Colorful Boca

Work­ing class “La Boca” is a bar­rio of Buenos Aires, famous for its col­or­ful houses and home of the Boca Junior soc­cer team. Ital­ian immi­grants set­tled there, at the mouth (“boca”) of the Riachuelo river, giv­ing the place a strong Euro­pean feel.

Ice Field And Icebergs

As the sun hit the face of the glac­ier, around noon, we wit­nessed sev­eral huge chunk of ice col­laps­ing in the Canales de los Tém­panos (Ice­berg Chan­nel). Enor­mous blocks sud­denly crashed into the water, caus­ing a huge wave, tem­po­rally clear­ing the water of other ice­bergs for a few minutes.

Torres Del Pain(e)

The boul­ders were not sta­ble. We stepped on rocks that would move down­hill, avalanche like. Other rocks appeared huge but offered lit­tle help, because they were unsteady. I was quite scared to be hon­est. We were high in the moun­tain with no help what­so­ever, no trail, we were tired and worse of all — we would have to make our way down, which I was afraid we might not be able to.

Ushuaia, The End Of The World

Trav­el­ing to the South­ern­most city in the world is pretty excit­ing. Sure, it´s a silly sym­bol, but it´s fun to sit by the sea­side and imag­ine Antarc­tica is right there, barely 1,000 kilo­me­ters away. To know that Canada is 13,000 North. To reach the end of the road, literally.

We were not pre­pared for how bizarre and expen­sive was Ushuaia though.

The Road To The End Of The World

Patag­o­nia? Neh. Not Far enough. We decided to reach Ushuaia, the South­ern­most city in the world, located in Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina.

Going to the fin del mundo is an adven­ture in itself.

We left from Punta Are­nas at 6:30 am. Another short night… Lit­er­ally, con­sid­er­ing it was only really dark at mid­night and that it was already very bright when we got up.

Patagonia - Punta Arenas

For us, Patag­o­nia started from above, in the plane. It was almost empty and we had secured a win­dow seat. Huge moun­tains, rivers of ice, snow, clear blue lakes… The wind was very strong and the ride was rough. We flew above the Pacific Ocean as the pilot was try­ing to land and we dropped dan­ger­ously low. I kept my eyes open, half amazed and half scared. We made it.

Relaxing In Santiago

We took the bus from the air­port, still half sleepy. I felt like I was in Europe: cob­ble­stone alleys, streets names like “Paris” and “Lon­don”, news­pa­pers and cig­a­rettes kiosks, parks, foun­tains, kids play­ing around… An over­all relaxed atmos­phere, which made the city very welcoming.

Arica, First Stop In Chile

After La Paz and the Boli­vian high­lands, Arica, our first stop in Chile, was quite a shock. Imag­ine a city, actu­ally more like an oasis, bor­dered by the Pacific Ocean and the desert. Imag­ine, 30C all year round. Imag­ine quiet streets, cars that actu­ally stop at red lights and a super­mar­ket. We were in shock, after Bolivia.