South America

The main attraction near El Calafate, Argentina is the Perito Moreno Glacier. It was amazing so the pictures speak for themselves. I didnt take the first 2 but the rest are mine.

GLACIER NEAR EL CALAFATE, ARGENTINA

Look at the people in the lower left hand corner. They help give you the scale of this thing.
Its huge!!

After the glacier I headed a few hours north to a national park. The plan was to stay there for about 5 days of 1 day hikes. However, the weather was bad for the first 2 days so I just did one hike and then decided to leave. As far as I could tell there was absolutely nothing to do in the town except go hiking. It was the off season so there were not many people around to hang out with.

EL CHALTEN, ARGENTINA

Cool shop with a climbing wall in the side

Beginning of hike in El Chalten

End of hike in El Chalten

The mountain that I couldnt really see because of the clouds.

People that I met on the trail and hiked back with.

When I left El Chalten I headed back over to Chile to see the Torres del Paine National Park. Its the most famous park in Patagonia. I stayed in a really cool hostel called Erratic Rock. The owner also writes a local newspaper about hiking in the area so they had a lot of information and a huge movie collection for rainy days. I met an English guy there who was finishing a trip from Vancouver, Canada all the way to the southern tip of Chile.....on a motorcycle. Actually, he was a mechanical engineer who was working as a designer for the last few years and then decided to go on a long trip. That sounds familiar for some reason. Anyway, he offered me a ride from Puerto Natales to the Park on the back of his Triumph motorcycle. I put on 3 pairs of pants, 4 shirts, 2 coats, my miners backpack, and a helmet and jumped on. It was freezing cold but it was cool because we could stop whenever we wanted to take pictures, unlike the people on the bus. Plus it was free.

TORRES DEL PAINE NATIONAL PARK, CHILE

Geared up.

Tom gassing up the bike

First view of the park and the Torres del Paine

Classic shot (not a setup)

If you see this guy on the side of the road someday with a broken motorcycle, please help him out. Cool goggles!!

More views of the park and its lakes during the 2 days I was hiking there.

It was really great to be able to drink the water from any moving stream in the park. It was perfectly clear, cold and tasted amazing.

After a grueling 30km (about 17 miles) hike over the course of 8 hours on the 2nd day I was dead and half insane. I think I was talking to myself for the last 2 hours trying to stay motivated to keep going. I thought it would be a good idea to hike the extra 10km to avoid having to take an expensive ferry ride back to the bus. It wasn´t exactly worth it because I paid for it when I got sick two days later.

After the trek I went back to Argentina and caught a flight to Buenos Aires.

Here are some shots from around the city. There are some pretty nice parks and a lot of people come out of the office for an hour or two at lunch time and hang out and eat there. Really nice atmosphere.

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA

Ive stayed in a lot of hostels in the last 5 years but this is the first I´ve seen that has triple decker bunks. Crazy.