Hey Guys,
So we made it back home. Sorry, we haven’t posted any blogs in ages due to a technical hitch with the laptop but we kinda wanted to finish this off as we saw lots more cool things after the last post so gonna do a quick summary of our last few weeks on the road…
So after Torres Del Paine we headed north to El Calafate (Argentina). The main attraction here is one pretty spectaular glaciar (Perito Moreno) which is located in Parque Nacional Los Glaciares. We had seen some glaciars before this one but it was by far the best, so so so impressive. You could literally stand watching it all day. Monstorous chunks are constantly falling off it, crashing into the river below. Great fun!
After a few days in El Calafate we moved back into Chile to a town called Punta Arenas. We had heard so much about the penguins it was great finally meeting them in person! There’s a colony with magellan penguins out of the town (Seno Otway) so took the bus out one afternoon. They were so cute to watch. They were just returning from their afternoon swim when we were out there.
We then said farewell to Chile and headed for Ushuaia, the most southern city in the world. It’s a funny spot, a wee bit bleak but still a nice town to pass a few days. The scenery around the town was pretty cool too, plenty of snow capped mountains towering over us. We decided to go on a boat trip to the Beagle Channel. It’s mad, we were only 900km from the Antartic but sadly ferrys charge a shocking 2 grand so we decided to pass! While we were in Ushuaia, a ferry had to be saved on route to the Antartic and even had a few Irish on board. For anyone who was worrying, it wasn’t us!! Anyway the trip on the Beagle was great, even though at the time I was a nervous wreck due to a rough sea! It was a nice small boat so it meant we could get extra close to the sealions. They were great fun to watch. It was like they knew we were looking for a show and they were well able to entertain us.
As time was flying at this stage we decided to splash out so we flew up to Rio stopping off in Buenos Aires for two more nights. It was weird returning to BA as this is where we started of back in November.We returned to same hostel and even got the same room again. We wandered about and got to see some sights we missed out on before, Plaza De Mayo, Catedral Metropolitana, Casa Rosada (aka Evitas Balcony) and Puerto Madero - the renovated docklands.
We then flew on to Rio De Janiero (Brazil). It was real hectic as carnival was just finishing up so got hit with pricey accomodation and a poor location. Thankfully, a wonderful Brazilian lady befriended us and drove us around the next day. She really was so kind to us. We went up the Sugar Loaf on the cable cars and went on a lovely walk around the hill with monkeys just wandering around us!
As Rio was still a bit mad we decided to head out to Buzios, a small peninsula town two hours out of Rio. Peter had got a tip off from kiters who had been there before. We hadn’t planned to stay long but ended up meeting an elderly lady at the bus station who was renting apartments. We ended up getting a lovely spot for 6 days. It was such a treat for us, so good having our own space and even had a pool. Although we didn’t really need it as there were 20 beaches in the area to choose from! It really was beautiful and an ideal spot to finish off our travels. We attempted to go kite surfing but the wind wasn’t in our favour. We did go on a boat trip which took us to even less discovered beaches. Heaven! I could go back in the morning.
But sadly time did pass by and before we knew it we were on the bus back to Rio. The morning we left we went us to visited the monstrous statue of Jesus on top of the mountain. Great views of the city also.
From Rio we flew to Atlanta and got a connecting flight to New York. It was so strange going from 37 degrees to a snow covered New York. Such a crazy city. We really enjoyed it, so much like the city we all know from tv! As we only had three days we made the most of it and got to the most important sights; The Empire State Building, Central Park, Ground Zero, The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We also fitted in a small bit of shopping!
After a fantastic four months we flew home last Tuesday. It’s strange being back but I suppose it couldn’t last forever! Anyway for all our readers, thank you and hope we weren’t too boring/annoying! Will get cracking on uploading the photos next.
Anyway, thanks for passing through.
Love; trish and peter (still on speaking terms!!) x
