Jul 90 - The Perito-Moreno glacier, Los Glaciares national park, Southern Patagonia, Argentina
One of the most famous glaciers anywhere, and a rare advancing one.
- From Ushuaia I flew 360 km.s north to Rio Gallegos in Southern Patagonia. The winter weather was gray and overcast, and I found the city unattractive with little to recommend it, whether or not that's unfair. ('The Rough Guide' describes it as "grim and windy", and the narrator in the video in the 3rd link below refers to it as a "run-down town".) I don't recall if I stayed overnight and caught a bus the next day to El Calafate, @ 320 km.s / 3 1/2 hr.s NW, or if I took one in the evening, but I have a photo I took in Rio Gallegos at sunset with a narrow gap /b/ the clouds and the horizon.
- On a walk @ town, or part of it, I came across an unusual yard of old locomotives, the type from the turn of the last century that you see in museums. I'd found "the old facility of the railway complex of the company Yantación Carboniferous Fiscales. The Río Gallegos station of the Ramal Ferro Industrial de Río Turbio operated on these lands." es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_Ferroviario_Roberto_Galian
Someone in town told me that the locomotives were imported from Japan in the '60s, but they looked to be almost Victorian. (I'll scan a photo.) Today there's a Museo Ferroviario (2004) by that old train yard. According to InterPatagonia.com "these were the last steam locomotives built en masse in the world, and there are no other of their kind anywhere else." www.interpatagonia.com/riogallegos/galian-railway-museum.... "Steam is the most economical method of operation [in Southern Patagonia] due to abundant supplies of [bituminous] coal from the Rio Turbio mines to the west." www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNWjrx3eDO0
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6KCutcyvEg
- Rio Gallegos, a young town established in Dec. 1885 and named for Blasco Gallegos, one of Magellan’s pilots, credited with discovering the river, had a population of less than 75,000 in 1990. The town's mayor then was Néstor Kirchner, born there in 1950, and who would be elected president of Argentina in 2003, to be succeeded by his wife Cristina in 2007. (She served as president until 2015.) Néstor was then 'the first gentleman' for 3 yr.s until his death from a heart attack in 2010. He's the source of 'Kirschnerism', a political methodology or approach which is relatively left-wing and populist, concerned with the defense of human rights, and 'industrial developmentalist' in economic policy. His mausoleum in Rio Gallegos is 13 x 15 m.s in area, and 11 m.s tall. youtu.be/WYbjnOq9JwU?si=BwUPNAFVqxu_Ji_H
- There are several museos there now, incl. the provincial museo of Padre Jesús Molina' which was there in 1990 and which I probably missed (with its dinosaur dioramas, anthropology and paleontology exhibits). The Museo de Guerra Malvinas Argentinas (1995) sounds interesting as it makes the case for Argentina's claim to the Falklands (with which I don't concur, of course), and displays locally-made miniature replicas of the British & Argentine ships, planes and helicopters that featured in the war. (In Dec. '99, I befriended a really nice guy in Manchester who'd fought and was burned and disfigured in that war. I wish I'd kept in touch.)
- Rio Gallegos is the site of the 5th highest tides anywhere, and the highest anywhere south of the equator (!), something I didn't know when I was there.
- I took a bus @ 320 clicks NW to El Calafate, a small tourist town with a population of @ 5,000 in 1990 (it's grown 5 fold since then!), handy to the wonderful Parque Nacional Los Glaciares. Again, I was there out of season. I don't recall much about the town other than that I didn't care for it. Similar to Bariloche, tourism's the focus for the locals and prices there were mercenary. (The town's named after a Patagonian bush which produces a dark blue berry that's said to be tasty. According to a local tradition, one who eats this berry will return someday. I had heard this when I was there, but didn't try it. That said, I think I might've taken to the town in the summer.) The incredible (!) Fitz Roy mountains were inaccessible, the hiking trails that lead to them were impassable, and the only thing I did in Calafate that I recall was to hire a cab together with a young guy visiting from Tucumán (a province in NW Argentina) to drive us the 64 clicks to this famous viewpoint overlooking the massive Perito Moreno glacier. When it began to snow some an hour and a 1/2 or so after we'd arrived our driver got spooked, put chains around his tires and said we'd have to head right back, a shame as we'd planned to do some more exploring.
- One can hike ON this glacier in season, and there are boat trips to another larger and longer glacier (but which isn't more visually impressive than this).
- One miss was a collection of 4000 - 7000 yr. old cave and cliff paintings at Punta Walichu, 7 km.s east of town. (Get a good guidebook!) www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrDiQRp4JEE
- The next day I took a bus 490 km.s / 6 hr.s south to the Chilean border and on to Punta Arenas on the coast of the straits of Magellan, and said goodbye to Argentina.
Jul 90 - The Perito-Moreno glacier, Los Glaciares national park, Southern Patagonia, Argentina
One of the most famous glaciers anywhere, and a rare advancing one.
- From Ushuaia I flew 360 km.s north to Rio Gallegos in Southern Patagonia. The winter weather was gray and overcast, and I found the city unattractive with little to recommend it, whether or not that's unfair. ('The Rough Guide' describes it as "grim and windy", and the narrator in the video in the 3rd link below refers to it as a "run-down town".) I don't recall if I stayed overnight and caught a bus the next day to El Calafate, @ 320 km.s / 3 1/2 hr.s NW, or if I took one in the evening, but I have a photo I took in Rio Gallegos at sunset with a narrow gap /b/ the clouds and the horizon.
- On a walk @ town, or part of it, I came across an unusual yard of old locomotives, the type from the turn of the last century that you see in museums. I'd found "the old facility of the railway complex of the company Yantación Carboniferous Fiscales. The Río Gallegos station of the Ramal Ferro Industrial de Río Turbio operated on these lands." es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_Ferroviario_Roberto_Galian
Someone in town told me that the locomotives were imported from Japan in the '60s, but they looked to be almost Victorian. (I'll scan a photo.) Today there's a Museo Ferroviario (2004) by that old train yard. According to InterPatagonia.com "these were the last steam locomotives built en masse in the world, and there are no other of their kind anywhere else." www.interpatagonia.com/riogallegos/galian-railway-museum.... "Steam is the most economical method of operation [in Southern Patagonia] due to abundant supplies of [bituminous] coal from the Rio Turbio mines to the west." www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNWjrx3eDO0
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6KCutcyvEg
- Rio Gallegos, a young town established in Dec. 1885 and named for Blasco Gallegos, one of Magellan’s pilots, credited with discovering the river, had a population of less than 75,000 in 1990. The town's mayor then was Néstor Kirchner, born there in 1950, and who would be elected president of Argentina in 2003, to be succeeded by his wife Cristina in 2007. (She served as president until 2015.) Néstor was then 'the first gentleman' for 3 yr.s until his death from a heart attack in 2010. He's the source of 'Kirschnerism', a political methodology or approach which is relatively left-wing and populist, concerned with the defense of human rights, and 'industrial developmentalist' in economic policy. His mausoleum in Rio Gallegos is 13 x 15 m.s in area, and 11 m.s tall. youtu.be/WYbjnOq9JwU?si=BwUPNAFVqxu_Ji_H
- There are several museos there now, incl. the provincial museo of Padre Jesús Molina' which was there in 1990 and which I probably missed (with its dinosaur dioramas, anthropology and paleontology exhibits). The Museo de Guerra Malvinas Argentinas (1995) sounds interesting as it makes the case for Argentina's claim to the Falklands (with which I don't concur, of course), and displays locally-made miniature replicas of the British & Argentine ships, planes and helicopters that featured in the war. (In Dec. '99, I befriended a really nice guy in Manchester who'd fought and was burned and disfigured in that war. I wish I'd kept in touch.)
- Rio Gallegos is the site of the 5th highest tides anywhere, and the highest anywhere south of the equator (!), something I didn't know when I was there.
- I took a bus @ 320 clicks NW to El Calafate, a small tourist town with a population of @ 5,000 in 1990 (it's grown 5 fold since then!), handy to the wonderful Parque Nacional Los Glaciares. Again, I was there out of season. I don't recall much about the town other than that I didn't care for it. Similar to Bariloche, tourism's the focus for the locals and prices there were mercenary. (The town's named after a Patagonian bush which produces a dark blue berry that's said to be tasty. According to a local tradition, one who eats this berry will return someday. I had heard this when I was there, but didn't try it. That said, I think I might've taken to the town in the summer.) The incredible (!) Fitz Roy mountains were inaccessible, the hiking trails that lead to them were impassable, and the only thing I did in Calafate that I recall was to hire a cab together with a young guy visiting from Tucumán (a province in NW Argentina) to drive us the 64 clicks to this famous viewpoint overlooking the massive Perito Moreno glacier. When it began to snow some an hour and a 1/2 or so after we'd arrived our driver got spooked, put chains around his tires and said we'd have to head right back, a shame as we'd planned to do some more exploring.
- One can hike ON this glacier in season, and there are boat trips to another larger and longer glacier (but which isn't more visually impressive than this).
- One miss was a collection of 4000 - 7000 yr. old cave and cliff paintings at Punta Walichu, 7 km.s east of town. (Get a good guidebook!) www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrDiQRp4JEE
- The next day I took a bus 490 km.s / 6 hr.s south to the Chilean border and on to Punta Arenas on the coast of the straits of Magellan, and said goodbye to Argentina.