April 15, 2019 – May 12, 2019
Buenos Aires is often referred to as “the Paris of South America”. It is a multicultural city, full of parrillas (steak house), red wine, weekend ferias (craft/antique fairs), tango dancers and magnificent buildings.
Continue reading
March 14, 2019 – March 22, 2019
We took a few days to drive south from Iguazú to the border town of Gualeguaychu, where we once again went through the process of getting Piper’s paper work in order before driving Seymour over a bridge and into his last South American country of the trip. We arrived in Uruguay, resupplied our fridge (at remarkably high prices!), and made our way to Colonia del Sacramento.
Continue reading
March 13, 2019 – March 14, 2019
When we decided that we would ship the truck back to Canada from Uruguay, we were not sure if we would have time to make it all the way to Iguazú Falls, some 4,300 kilometres north of Ushuaia, and about 1,300 kilometres north of Buenos Aires. But we were sure going to try, and WOW, are we glad that we got to see these falls, the largest waterfall system in the world.
Continue reading
March 11, 2019 – March 13, 2019
The mission at San Ignacio Miní was built in 1666 and is one of many missions built by the Jesuits in what the Spanish called the Province of Paraguay, an area which today includes parts of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. The Mission was built with the aim of converting the local Guaraní people to Christianity, but it also protected the people from ongoing wars and from the slave trade. The Mission was abandoned after the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767, destroyed, along with about 30 other missions in the area, by later invaders and was soon after overcome by the rainforest. Restorations of the site began in 1940.
Continue reading
March 9, 2019 – March 11, 2019
Iberá Provincial Reserve is a little visited, remote area located in the Argentinian province of Corrientes. The reserve is a mixture of swamps, bogs, lakes and lagoons, and, of course, the associated wildlife, and is about 13,000 square kilometres in size. We headed to the small town of Colonia Carlos Pellegrini, where we camped for the night before hiring a small panga to take us out into the waters of the reserve for a safari, Argentina style.
Continue reading
March 5, 2019 – March 9, 2019
The distance between real tourist attractions on the east cost of Argentina are large. We try to visit an interesting destination each day, but sometimes the distances are too great. We then, at least, try to find a nice spot to camp for the evening.
March 3, 2019 – March 5, 2019
Since we quit our jobs, we rarely set an alarm to wake us in the morning. I love letting my body decide when it is ready to get out of bed, of slowly waking up without any annoying, demanding “beep, beep, beep”…who doesn’t? But, there are a times that are worthy of setting an alarm…..to go skiing, to go hiking, to go to the airport…..and now we can add, to go and see the parrots on the cliffs at Balneario el Cóndor as the sun rises.
Continue reading
March 2, 2019 – March 3, 2019
Valdes Peninsula is a marine nature reserve on the south Atlantic coast of Argentina, famous for its protection of the southern right whale, its elephant seal breeding grounds, and for the unique hunting strategy that the local orcas use….they go so far as to temporarily beach themselves in order to grab at young sea lions at the water’s edge. We headed to the peninsula for the day to see what we could see.
Continue reading
February 21, 2019 – March 2, 2019
To get off the island of Tierra del Fuego and continue north in Argentina one must first re-enter Chile, then take a ferry to the mainland, and then re-enter Argentina. We drove to a small municipal camp on the Chilean side of Tierra del Fuego on the first day, then took the ferry to the mainland before re-entering Argentina the next day. We were tired of the frequent rain, wind and cold, and hoped to make some longer driving days north in search of warmer temperatures.
Continue reading
February 17, 2019 – February 21, 2019
On February 17th, 2019, after 480 days on the road and 47,370 kilometres, we arrived in Ushuaia, affectionately known as El Fin del Mundo, the end of the world. It is the farthest south that one can drive, farther south than Cape Horn in Africa, farther south than the island of Tasmania, and about 1,000 kilometres from Antarctica.
