The tourism thread

[Helmut83]

This thread is for people who want to share experiences, photos and videos about their trips.

So far we've only had posts about trips in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada and Spain, so I thought I'd share a few pictures of trips I did in Argentina a few years ago (all pictures were taken by me).

These photos are from the Western/Northwestern Argentine provinces of San Juan, La Rioja and Catamarca. They are mostly at the foot (or sometimes above) of the Andes range, where the climate is arid and the altitude is very high. All of these photos were taken in altitudes ranging 2500 mts. (8,000 ft) to 5000 mts. (16,400 ft) above sea level:


























































































imagen jpg



Pity some random guy got in the way and ruined what would have been a magnificent photo.

[Horacewimp]

Great photos Helmut83, some remind me of the volcanic areas of The Canary Islands in particular Tenerife and Lanzarote.

The pictures of the streams look like North Wales except for the blue sky.

[BSJ]

Hey, Grumpy! Unbelievable, awesome photo's. It’s a gorgeous fantasy land, many different terrains. And colors, 5th photo from bottom. That a dormant volcano, 11th photo down? And animals - flamingos? What's the bird strutting on the road? Many different variations of Llama's in that posse.



(Uh. Are those Nieve's parents working on creating her? )

[Helmut83]

Jan 8, 2017 20:44:30 GMT BSJ said:

(Uh. Are those Nieve's parents working on creating her? )

lol  Yeah, they have to provide many people around the world with little llamas like Nieve so they do that a lot, haha. The guide that we hired (and took in my father's pick up truck) said that it was an extremely unusual sight as they are usually very reserved when mating.

Yeah, the places were hard to believe were real. Some looked like from another planet, some others like valleys out of the dinosaurs era.

On the 11th photo down, your geology knowledge is pretty solid, my friend, that is indeed a dormant volcano. It's called the San Francisco and at 6.012 metres above sea level it's supposed to be the smallest six-thousander in the Andes.  There's even another small red volcano on it's slope. The pink birds are flamingos, yes, and the strutting bird is an altitude relative of the ostrich named suri.

As for the camelids, in those pictures there are llamas (the ones which are many, wooly and of different colours, lying on the ground), vicuñas (a camelid that only can be found in very high altitude, like the one who's crossing the road and the one on the side of a hill) and guanacos (a bigger and more violent species, the baby that's lying on the ground). The only species missing here would be alpacas.

[queenofthehours]

Such beautiful pictures, Helmut83 ! I don't think I've ever seen such an amazing landscape, each picture makes it look like a painting. Many beautiful colours.

I loved seeing the fuzzy wild animals, and the interesting birds and the...er... interesting, wild Hemuts .

I like the pic third from bottom - it's the land at the end of the rainbow!

The picture 12th from bottom looks like 'The Land of the Baby Chicks'. Though it's obviously a kind of plant. (I wish the 'Land of Baby Chicks' existed though )

[BSJ]

Helmut83 , the front hill in third photo looks as if it's velvet.

What's with the confusing signs?

[Helmut83]

Glad that you liked the pictures and the places, queenofthehours. Will it be enough to convince you of spending your next piggy bank on a trip to Argentina?

The 12th picture was a stream coming out of a spring in the middle of the volcanoes. The water's temperature was slightly hot.

Haha, I had to include the picture of the wild Helmut to prove I was actually there and the pictures weren't stolen from someone else.

[Helmut83]

Jan 9, 2017 19:00:47 GMT BSJ said:

Helmut83 , the front hill in third photo looks as if it's velvet.

What's with the confusing signs?

Yeah, those hills have a really even surface and looked as if someone had thrown paint all over them. Here goes another angle of one of those hills:



The confusing signs was at the intersection of two unnamed tiny streets on a tiny village. I thought it was fun so I took a picture of it.

[unomusette]

Those photos are fantastic, not only the subject matter but the quality too - easily as good as in the best travel publications

Amazing layers of colour in the first four or five pics, and as BSJ pointed out there's some fine velvety texture going on.
Speaking of goings on, trust you to spot the llama love-in

[Helmut83]

Jan 9, 2017 21:03:54 GMT unomusette said:

Speaking of goings on, trust you to spot the llama love-in

I'm like Cupid, everywhere I go free love starts flourishing like flowers in spring. And pretty much like Cupid, I get hardly ever included in the party. 

Those are vicuñas, a wild species of camelid (as opposed to llamas which are domestic) that live over 3,500 metres above sea level and which got very close to extiction a couple of decades ago because their skin is extremely fine and expensive. As you can see, they aren't losing time in recovering the species' numbers. 

[unomusette]

You remind me of a young Paul Rodgers (of Free fame) in that pic, Helmut83 - if you invest in a long brown wig you could be twins

[Helmut83]

I think it's him who should be investing in a black, curly, untidy wig.

[unomusette]

These days you'd never recognise him, he looks as if he's had some rather dodgy plastic surgery around his eyes.

[queenofthehours]

Jan 9, 2017 19:04:01 GMT Helmut83 said:

Glad that you liked the pictures and the places, queenofthehours . Will it be enough to convince you of spending your next piggy bank on a trip to Argentina?

The 12th picture was a stream coming out of a spring in the middle of the volcanoes. The water's temperature was slightly hot.

Haha, I had to include the picture of the wild Helmut to prove I was actually there and the pictures weren't stolen from someone else.

I'll need a lot in the piggy bank for it but I'm tempted. Argentina is top of my list for travel now .

[unomusette]

Right, this is in the way of an introduction, a test (of photo size) and a tip. The tip is, when you visit Venice via Marco Polo airport you should always try to sit on the right hand side of the plane, because as you come in to land you have an amazing aerial view of the city


Edit: Woo! It worked! More to follow tomorrow. You can't believe how titchy it looks from the air though, when you're there and criss-crossing alleyways and bridges it seems a whole lot bigger.