Energetic but with small eyes, guide Claudia awaits us just before four in the morning at the misty Aeropuerto Internacional Ministro Pistarini de Ezeiza, a bit south of Buenos Aires. That she had to get out of bed for us at a quarter to three this morning is only half the story. Just before midnight …
You'd better put some stones in your pockets if you don't want to be blown away. The steppes here are endless, harsh, and empty. It can be bitterly cold and scorching hot, stormy and windless, drizzling, sunny, and foggy – all within a 24-hour span. Yet, there is a mythical allure to this region – we are talking about …
With a wide curve, the pilot initiates the descent over the Beagle Channel. There is no trace here of the endless grassy steppes of Patagonia. Snow-capped peaks dominate the scenery to the horizon. Slowly, we descend into this majestic backdrop, flanked on either side by white mountain ridges. In the left distance, we spot …
It must be a desert-like landscape down there, intersected by dry riverbeds. That's at least the impression we get whenever the clouds reveal a glimpse of the land. Then, in the distance, Lake Argentino appears, with an area of 1,600 km² the largest body of water in Argentina. An uninterrupted chain of white Andean peaks fills the western horizon. It will be a less comfortable …
We have covered more than two hundred kilometres on RN40 since we left El Calafate this morning. It was a relatively dull route, over gently rolling terrain through the barren steppe. There wasn't much to experience along the way. Occasionally, a handful of rheas or a group of guanacos caught our attention.
This is slowly changing now. It's …
It must be that Gustavo knows this route like the back of his hand. And that he is convinced that there is no second Gustavo approaching from the other direction. Because we're zooming at forty, fifty kilometres per hour over the winding, unlit gravel roads. Occasionally, ...
With the golden glow of the evening sun at our backs, we skim low over hundreds of residential blocks in the northern barrios of Buenos Aires. It seems as if we almost touch the roof-tops at times. If anything goes wrong here, it would be an unparalleled disaster. However, …