The famous Paris-Dakar race, as the name suggests, begins and ends in Buenos Aires. At least this year. It happened to be crossing not far from us in the city of San Juan, Argentina, so we decided to check it out. Read the rest of this entry »
January 13, 2010
January 12, 2010
Aconcagua in a weekend *
* almost; round trip from the base camp
Have you ever seen the book series ‘x in a weekend’ e.g., Tennis, Skiing, Sailing – a crash course manual that should teach you this activity in one weekend only? Well, in the case of climbing Aconcagua, this title could be indeed true. We’ve done it ourselves, almost. Read the rest of this entry »
January 3, 2010
New Year Eve at 4200m
Easter Island was nice, but a bit too low in altitude for us – a bit too much of air to breathe. When we came back onto the continent, we went straight to the mountains around Mendoza, Argentina, to the region of Cordon del Plata. It was such a relief to sleep at 4200m, Read the rest of this entry »
December 7, 2009
Perito Moreno Glacier
(photos)
Forget Swiss Aletsch or French Merde Glace (I meant Mer de Glace) on the slopes of Mont Blanc! The glacier Perito Moreno knocked our socks off! It is a 5km wide, 30km long, river of ice. More importantly, it ends directly in a lake, in a form of a 60m tall wall of ice. Read the rest of this entry »
December 5, 2009
Mighty Fitz Roy and jaw-dropping Cerro Torre
(photos)
We were afraid that, spoiled in Switzerland, we are not able to admire other mountains. We were wrong. Read the rest of this entry »
December 2, 2009
PS. Routa 40, still on the bus
It is almost 10 pm now and it is still quite a bright day. We’ve been driving the whole day. Just a small add to the Patagonia part.
At the moment we’re approaching El Chalten on the bus. We see one of the most beautiful mountain sceneries one can imagine. Read the rest of this entry »
Routa 40
Yup, that’s where we are now. So excuse us all the misspellings, but the bus shakes us up and down on this legendary dirt road. We feel like shaken jellies and Read the rest of this entry »
November 30, 2009
Back in Switzerland!
We are again surrounded by high mountains, peaks covered with snow, deep valleys, blue/green lakes, chocolate stores, wooden mountain huts and nice ski resorts. We missed them all so much! We have a view on a 100km long, banana-shaped lake, with mountains just next to it. I bet they have a Read the rest of this entry »
November 26, 2009
Indigenous Fauna: Penguins, Sea Elephants and Whales
photos: whales & sea elephants, penguins
videos: whales, sea elephants, penguins
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Punta Tombo would be a long forgotten piece of coast if not the penguins. For some reason thousands of them travel here every year all the way from Antarctic to bread and have kids. They knew where to settle, because Read the rest of this entry »
November 22, 2009
Buenos Aires
(photos)
BA is a city of contrasts. The rich modern Puerto Madero district neighbors with the local ‘favelas’. The saying ‘rich get richer, poor get poorer’ is very true here. Indeed, this was one of the observations that inspired Che Gevara and gave him revolutionary thoughts.
The metropolis, the home of 1/3 of Argentina’s population, Read the rest of this entry »