Back in Uppsala. /Jens

Back in Uppsala. It is a weird feeling to be back to something so familiar. The flight from Buenos Aires seemed too long and many of us was not sleepy enough to make use of the hastened night over the Atlantic. Even so, Uppsala appeared in front of our eyes quicker than expected and took me a bit by surprise. Could it be that we have adopted the slower outlook on travel from our Argentinian bus drivers?

/Jens

Boarding in Buenos Aires.

Boarding in Buenos Aires.

Checking out of Argentina. Godbye sunsh

Checking out of Argentina. Godbye sunshine.

Success! The meat queen strikes again!

Success! The meat queen strikes again!

I wonder how this is going to end...

I wonder how this is going to end...

Samba time in the streets of Buenos Aire

Samba time in the streets of Buenos Aires!

Dinner argentinian style. Pick your meat

Dinner argentinian style. Pick your meat and the guy grills it for you. /Jens

What do we eat? In the evening, mostly t

What do we eat? In the evening, mostly this. /Jens

Quick update. The last couple of days we

Quick update. The last couple of days we have seen whales, sea lions, elephant seals and penguins and much more. Another night on the buss brought us to Bahia Blanca where we just have been on a very nice walk looking at a pampas wild cat project. I forgot to take an interesting picture so you have to settle for a pampas field with cows. /Jens

We managed to squeeze in some political

We managed to squeeze in some political activism on the way to dinner last night. Protesting against the plans to open a new gold mine in the area. We nearly doubled the number of people, to the bewilderment of the original protesters. /Jens

Peninsula Valdéz. We saw some whales today

We saw the Southern Right Whale (Eubalaena Australis) today. A huge creature.

~Linnea~

Gregorsz searching snowy woodpeckers

Condors at dusk. Another day with amazin

Condors at dusk. Another day with amazing scenery. Swiss alps meets cowboy steppe meets asian bamboo hills. The phone could not capture the condor roost, but it got the temperature. Only a bus drive away from 38! /Jens

It is spring here in Bariloche. Snowfall

It is spring here in Bariloche. Snowfall and cherry blossom! /Jens

Bamboo!

Bamboo!

On a dusty gravel road in Patagonia, Mat

On a dusty gravel road towards Patagonia, Matt informs us from the back of the bus, "we lost a window". The driver stops to confirm, leaves the broken glass as a gift to the goats and drives on. Matt repairs the bus - macgyver style - with some duct tape, and we are as good as new.
Only ten more hours to go! /Jens

Update: Ten hours proved to be a bit optimistic. Well, we are here now in Bariloche anyway, after 15 hours of bus travel. The landscape is extremely vast and barren, we have seen quite a few bushes and cows along the way. It is a nice and cool evening here in Bariloche, and the hostel seems very good.

After a sunny and windy day in mendoza,

After a sunny and windy day in mendoza, it is barbeque time! Flamingos, guanacos, volcanos and large caves were some of today's highlights! /Jens

Stop in the middle of nowhere

This country is fantastic. We have been here less than a week and we have already seen so many different types of landscapes. Here we had a short stop with the bus yesterday on our way to Malagüe, where we stay for two nights. /Karna

Great hospitality

 

Yesterday we were overwhelmed by the hospitality at this village school. The children told us about their project to save a local eagle. I think both we and the children will remember this visit for a long time.

/Karna

Well, we were promised snow today and th

Well, we were promised snow today and they delivered! More than that, we had Aconcagua as backdrop! /Jens

wildlife in the shadow of big oil

Friday morning (and with a promise of 40 degrees - which turned out to be
a slack 35 degrees) we set off early to the local oil refinery to look at
a nature reserve and wildlife rehabilitation centre which is used as a
biomonitoring project. In the picture above, Camilla is checking out
someone's rhea. /Matt

Aconcagua!!

We had a great day heading in to the heart of the Andes to see the highest
mountain on the continent (just under 7000m). We were lucky to have a
number of the park rangers and researchers accompany us with them
enthusiastically talking to us about the challenges they face in managing
the park and the conflicts involved in designing the current management
plan. Readers of this blog in Sweden might like to note the blue skies and
sunshine (and relative warmth) despite us being at 3000m. /Matt

snoozing on the bus

A somewhat restless night's sleep on the bus as we went from Cordoba to
Mendoza. But we were rewarded with great views of the Andes when we awoke
the next morning. Here Måns shows how to sleep in style. /Matt

doctoral nightmare

Before leaving Cordoba most of us got to do a tour through the old
university. Not knowing anything of its history we were surprised to
discover that this was a major seat of learning in the 1600s with an
amazing library from the Jesuit scholars who founded the university
(including some Gutenberg Bibles, some of the first books ever printed and
the actual books which were the poisoned ones chained to the wall the in
movie 'The Name of the Rose' - although in reality their ink isn't
poisoned). One disappointing thing was to discover how easy it has become
to defend a thesis these days. Back in the good old days of this
university, the PhD candidate was required to sit in a chair and be
quizzed in Latin (and had to answer in Latin) any question asked by the 20
or so head scholars at the univerity. Doesn't sound so bad until you hear
that this was for 8 hours each day for 3 days. After passing this, your
reward was to ride a donkey through the streets of Cordoba (so, pass or
fail, you got to make an ass of yourself). Matt/

It is official. It's warm.

Today we went hiking in a small Chaco type forest. Only about 3 % of this forest type remains around Cordoba. We saw Colibris and Parakeets (and plenty more...). We seem always to pick up stray dogs where ever we go. Today we had two in our "flock". We are definitely in for some contrasts on this trip. A couple of days ago we had frosty nights in Sweden and now we are trying to avoid heat stroke. Today´s top temperature was 38 C and needless to say we felt a bit cooked. We have been promised snow for tomorrow though, at the base of Aconcagua! /Jens

Getting ready for some mountain climbing

 

We didn't know what was coming...

~Linnéa~

Today we have a seminar where we meet ar

Today we have a seminar where we meet argentinian PhD students. In the photo, Matt Low is trying to look like a grown up.
/Jens

impressions

impressions so far...

Madrid - huge impressive expensive airport where they obviously ran out of
money just when they were about to put in comfortable seating and food
places that actually sold food worth eating.
Iberia air - Thank goodness there are still airlines in the world that
don´t distract you with things like legroom (stockholm-madrid) or tv
monitors and movies (madrid-santiago). Spent most of the time laughing at
the selection of pick-up lines in the spanish-english phrasebook (Easy
Tiger!) rather than actually learning useful phrases like ´can you please
drive at under 100kph in the backstreets (see below)?´ Iberia get big
bonus points for cake and chocolate for breakfast!
Santiago - we picked up an extra member of our party during the day here
when one of the stray dogs liked the look of our ´pack`and decided to hang
with us for our trip around the city. Probably smelt better than most of
us did by this time.
Santiago-Cordoba - great views of the Andes. Great smells of our feet for
those few of us carefree enough to kick off our shoes.
Cordoba - a 6 taxi yellow convoy streaking lightning fast through the
backstreets (and all I could say to the driver was `easy tiger!´). Thank
goodness for Alejandro and Celina for being here to organise things in
advance and make our lives much easier. Had a Lomo for dinner. Going to
bed now as it is late and I am tired. Looking forward to a 6am start
tomorrow and climbing a mountain.

Matt

The whole group assembled in Argentina!

The whole group assembled in Argentina! About 30 warm hours later. Now for some lunch shopping, then some sleep. It is nice and warm here by the way! /Jens

Getting hussled by a cab driver in Santi

Getting hussled by a cab driver in Santiago. /Jens

Flying over the Andes

Great view from the flight between Santiago and Cordoba!

~Linnéa~

Boarding in Madrid!

Boarding in Madrid!

The before picture! Waiting at the gate

The before picture! Waiting at the gate in arlanda. 30 hours to Cordoba.

Phone test.

Still stuck in Uppsala. First snow today!

The Argentina Blog is up!

The Ecology Graduate School at the Department of Ecology, SLU, is packing its bags and heading for Argentina! Officially, the trip lasts between 24/10 and 10/11 -09. Some have travelled in advance and are already there and some will stay a while longer.

This is the place to check out where we are and what we are doing. Updates will likely be irregular as we travel between places without internet connection. We'll try and send pictures from our phones as well. 

/Jens (initiator but not the only uploader)