit like really thick foam, like when you use way too much dishwashing liquid, but with a slightly blue tinge. When we were getting near the end of the trek our guides stopped and started hacking at the ice. We wondered what they were doing until they produced plastic cups and a bottle of Baileys. Baileys poured over glacier ice was a very nice surprise, and it tasted extra specially good. After our drink we made our way back to the boat, all pretty hungry by then and ate lunch as we cruised back to the harbour. Another great experience, and so many more to come.

20/11/2010

Yesterday I went on a six hour hike to Laguna Torre and back. It was quite a cold windy day but the sun was out and even though our muscles were sore from the ice trekking the day before, Jessie, Laurie and I decided it was worth the walk. It was a beautiful walk and we even got snowed on a bit, more the closer we got to the lake with a glacier running into it. Today we've driven through to El Calafate where we go on a boat trip to Moreno Glacier tomorrow and do some walks in the national park.