To the end of the world

Moving on from BA and heading south. First stop was at the Peninsula Valdes and a day spent enjoying the scenery and the wildlife. Got to see penguins, elephant seals, sealions, and orcas. Missed out on the orcas hunting :( but did get to see them swim close in shore. If anyone remembers the David Attenborough series "The Trials of Life", the peninsular is where they filmed the sequence of orcas swim up to the beach and grabbing sealions. It´s the only place in the world where that happens. Spent quite a bit of time sitting in the roof seats of the truck. This is what everyone inside the truck looks like from above:

Next stop was to an even larger penguin colony. Around about 1000 birds, and most of them right by the path you walk along. Then into Chile (for the 1st time) and across the Straits of Magellan on a ferry. This was a great trip - the boat was surrounded by dolphins swimming along with us.

Then back into Argentina again for our final stop on this leg at Ushuaia right on the southern tip of the continent. From here onwards the only way is north. A day trip into Tierra del Fuego gave us the chance of a little bit of trekking. Also included was a visit to "the end of the world" in the park and a passport stamp to prove we´d been there. Also had a couple of wild nights around the town itself at a local club on day one and then an Irish Bar for St Patrick´s Day the night after (we have one girl from Ireland in our group, so obviously we all had to help her celebrate). In between the two, we managed to squeeze in a boat trip out on the Beagle Channel to see more sealions, fur seals, cormorants, and a lighthouse (not the southernmost one in the world). It was a bit of a struggle to get up this morning and be on the truck for 7am. Too much of a struggle for quite a few of us - the drunkards from the night before all got piled onto our new minibus (Carmen is still being repaired in Cusco). Think the drivers had a nice peaceful morning - we all slept right the way through to the Chilean border (for the 2nd time).

And now once again we say goodbye to a few people and get some newbies on the truck.





P.S. Truck life can be quite tiring: