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thetourist

54 Blog Entries
3 Trips
203 Photos

Trips:

No news, Good news! in Peru & Argentina
No news, Good news! in New Zealand (RWC 2011) & Fiji
No news, Good news! in South Korea & Hong Kong

Shorthand link:

http://blogabond.com/thetourist


Didier


Speachless in Puerto piramides....

Puerto Piramides, Argentina

What was not possible to do yesterday (the harbour was closed due to strong winds) is possible today. Inside the valdes peninsula, there is a little place called Puerto Piramides where you can see a lot of animals depending of the season you come. The whales (ballena Franca austral (baleines a bosses in french)) season is just finishing now so got lucky to see one mother with her child. They stay in the peninsula around 5 months per year and are resting there. The young get borned this year. He( or she) will stay one year with his "little" mummy. During the year it is possible to see in the same place seals, sea elephants, orcas, dolphins. This place is very famous to see orcas while they attack young seals directly on the beach. There was a famous one called Mel known to be a good hunter.
I have to say that whales are very curious and basically they are coming to see us closer. Therefore one can understand why it is just so easy to kill them. How do I say in japanese: "Please do not kill whales for "research" anymore" ?

Whales don´t throw water, it is just the result of when they breath if some water is staying above them. It makes a very powerfull and metallic sound. The marks they have on their head are unique so that is is possible to identify them.


Mother with her child coming to us

mother and child

In the background, the cliffs look like some pyramids. The name of the village comes from this.

Punta norte in the north of the peninsula where you can see some seals and sea elephants but they come later in the season

Punta norte in the Peninsula Valdes

What could I do today ???

permalink written by  thetourist on November 24, 2007 from Puerto Piramides, Argentina
from the travel blog: No news, Good news! in Peru & Argentina
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Life of the pinguins

Puerto Madryn, Argentina

Not on the ruta 40 anymore but on the east coast to see 2 highlights on the Valdes peninsula (try to find a map, the shape of it is quite specific).
The weather has also changed (now I´m in the "real" Patagonia where wind make you feel like someone is playing with a huge ventilator turning it on and off so that you don´t get use to the speed of it)
The main city is Puerto Madryn and around 160 km south, there is punta tombo, one of the biggest natural reserve of magellan pinguins. They are around 70-80 cm tall and have this caracteristical white stripe around the neck. The breading season just started. You can just watch them and take a lesson of life. I choose a nice couple (Nestor and his wife Nestorita) to show you around. In case you go there, just ask for them in case you can not recognize them from the other couples.

Hi, my name is Nestor the pinguin...

this is my wife Nestorita and take care, YOU! I´m very jealous!!

Pinguins are very friendly but don´t put your finger, that may hurt...

... and I have nice teeth

I observed 1 or 2 eggs per couple with some births already and obviously Nestor Junior is very hungry

Foooooooood!!!!!

While Nestorita is feeding the children, Nestor is doing some exercise with a guanaco in the background that just don´t care.

Daily pinguin gymnastic in the morning

Not so funny but life´s reality. Those seabirds just steal everything they can. The little eagle is just queeing to get the rest of it, just in case...

Mine.... mine.....

Sorry for the comment below, I could not resist!

We definitely need to change our deo...

permalink written by  thetourist on November 23, 2007 from Puerto Madryn, Argentina
from the travel blog: No news, Good news! in Peru & Argentina
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Leaving temporary the road 40

Esquel, Argentina

First, my apologies for the lack of news lately. It is quite difficult to find a place to upload pictures, so you may get all the missing posts when I will be back in Buenos Aires or Europe.
Today a big part of the ruta 40 was just ripio (stones) without anybody during 450 (talking about humans). At some point I crossed the way of a small train for tourists called Trochita. It is not the season so they were testing it and checking the track.

Trochita crossing my way on the old Ruta 40

The guy was quite surprised to see someone here I think...

Ché! Que tal?

Then I crossed the way of somebody else.... very surprised too... me , this time

Hehe, after seeing me, this guy will not do camping anymore!!

Tomorrow I will leave the road 40 to go to Puerto Madryn to meet some friends and show them some places I know and then continue my journey back on the ruta 40.

permalink written by  thetourist on November 21, 2007 from Esquel, Argentina
from the travel blog: No news, Good news! in Peru & Argentina
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This it is all yellow and white

Chos Malal, Argentina

Colors, altitude, climate, animals, all is changing here! Now look how yellow looks like with some white in the background

Flower power

This one has no yellow, but now you have an idea how look like a siesta in the shadow.

Siesta time

permalink written by  thetourist on November 18, 2007 from Chos Malal, Argentina
from the travel blog: No news, Good news! in Peru & Argentina
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Flying objects

San Carlos, Argentina

The road has always someting to offer. When the landscape is not at his best (2 big cities today, San Luis and Mendoza), the fauna is there to make you open your eyes like a kid (or father) with his new electric train.
I don´t have picture of everything I saw, but I´m quite successfull with condors. This one took me 30 minutes to be so close that they finally decided to say good bye.

checking both sides
It looks like the bigger the bird is the smaller distance I can approach.
Those little aguilas (eagle) are very easy to see but difficult to have in a decent picture... when flying,

Aguila flying
but by eating...

Aguila´s breakfast time

Those ones are more peacefull. On this road I saw thousands of those little butterflies. They just didn´t want to stay for the picture.

Butterflies on my way

My favourites, the condors

2 brothers
... flying
and attacking me
... just a joke!!
And to finish a chimango (don´t know the translation till now..)

Chimango (still quiet)




permalink written by  thetourist on November 17, 2007 from San Carlos, Argentina
from the travel blog: No news, Good news! in Peru & Argentina
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Nothing wrong can happen!

Villa Union, Argentina

After the yesterday´s story, today I will explain what is the Difunta correa one. It appears that from time to time you can see some small vault (hope I translated it correctly!)(capillas ou chapelle in french) on the side of the road. Difunta correa is the story that happened 150 years ago. A woman with her baby the was lost in the middle of nowhere. She died but the baby survived by drinking her milk. So, on the side of the road, when you see one of those place (that clearly say Difunta correa), you should leave a bottle of water to thank her (or somebody above :-) I don´t know for what you get. People do that also to ask for something. Check here http://www.visitedifuntacorrea.com.ar

Difunta correa

Another one that is protecting your way. At first I read the last line too fast (validad instead of vialidad) which made me translate by "national validity" instead of "on the national territory". I was feeling safe by knowing that an authority was certifying it would not happen anything to me :-) Now I feel sad to know she will protect me only if I´m travelling in Argentina. Spanish readers! Did I get everything right?

According to this, nothing wrong can happen

Today I also learned that bridges have also a nationality

Argentine bridge
and that London can be a nice city

London

permalink written by  thetourist on November 16, 2007 from Villa Union, Argentina
from the travel blog: No news, Good news! in Peru & Argentina
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From the hospital to the church

Hualfin, Argentina

Another day of surprises! Following the not very large road (sometimes I didn´t want to think if the local bus will appear in front of me in the next curve!), one could clearly see 2 different types of landscape on the right and left. Desertic red on the right and green, rich (because of the river) left side.

The rich and the poor

The story of the day is that I was stopped by a oncoming car asking if I was going to Cafayate. These people met 2 sick german tourists on the side of the road trying to go to the next town with a doctor (hospital). I found them some 20 km after I met this people. They were still there waiting (4 hours waiting they said without having seen anybody going my way. That gives you the amount of stupid people like me travelling here.). Stupid I felt too because now I had to speak german the next 75 km on the way to Cafayate to bring the food poisoned (they say ?!?) tourists back to civilisation. More stupid, they were from Frankfurt (the city I was trying to forget about because of the last 2 years project I was working in). Grrrrr. Hate that.
After that (und tschuss!), I decided to not stay in Cafayate (where I was already on my way north) and stopped before the night arrived in Hualfin.
(IMG62 3)There I found the best house to stay with an old lady (Nona) that was taking care of me like her son. I was the first french here she said. The other reason why I stopped there is because this village, in the middle of nowhere have a very interesting church that was built in 1770. Have a look.

Hualfin`s church


Hualfin `s church inside

permalink written by  thetourist on November 15, 2007 from Hualfin, Argentina
from the travel blog: No news, Good news! in Peru & Argentina
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Higher than the Mont Blanc!

Cachi, Argentina

The reward of the cold night was there. After a 30 min walk I could be very close to the laguna and observe the pink and red floyds.
On my way some vicunas surprised to see someone walking there at that time.
Having reached the northern point of my travel, it was now time to finally follow the road 40 as I wanted to. There is no macadam there so less cars, everything very quiet. (not a good place to break your engine though!) but well, this is all what I wanted. In around 150 kms, I crossed only one car and they were asking me the way because some signs were missing. Well here you are, no signs, then strait ahead. That´s the way!
I reached Salinas Grande where you can literally drive on salt. Everything is white and after that you feel very thirsty.

Salinas Grandes
Then I reached San Antonio de los Cobres famous for the viaduc where the "very" touristic train to the clouds stops at 4300 m. I didn´t like the city so I decided to go on till Cachi. On the way the roads didn´t finish to climb to finally reach 4895m. Even if the Mont blanc grew from 3m since I learned it at school (4810 instead of 4807m), this is much higher and every corner was again worth a picture.

Almost the top


twisty road at 4895m

Update Sunday 18/11:
I encounter extreme difficulties to find a connection where I can upload pictures, so be patient :-)

permalink written by  thetourist on November 14, 2007 from Cachi, Argentina
from the travel blog: No news, Good news! in Peru & Argentina
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Vicunas and lamas

La Quiaca, Argentina

First a picture of Purmamarca because the light was not great when I arrived yesterday,

Purmamarca


Colorfull cemetary
then one from the Tumbaya cemetary that simply a beautifull place on the top of a hill behind the village.
Going then north to the laguna Pozuelos where I plan to camp. On the way could see a lot of lamas and vicunas on the side of the road.

Vicuna

Lamas
Then when I arrived at the park laguna Pozuelos the guardaparque was not there. I asked in the nearby city and i guy told me that it should be ok if I wanted to camp there. My goal was to stay the night so that in teh morning, with good light, I could see some floyds and other birds. The laguna is at 3750m and the night was ... cold. -2 celsius when the Sunrise at 6:45. During the night I had some visit too. Some vicunas. it was funny to see them running when I point the torch in their direction. It was really worth a picture

permalink written by  thetourist on November 13, 2007 from La Quiaca, Argentina
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I see red :-)

Purmamarca, Argentina

Today leaving Cafayate to Salta, Jujuy and then the very touristic place Purmamarca. The highlight today was the quebrada de las conchas (also called quebrada de Cafayate).

Red, red and more red

Everything is red and every corner is full of surprise.

Even the bridge is red

permalink written by  thetourist on November 12, 2007 from Purmamarca, Argentina
from the travel blog: No news, Good news! in Peru & Argentina
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