Argentina - A daunder with the geographer

Editor's Notes

1. El Chaltén is a small mountain village in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina. It is located in the riverside of Río de lasVueltas, within the Los Glaciares National Park (section ReservaNacionalZonaViedma) at the base of Cerro Torre and Cerro Fitz Roy mountains, both popular for climbing. For this reason this village is well-visited by trekkers and climbers.The village was built in 1985 to help secure the disputed border with Chile. Today the sole reason for its existence is tourism. It is 220 km north of El Calafate."Chaltén" is a tehuelche word meaning smoking mountain, as they believe it was a volcano for its peak is most of the time covered by clouds. Other visited tracks and sights are Torre Glacier, Laguna Capri, PiedrasBlancas Glacier, Chorrillo del Salto and Laguna de los Tres. (Wikipedia}
2. Monte Fitz Roy (also known as Cerro Chaltén, Cerro Fitz Roy, or simply Mount Fitz Roy) is a mountain located near El Chaltén village, in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field in Patagonia, on the border between Argentina and Chile. First climbed in 1952 by French alpinists Lionel Terray and Guido Magnone, it remains among the most technically challenging mountains on Earth for mountaineers. Monte Fitz Roy is the basis for the Patagonia clothing logo following YvonChouinard's ascent and subsequent film in 1968.
3. Guanaco
4. This little chappie had genuinely remained hidden from its human neighbours until its formal scientific discovery – it is the pichiciego (aka pichiciago) or pink fairy armadillo. No bigger than a mole, this extraordinary little creature is the world’s smallest species of armadillo, and is native to the dry grasslands and sandy plains of central-western Argentina, where for much of the time it remains underground, using its huge front claws to agitate the sand so that it can then quite literally swim through it, as easily as if it were swimming through water.
5. ElCalafate. El Calafate is a city in Patagonia, Argentina. It is situated in the southern border of Lake Argentino, in the southwest part of the Santa Cruz Province, about 320 km Northwest of Río Gallegos. Its name is derived from a little bush with yellow flowers and dark blue berries that is very common in Patagonia: the calafate (Berberisbuxifolia); the word comes from the word "calafate", which is Spanish for "caulk".
6. The Perito Moreno Glacier is a glacier located in the Los Glaciares National Park in southwest Santa Cruz province, Argentina. It is one of the most important tourist attractions in the Argentine Patagonia.
7. Pressures from the weight of the ice slowly pushes the glacier over the southern arm ("Brazo Rico") of "Lago Argentino" ("Lake Argentina") damming the section and separating it from the rest of the lake. With no outlet, the water-level on the "Brazo Rico" side of the lake can rise by as much as 30 meters above the level of the main body of Lake Argentina. Periodically, the pressure produced by the height of the dammed water breaks through the ice barrier causing a spectacular rupture, sending a massive outpouring of water from the Brazo Rico section to the main body of Lake Argentina. As the water exits Brazo Rico, the scored shoreline is exposed, showing evidence of the height of the water build-up. This dam–ice-bridge–rupture cycle recurs naturally between once a year to less than once a decade.
8. The last breakthrough occurred only a day before we arrived.
9. The glacier was still calving about every five minutes.
10. Seracs form on the ice. A combination of gradient and rain!
11. These pointed seracs are called penitents
12. Better than the telly!!
13. A caraca defends its lunch.
14. A Patagonian fox.
15. ElBariloche -
16. Sticky lava spines.
17. Cerro Lopez. Serious slope – great views.
18. ChosMalal
19. An incipient ox-bow lake on Ruta 40 north of Barilocheenroute to ChosMalal.
20. Vent agglomerate spires punctuate the skyline.
21. Near Varvarco.
22. The road to Domuyo.
23. The geysers in the stream bed near Domuyo.
24. Orographic clouds Domuyo
25. Villa Pehuenia
26. LagoAlumine
27. VolcanBateaMahuida.
28. VolcanBateaMahuida. Crater lake
29. Ash field
30. St Martin de Los Andes 1898 logging and agriculture now tourism. The Puelches indigenous.
31. Angostura – PN Los Arranyanes peninsula – 12 km walk out and a 12 km walk back
32. The city of Buenos Aires lies in the pampa region, except for some zones like the Buenos Aires Ecological Reserve, the Boca Juniors (football) Club "sports city", Jorge Newbery Airport, the Puerto Madero neighborhood and the main port itself; these were all built on reclaimed land along the coasts of the Rio de la Plata (the world's widest river).[48]The region was formerly crossed by different creeks and lagoons, some of which were refilled and others tubed. Among the most important creeks are Maldonado, Vega, Medrano, Cildañez and White. In 1908 many creeks were channelled and rectified, as floods were damaging the city's infrastructure. Starting in 1919, most creeks were enclosed. Notably, the Maldonado was tubed in 1954, and currently runs below Juan B. Justo Avenue.
33. Buenos Aires is rated one of the 20 largest cities in the world. It is, along with São Paulo and Mexico City, one of the three Latin American cities considered an 'alpha city' by the study GaWC5and has been ranked as the most important global city and competitive marketplace of Latin America. Argentina has the second best quality of life in Latin America, second to Chile and Buenos Aires' quality of life is ranked at 61st in the world, with its per capita income among the three highest in the region. It is the most visited city in South America (ahead of Rio de Janeiro) and the second most visited city across Latin America (behind Mexico City). It is also one of the most important, largest and most populous of South American capitals, often referred to as the Paris of South America.
34. People from Buenos Aires are referred to as porteños (people of the port).
35. The majority of porteños have European origins, with Italian and Spanish descent being the most common, from the Calabrian, Ligurian, Piedmont, Lombardy, Sicily and Campaniaregions of Italy and from the Andalusian, Galician, Asturian, and Basqueregions of Spain
36. The view from the bedroom! Recoleta cemetery.
37. Political comment on the streets of Buenos Aires.
38. Palermo
39. Puerto Madero - Fragata Sarmiento 40 times between1899 and 1938 now a museum
40. The ferry to Uruguay.
41. To sum up. Buenos Aires is special. It is indeed a flight of fancy.
42. A sub-tropical, colourful, extravaganza of a city.
43. With more than a touch of melancholy
44. And the aggressive sharpness of a hawk. I like the place!
45. Thank you.