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“Pic of the Week”, December 14, 2018: A fine Crab Dinner in Ushuaia
I have to admit that before my trip to Patagonia I didn’t know the waters of the southern Pacific were home to king crab, much like you find off the coast of Alaska. While walking around the streets of Ushuaia, we found a number of restaurants that specialized in the cooking and serving of these large crustaceans. These places seemed busy and very popular with tourists, especially the Japanese groups, so my wife and I decided to splurge and share one of these monsters for our last dinner in southern Argentina.
The beasts are sold by the kilogram (sorry, can’t remember the price, but it wasn’t cheap). The crab is cooked and served to you intact on a large platter, as …
.All Trips / Argentina / South America
A Sampler of San Telmo’s Street Art
As I’ve previously discussed, Buenos Aires has a vibrant street art scene. In this post I’ll share some of the art we encountered in the San Telmo neighborhood. San Telmo is a popular place to go shopping and dining. While it was at its prime in the late 19th century, San Telmo is now in a state of “elegant decay”. The street art provides some relief from this.
Here is some works of street art we saw as we walked these worn lanes:
(Click on thumbnails to enlarge, right arrow to advance slideshow)
Tagged Buenos Aires, San Telmo, street art
“Pic of the Week”, September 21, 2018: Views from Ushuaia
Ushuaia is the southernmost city in the world. It lies on the tip of Tierra del Fuego, off the Beagle Channel, and is surrounded by the Martial Mounts. This excellent location allows you to enjoy dramatic scenes of the sea, mountains and forests of southern Patagonia.
We spent a few days in Ushuaia after completing a memorable cruise through the Patagonian fjords. The weather was quite changeable and scenes of the city were often dramatic, especially when viewed from the hill where our hotel was located.
Ushuaia has a modern international airport and is the closest deep-water port to Antarctica. The last photos below are some of my favorites, with “Godbeams” of light penetrating the heavy cloud of a clearing storm.
(Click on …
Sep 20, 2018
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“Pic of the Week”, September 14, 2018: Floralis Genérica, Buenos Aires
Floralis Genérica is one of the best known and most impressive monuments in Buenos Aires. It’s a sculpture of a massive flower (18 tons, 23 meters high) made of stainless steel, aluminum and concrete. Floralis Genérica is located in a beautiful 4 acre park at the Plaza of the United Nations in Recoleta. The park has walking paths that allow you to view the sculpture from different angles.
This impressive artwork was donated to the city in 2002 by architect Eduardo Catalano. It has a mechanism (which may or may not be working) that opens and closes the flower’s six gigantic petals, depending on the time of day. When all is in working order the flower closes …
Sep 13, 2018
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“Pic of the Week”, September 7, 2018: Reminders of a Wildfire, Patagonia
Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park is a UNESCO World Biosphere Preserve and is home to some of the most dramatic landscapes in the world. The area has had several significant wildfires in the past few decades, the largest in late 2011 which burned into 2012 and destroyed 16,000 hectares (about 40,000 acres) . All of these wildfires were caused by careless human behavior. While it is somewhat shaky, this short videoclip shows the magnitude of these fires and just how scary they are when you’re in the midst of it all.
The area doesn’t have the dense forests or taller trees one sees in coastal Patagonia, but the scrubby dead bush that remains is definitely a reminder of these fires. I …
Sep 6, 2018
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.All Trips / Chile / South America
A Mountain with Horns: Cuernos del Paine, Chile
I’ve been a lover of mountains for as long as I can remember. I grew up on the painfully flat plains of Manitoba (and I mean f-l-a-t, like a pancake), and still vividly recall seeing my first mountains when I was a toddler of about 2 or 3 years old. These were the amazing Alberta Rocky Mountains visited on one of many family vacations to Banff. I was fascinated by mountains then and remain so to this day.
I have seen many beautiful and interesting mountains in my life and have a list of favorites — the Matterhorn, Kilimanjaro, Ama Dablam, Mt. Assiniboine, Cascade mountain, Mauna Kea, and so on. But there is no mountain formation I find more interesting than …
Tagged Cuernos del Paine, mountains, Patagonia, Torres del Paine
.All Trips / Chile / South America
Visiting the Otway Penguins, Chile
It’s hard not to like penguins. Flightless, of course, their comical waddling gait on land belies their great agility and speed in the water. A chance to see them up close and in the wild is always something I’ll jump at, so I was glad for the opportunity to visit this penguin colony at Otway. Otway “feels” inland but is connected to the sea and the Fitzroy Channel.
Situated off the road connecting Torres del Paine and Punta Arenas in Patagonian Chile, Seno Otway is home to a large but seasonal colony of penguins. During the peak season, from October through March, there are up to 150,00 Magellanic penguins that mate and reside in the area. They nest, lay eggs in October, and …
.All Trips / Chile / South America
A Stop in Puerto Natales
Puerto Natales is an isolated small town in Patagonian Chile, the kind where if you blink you might miss it while you’re driving through. It’s best known as a gateway for trekkers and adventures traveling to nearby Torres del Paine. Recently fossil rich caves near the town have brought it fame because of the giant sloth fossils found within. Puerto Natales is situated on the Ultima Esperanza Sound and is a port for the Navimag ferry.
The first European to discover the area was Juan Ladrillero, a Spanish explorer who was looking for the Strait of Magellan’s western passage amidst the maze of the Chilean fjords (1557). The famous British ship of exploration, the HMS Beagle (on which Charles Darwin was …
Tagged Patagonia, Puerto Natales, wind
