Buenos Aires, Patagonia, Chilean Fjords, Igaussa Falls
Pat & Jack Starke
October 26 − November 10, 2008

Other than a few days in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the emphasis of this trip was on visiting the natural environment of Patagonia, the vast southern portion of Argentina and Chile. It includes portions of the Andes Mountains, vast pampas, glaciers and fjords. The trip included a five day boat trip through the Chilean Fjords that took us to the “end of the world ” around Cape Horn. The post trip extension to Igaussa Falls on the border of Argentina, and Brazil, highlighted the most beautiful falls I have visited.

Argentina was discovered for the first time by the Spaniards in 1536, but was first conquered in 1580 thinking they would find huge deposits of silver, only to be disappointed. In 1810 the Argentines expelled the colonial forces and in 1816 proclaimed their independence. At the end of the 19th century the country became wealthy from meat and grain exports. They often visited Paris and modeled Buenos Aires on it, with wide boulevards and city parks. The great depression of 1929 had detrimental effects on the country. In 1945 Eva Duarte married Juan Peron who became president in 1945 until 1955. Eva Duarte de Peron, who died at 33 of cancer in 1952, was alternately idolized by the working class whose causes she espoused, or despised by the oligarchy of Argentina´s wealthy and powerful. The movie Evita, starring Madonna, is based on her life. The government was unstable for many years and reached a peak of instability in the late 1970´s with a repressive dictator and mass killings. Although a democracy returned in 1983 and things improved, as recent as 2001 there was a massive bank failure. Our guide, Lore, still at this time, does not put her money in a bank. Many of the monuments and sights in Buenos Aires are memorial to their history and most noteworthy is the influence of Eva Peron.

Buenos Aires
Our tour here included many sights important to Argentine history. It included Avenida de Mayo, which runs from Plaza de Mayo to Plaza de los Congresos (Congress Square) and is modeled after Paris´ Champs Ellyses. Plaza de Mayo included Casa Rosada (Government House), El Cabildo (Colonial Town Hall), Metropolitan Cathedral, and from here we took a ride on an old subway train dated to 1913 to Congress Square. We visited Recoleta and Palermo, upper class sections of town that included museums, embassies, and La Recoleta Cemetery that includes the mausoleum of Eva Duarte de Peron. We visited the LaBoca section of town with its many colorful houses and crafts being sold along the street. This is home to the soccer stadium (very important).

We walked to the Caminto Fair, an outdoor art show and shopping extravaganza, held in the streets each Sunday. In the downtown area close to our hotel on Avenue 9 de Julho, which is a wide boulevard, was the beautiful Colon Theater built in 1908 which is one of the world´s most famous opera houses. It was closed for renovation. In this same area are numerous parks, the Israeli temple, and the Obelisk which was built in May 1936 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the first founding of the city. One evening Pat and I ate at Cafè Tortoni, founded in 1858, and is the oldest coffee shop in the country. Another evening we had a tango lesson.

On returning to Buenos Aires prior to returning home we visited the Parana delta and took a boat ride to see the many vacation homes. Due to lack of facilities most of these homes are not elegant.

El Calafate & Perito Moreno Glacier
By plane we traveled about 1600 miles south to the small town of El Calafate, located on the southern border of Lake Argentino, which is almost to the southern border of Argentina and serves as our gateway to visit the Perito Moreno Glacier. The drive to the Perito Moreno Glacier was through the pampas with evidence of sheep herding and the lonely life of the sheep herders.

At its peak (about 18,000-17,500 years ago), the Patagonian Ice Sheet covered a huge area similar to the great ice age in the Northern hemisphere, of which only about 4% remains glaciated today. It is three separated areas known as the Northern Patagonian, Southern Patagonian, and Cordillera Darwin Ice Fields. Perito Moreno glacier flows into Lake Argentino and is one of dozens that are fed by the Southern Patagonia ice field which is the third largest ice field after Antarctica and Greenland. The glaciers going to the west flow into the fjords of the Pacific Ocean; those going to the east flow into the Patagonian lakes Viedma and Argentino, and eventually, through the rivers de la Leona and Santa Cruz, to the Atlantic Ocean.

Unlike most glaciers that are formed at over 10,000 feet above sea level these glaciers are much lower at approximately 5,000 feet. The view of this glacier was outstanding with walkways that provide different views of the glacier. The sound of the glacier caused by the constant movement of the ice and calving made this visit very enjoyable and rewarding. The Perito Moreno Glacier is one of only three Patagonian glaciers that are not retreating. Periodically the glacier advances over the L-shaped Lake Argentino when it reaches the opposite shore it forms a natural dam which separates the two halves of the lake. With no escape route, the water-level on the one side of the lake can rise by up to 30 meters above the level of the main lake. The enormous pressure produced by this mass of water finally breaks the ice barrier holding it back, in a spectacular rupture event. This dam/rupture cycle is not regular and it naturally recurs at a frequency between once a year to less than once a decade. The last rupture occurred in July 2008.

Leave El Calafate for Chile- Torres Del Paine
Both on our bus ride to the Perito Moreno Glacier and on our journey into Chile we heard many stories of the life in the pampas and their connection to sheep herding. Gauchito Gil is a legendary character of the Patagonian region that is thought to be a saint by many people. He is especially revered by truck drivers and along the road we saw numerous small shrines where people would leave cans of beer.

Another custom we heard a lot about is “Yerba Mate”, which is a tea, and the national drink of Argentina. The act of drinking the tea is a highly stylized ritualistic process. The mate cup is a dried and decorated gourd and the mate is sipped from the cup using a metal or wooden decorative straw and filter. In our 5-6 hour journey from El Calafate to Chile and Torres del Paine Park we encountered a gaucho on a massive horse who was repairing fences, and our guide offered the gaucho a mate and we talked to him. Also along the road we saw a lot of wildlife including numerous guanacos, jackrabbits, rheas, hawks, ducks, swans, and geese.

Torres del Paine is a national park that includes a set of mountains that were formed much later than the uplift that formed the Andes mountains. Much of the geology of the area consists of Cretaceous sedimentary rocks that have been intruded by a Miocene-aged laccolith (igneous rock). Mountain building and erosional processes have shaped the present-day topography, glacial erosion being the main one responsible for the sculpturing of the massifs in the last tens of thousands of years. Many of the peaks have central bands of exposed granite which strongly contrast with the dark aspect of their tops, which are remnants of a heavily eroded sedimentary stratum. In some cases what once was their overlying sedimentary rock layer has been completely eroded away, leaving behind the more resistant granite.

Once inside the park the weather turned cloudy and rainy which prevented us from seeing the beautiful vista of the mountain peaks, which was the biggest disappointment of the trip. The lakes inside the park were a deep vivid blue. I have pictures of what we saw in the clouds along with some pictures of what they would look like in clear weather. However, one morning in a hard rain and a 60 mph wind we hiked to the Salto Grande waterfall. The weather was a true Patagonian experience, of which we had more to come later on Cape Horn.

We stayed at Estancia Rio Verde on Skyring Sound on the Pacific Ocean, a working ranch that had 10,000 sheep. This was one of our most unique lodgings. It was rustic, an authentic ranch, with excellent meals, one of which was an entire lamb roasted on a spit, and electrical power that went off at 11:00 PM. The owner, Sergio, had ties to the Rochester area when, as a young man, he worked at a ranch in Walworth, only a few miles from my daughter´s house. A tour of the ranch showing the shearing stations were quite interesting and a rodeo where two men on horses attempt to pin a cow against the wall of the arena. On a hike to the sound we saw the bones of numerous sheep that had died during the previous winter and were treated to a number of flamingos in a pond and to many ibises and cormorants flying overhead at the bluff overlooking the sound.

M/V Mare Australis ship
We boarded our ship in Punta Arenas situated on the Magellan Strait, which would be our home for the next five days. The ship was very nice with fairly large cabins, excellent dining, knowledgeable naturalists, and continually provided beautiful vistas. Over these five days we traveled nearly 600 nautical miles through the fjords experiencing some majestic scenery and ever changing weather that included sun, clouds, wind ++, rain and snow eventually arriving in the city of Ushuaia, Argentina. Each day we would leave the ship in Zodiacs that held about 16 passengers to visit a variety of natural environments, including forests, islands, and glaciers and always seeing many birds. While onboard there were many lectures with excellent photography on a variety of subjects including: penguins and birds, wildlife, Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, glaciology and wines and a couple of movies on wildlife.

At Ainsworth Bay near the Marinelli Glacier we hiked through a beautiful forest and saw an elephant seal lounging on a rock island. On a Zodiac tour around Tucker Island we saw an abundance of birds including Magellanic Penguins, cormorants, caracara, and many others. Another landing was at the Pia glacier with many small and moderate sized icebergs floating in the fjord. After visiting Pia glacier, our navigation took us along the Beagle channel through the Avenue of Glaciers where we passed about a half dozen glaciers that flowed into the channel. An overnight ride brought us to Cape Horn. With 75 mph winds we were not able to leave the ship to go ashore. It´s location between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans make this kind of weather fairly common, but the lighthouse and memorial were clearly visible. In a sadistic sort of way it was more fun to experience the weather the Cape is known for than to be able to go ashore. Heading north back toward Ushuaia we went ashore at Wulaia Bay. It is here that captain Fitz Roy and Charles Darwin had their first close encounter with the Yamana aborigines. A hike here provided beautiful vistas of irregular shorelines with a number of islands, saw a wild pig, and had snow which made for some beautiful scenery. After a final meal onboard we disembarked the next morning in Ushuaia.

Ushuaia
Back in Argentina, Ushuaia is the main city on the Big Island of Tierra del Fuego. Back to the road (sort of) on Land Rovers, we rode and hiked to Fagnano Lake where our guides broiled us a delicious steak and sausage in a private little cabin overlooking the lake. On the hike to the cabin we saw a variety of birds. From here we took a flight back to Buenos Aires and then on to Igaussa Falls.

Igaussa Falls
The waterfall system consists of 275 falls along 1.67 miles of the Igaussa River. The tallest (275 ft.) is Garganta del Diablo (Devil´s Throat), a U-shaped 490 foot wide by 2300 foot long cliff. It is the most impressive of all and marks the border between Argentina and Brazil. About a third of the 1.67 miles length of the falls does not have water flowing over it, creating a very scenic panorama. On July 24, 2006 a severe drought in South America had caused the river feeding the falls to become parched, reducing the amount of water flowing over the falls to 80,000 gallons per second, down from the normal flow of 350,000 to 400,000 gallons per second. By early December, the flow was spectacular again, according to visiting tourists. Our guide told us that we were observing the falls with a high flow rate. The water of the lower Igaussa collects in a canyon that drains into the Parana River which flows into the Plata River which then drains into the Atlantic Ocean at Buenos Aires. Later after returning to Buenos Aires we visited the Parana delta.

While at Igaussa Falls we also saw lizards, coati, and many species of butterflies.

Following is a comparison of the three major waterfalls I´ve visited:

	Igaussa	Victoria	Niagara
Length (miles)	1.67	0.98	0.69
Maximum Height (feet)	275	350	173
Surface Area @ Peak Flow (1000 m²)	1300	1800	600
Average annual peak flow (m³/sec)	6500	9100	2800
Number of falls at peak flow	275	1	2

Although Victoria Falls is in some ways larger than Igaussa, Igaussa affords better views and the walkways and its shape allows for spectacular vistas. At one point a person can stand and be surrounded by 260 degrees of waterfalls. The Garganta del Diablo has water pouring into it from three sides. We observed the falls from both Argentina and Brazil. Victoria is essentially one long waterfall that falls into a canyon and is too immense to appreciate at once (except from the air).

Final Impressions
This trip was very interesting with a great variety, from the big city including a tango lesson to the natural environment including the pampas, glaciers, islands, and oceans. The weather was also provided extremes from 80+ degrees to snow, sun, clouds, rain, and wind like I´ve not experienced. Our guide Lore was one of the best we´ve ever had, efficient, knowledgeable, friendly and with a good sense of humor, and, oh yes, she looked good! The group was fun to travel with and was very congenial and always on time.