Jonathan's Semester in Argentina: Family, Iguazú, Waterfalls, Patagonia, Mountains and Glaciers

The past three weeks have probably been the busiest during my stay here in Argentina. It all started when my mom and sister came to visit me for a week. I walked into the hotel, went up to their room, and lo and behold, my brother was sleeping in the hotel bed! It was the best surprise ever. I had a very fun time with the three of them. I got to see a lot of places that I had already seen in a new light, and a lot of new places too. We went to the waterfalls up north in Iguazu, which were amazing. Luckily we were all able to get visas to Brazil, and got the chance to go to the Brazil and Argentine side of the falls. It was a great trip. It made me want to go to Niagra falls now. They are in my own state and I've still never been! The falls are so powerful.

At peak water levels there can be 400,000 gallons of water passing over every second. I thought being a sailor and admirer of the ocean let me appreciate the power of water. Not even close. Check out the video that I have posted above.

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As you can see from the map, Iguazú is not the only place that I have been. Actually, I have traversed pretty much the entire length of the country. Tomorrow I will traverse the width! What I am referring to is my trip that I took last week to Patagonia. Patagonia is the southernmost region of Argentina, Chile, South America, America as a whole, and pretty most the southernmost region of the entire world. Hence the reason why Tierra Del Fuego in Argentina and Chile is nicknamed "The End of the World." Unfortunately, we did not make it down to the End of the World, Tierra Del Fuego, or Ushuaia, but it did not matter at all. Patagonia is one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful place I have ever been. When planning, we did not think that we would be able to see everything that we wanted. The official tourist season ends the end of April, so we were traveling during the off-season, things were closed, shuttle schedules were changed, and it looked like we would not be able to do it all. However, when we arrived at the airport, we were really lucky and found a bus to take us to El Chalten. About 4 hours north of El Calafate, El Chalten is a small hikers village based pretty much all around Parque Nacional Torres del Paine and Cerro Fitz Roy. Cerro Fitz Roy is world renowned as one of the hardest mountains to climb in the world. It is pretty much completely vertical and the conditions are not hospitable. When people do climb it they stay awake doing so for 48 hours straight because the window of opportunity is so small. At 8AM we woke up to go take a hike to el Lago de los Tres, a lake at the base of Cerro Torre. It was a great hike. We were confused why the sun was still not up at 8 -- it ended up not rising until about 9:30. However, this allowed us to hike to the lookout point and get a glimpse of Cerro Torre at sunrise. Because the mountain is a completely stone face and the sun is angled perfectly, when the sun rises it casts a beautiful pink glow on the mountain for about 30 minutes. It was one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen and was one of the best pictures I've ever taken too (see below).

The next day we went to El Calafate to see the famous Perito Moreno Glacier in Glacier National Park, Patagonia. It was the first time that I have ever seen a glacier, and I was more than amazed. It too was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen in the world. The glacier is 97 square miles, 19 miles long, blue because of the compact ice formation, and really really cool (pun slightly intended). The pictures were amazing. We went hiking on the glacier itself! It made me want to do more ice hiking when I get back to tufts. They also had whiskey with glacier ice waiting for us when we finished our hike, which was a wonderful surprise. The famous thing about Perito Moreno is that it is one of the few glaciers left that is still progressing. Seeing parts of the glacier face break off was very cool.

Tomorrow I leave with my abroad program to Tilcara, Jujuy. I really did not realize how large Argentina was before coming here. Argentina is a total of, excluding the country's claim to territory in Antarctica, about 1 million square miles. At its largest points, the country is 2400 miles long and 870 miles wide. In contrast, the US is 3.7 million square miles and 2600 miles wide. The height of Argentina almost the same as the width of the United States!

All this traveling is making me realize how little I know my own country. I am from New York and study in Boston, but I don't travel to Florida and California on the weekends. I don't even know that much about my own city. I will definitely have to do some more traveling when I get home. I'm also going to go on a tour of New York.