Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Headed North!



From Torres del Paine, we put our focus on the road ahead of us.  We have some MILEAGE to cover!  Did we really say we'd be home in Flagstaff in JUNE?  We are at the near bottom of the world and we need to be North of the Equator in 5 months!

Let's DO this!
We decided to try to avoid some of the rougher roads of Route 40, which is a common North/South route through Argentina.  Instead, we headed East for the Atlantic coast and a change of view. 
Once we hit Rada Tilly, we felt like we'd had a nice taste of the Eastern side of the country and wanted to be sure to catch the recommended sights of Trevelin, El Bolson, and San Carlos de Bariloche in the Andes, just as one exits Patagonia.
As we make our way from the rugged beauty of the knife-edge mountains of Argentinian Patagonia, across the more arid flatlands to the East Coast, bright pink catches our eye.  Flamingos!  What an incongruous juxtaposition!  What we think of as a tropical bird, is found in the dryland lakes near the Andes.  This is a rare flamingo, the Andean flamingo, and is one of the rarest flamingos in the world.
This Andean flamingo is native to the wetlands of the high Andes mountain range from southern Perú to northwestern Argentina and northern Chile. The Andean flamingo is a migratory bird with the ability to travel up to 700 miles in one day. In the summer, they live in salt lakes and migrate to the lower wetlands for the winter. The cause of this migration from summer to winter is possibly due to the extreme aridity of salt-flats during the winter. The path of migration is unknown, but it is thought to occur between the Chilean breeding grounds and the wetlands of central and western Argentina. - wikipedia
 PARQUE NACIONAL MONTE LEÓN - we had the pleasant surprise of finding this place, noted on an Overlander camping app as a nice place to camp.  It looked so barren and dry at first, but upon further exploration, we discovered hundreds of birds, beautiful sandstone cliffs, and a hidden colony of penguins off a great hiking trail!






Burrowing Magellanic penguins.  The park holds Argentina's fourth-largest colony.
From Monte León, we headed North and took a detour off the beaten track and onto a side road, labeled as Circuito Costera to Playa Mina.  Millions of years of life create the cliffs and trails here.  Layers and layers of marine fossils and sand, bond together to form the cliffs sheltering this cove at Playa Mina.





Mike couldn't resist the temptation to check out the beach under this shelf, so he dropped down to investigate as the tide came in.  Thankfully his fitness and a form of a cliff-edge muscle up allowed him to get back out!  ;-)



Puerto San Julián, along the Circuito Costera, was an interesting abandoned mine or factory.  We weren't sure of it's history, but enjoyed poking around and exploring and making our own story about what must have happened there.
We leave the beaches and head inland, back to the mountains!
Desert camp.  Sometimes we just pull over in the middle of absolute nothingness.  And it's awesome.
A workout incorporating our camp site of the base of a bridge, tree branches, and a walking bridge.  3-2-1 GO - make your workout happen, using what you have!
ESQUEL, TREVELIN, EL BOLSON



Esquel is a hub for Parque Nacional Los Alerces- and beautiful sunsets!
We drove from the drylands of Argentina, West, back to the Andes to enjoy the mountain towns of Esquel, Trevelin, and El Bolson.  The drive from Esquel to El Bolson through Parque Nacional Los Alerces was gorgeous.  This national park was established to protect the alerce trees. The alerce is among the longest living tree species in the world, and there are some specimens in the park over 2000 years old. They grow deep in the Valdivian rainforest of the mountains, beside vivid blue Lago Futalaufquen and emerald Lago Verde.

SAN CARLOS DE BARILOCHE- Beautiful mountain town surrounded by lakes, which all provide an incredible availability of multi-season sports!  We loved it here and hope to return to do more exploring, hiking, skiing (snow and water), you name it!  The largest ski resort in South America resides here, with incredible views of the Andes on all sides.
View of San Carlos de Bariloche and Lago Lake Nahuel Huapi from the refugio Cerro López.


Awesome natural infinity pool dug into the mountainside next to the pink refugio!


Glissading and ridge running up on the ridges above Cerro Lopez.  The views from anywhere along the summit ridge are spectacular.  The northwest side of the ridge is dominated by Cerro Tronador with Volcan Osorno and Puntiagudo clearly visible in Chile in the distance.  The southeast side of the ridge is dominated by Lago Nahuel Haupi, with Lago Moreno and Brazo Tristeza also in view.
   Our journey North will continue, out of Patagonia and on to the dry deserts and mountains!  Stay tuned for further updates!

Click HERE for the "Headed North" photo album for more pics!

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