From the Lagos de los Andes and the Atlantic coast of Argentina to.. Chile!!

Hola Todos !

Vous commenciez a perdre espoir, mais nous revoila! On est toujours vivant, et on a desormais change de pays... Un petit coucou a tous donc de Santiago au Chili! Beaucoup s´est passe depuis notre dernier petit commentaire.

I have to switch in english... for those who don´t fully understand, you can use google translation to get a brief overview of what we say! But don´t worry, we may be able to write soon in spanish :)). It will be much more understandable!

After the wonderful landscapes of the region of los lagos, we crossed Argentina all the way to the east side to go to Trelew (famous for its welsh population), from where we rented a car to go to Punta Tombo. There was the biggest colony of Magellanic Pinguins. It was like a big lake of black and white heads, hidden in the steppe or walking slowly to the sea to get some fresh food. This small animals are so cute, the way there are standing there, like they didn´t even hear you... It walks so slowly by moving its entire body and seems to make so much effort to put a foot in front of the other that you woud like to help it by taking it and throwing it at the sea :). When you get closer to them, they let you know that they don't like it by rotating their head by almost 180 degres. Well, I won't start to describe you the lifestyle of the pinguins. I'm not on a naturalist discovering trip afterall.

We went then to the Peninsula Valdes with 2 very nice israelis we met at the hostel. The wildlife in and around this peninsula is impressive. We saw there animals that I never remember the names, but the pics will speak. After sea lions, sea elephants and pinguins again, we saw, for the first time orcas, like small points away close to the shore. We missed the great show of the Orcas coming on the beach to feed with babies sea elephant.

But of course, all this was so intense and so exhausting that we needed some rest :). So we headed to Mendoza to take some holidays of holidays. We have been there wonderfully welcomed by Amance´s friend (special thanks to Rocio & her so sweet family and group of friends). We really loved the people and the atmosphere of this so-called Hostel by its hosts.

We felt so well there that it was hard to leave. Mendoza being the capital of Argentinian wine, we visited also a famous vinery (Rutini), with, I must say a fantastic guide (Rocio, if you read this...). And before I leave the Mendoza section, I need to thank Rocio again! After she blamed Amance several times for being nasty when he wakes up, I saw a huge improvement !! And we say that we can´t change people!! I don´t believe it anymore, or at least that Amance is not influenced by girls I guess!! :).

But every vacation has an end (woops, I already imagine people getting angry by reading that :)) and so we left for Santiago. After a wonderfull trip by bus through the Andes, we joined our favorite british trek mate (Kat, thank you for the delicious chocolate cake, which was uncomparable with the other one which stayed for maybe a week on the table;)) we met at Torres del Paine (see post of march 22). And here we go, we find ourselves in an appartment that looks like an hostel as well, everybody being so nice and friendly with us (special thanks to Kat and the real inhabitants of the apartment ;)). A day after we arrived, we were joined by my friend Julien from London who´s going to stay for 2 weeks with us.

Oh, I almost forgot! You thought that I was done with Skydiving?? You don´t know me... As Santiago is maybe the last city where we can skydive before Brazil, I had to to go... So, I started to call the few places aroung Santiago, and surprisingly, discovered that most people were telling me (yes, in espanol!!) that they had no plane available for the week end. All this until I got the Chilean federation of Paracaidismo to find out that... (No, why I am saying that!!!!!??) there was an accident last week (from what I was told, 2 skydivers opened their parachute a bit too close...), so the dropzones are closed until they find out what happened...). Well... no comment... :((

And I know that everybody´s worrying for my knee, so I´m glad to say that after thinking of being urgently rapatriated to France (and by taking with me lots of Patagonian Chocolates to increase my chances of surviving), all is back to normal now :).

Next step, the wonderful city of Valparaiso on the Pacific ocean before reaching el Norte Chico de Chile, one of the best place of the world for observatories as the sky is pure and almost without clouds all the year round. We´ll then head to the famous deserts and volcanos of El Norte Grande de Chile and Argentina.

Enorme Abrazo,
Amancio y Matthiaso