“There’s no Antarctic ocean on the maps. The cold waves that beat against the Antarctic continent are from the southern portions of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, and in their flow around the ice-rimmed land they mingle to form one vast gale-swept wilderness of water.” Russell Owen observed as he nailed the essence of […]
Back in Buenos Aires (BA) post a zippy 18 hour bus ride, it felt like we’d been dealt a second chance card. We had cheated ourselves on the previous breathtakingly scanty visit, eager to be at the world’s edge. Due to the onset of snow we hadn’t seen the city’s centrepiece, namely its colonial architectural […]
If you’re planning on visiting Argentina, Chile and Bolivia – here’s our ‘Top Ten’ offbeat travel hot spots The southernmost city in the world, Ushuaia is the capital of Tierra del Fuego, Antártida e Islas del Atlántico Sur Province, Argentina. After some incredible hiking in this PATA-God-of-Peaks-GONIA, you surely won’t forget to have your photograph taken at the ‘Fin […]
Pearl my bike is painted blue, a colour as calming as a Patagonian sky. However she’s built more for comfort than speed. Over the past few weeks in the saddle, Pearl and I have pretty much fused together to ride as a unit. It’s just as Lois Pryce described in Lois on the Loose after […]
Leaving the calm surroundings of Puerto Natales and our bike-friendly Hostal Don Guillermo, four of us including Andrew we’d met in Ushuaia and his buddy Hilton set off in high spirits for some serious trekking among the last glacier strongholds in the world. A 10 day self-sufficient trip around the complete circuit of Torres del Paine […]
Before peeling ourselves away from the Land of Fire, we set off for a last bite of the Ushuaian cherry, a final sip from the world’s end ‘cup’. We’d been invited to stay at an estancia for the weekend with Juan Pablo and his friends tucked away near the west coast on the border between […]
We almost changed our minds about visiting Harberton Estancia, a sheep farm. Glad we went ahead; we came upon the working ranch, which was founded by Thomas Bridges naming it after his wife’s home village, Devon in the southwest of England. Orphaned at thirteen, he was named Thomas Bridges having been found with a ‘T’ […]
We are still in Ushuaia but will be leaving in a few days to head north as the weather is really starting to turn now, and if we leave it much longer we’ll be marooned on this island until the Spring. No bad thing with the mountains to explore and great skiing in the nearby ski […]
There’s no sufficient superlative to depict the landscape, peripheral scenery and vistas from the Tierra del Fuego, the Land of Fire. Bounded on the north by the Martial mountain range and the south by the Beagle Channel, Ushuaia is the most southerly tip that can be reached by road. El Fin del Mundo, the End […]
Exhausted after a day and night of socialising our socks off in Puerto Madryn and a long ride on top, I got my first taste of South America’s ‘ripio’. This is essentially loose gravel. There can also be sand and dirt present, not always compacted as well as big and small stones scattered all over […]