Well, I'll be...competition - Ushuaia and El Calafate, Argentina

 I subtitle this photo: Crazy-Beautiful

As many of you know, I am from Connecticut. You may not know where that tiny state lies but I assure you it is inside New England. And one thing New England is known for is the fall colors. 

I have lived in many parts of the country and when the residents of one place or other say "well, fall is beautiful here too", I tend to roll my eyes like any good New Englander and say 'you have no idea'. Yes, aspen trees are nice. So are golden hills, and a few red brambles. By the way, Brazil has a very nice fall but it has nothing to do with "my" fall: it is gorgeous colors--of flowering trees. Weird. To me. But in my opinion, New England is the champion of fall.

Or is it? When we planned our trip to Patagonia, I hadn't really been thinking about autumn. I was wondering how I was going to break it to the kids that they would not be having a snowball fight or skiing because that is only in June in the southern hemisphere. And therefore I got bowled over by Patagonian fall. I was gobsmacked. It is, in the real and the southern California meanings of the word: AWESOME.

Before I bore you with vacation photos, I will mention that the days are getting verrrrrrry short down there in Patagonia. In Ushuaia, it was sunrise at 9 am and sunset at 6.  9 am!! Weird. In El Calafate, it was sunrise at 8:45 am and around the same sunset--at the height of winter, the sun is up at 10 am and barely crosses the sky before setting around 6 pm. Let me tell you it is really hard to get up in the dark--I would consider doing an hour rollback of the clocks in the winter, but that's none of my beeswax. Maybe Cristina could do something useful with her time.

9:30 am. The sun still attempting to come over the mountains.

I've got all the usual TripAdvisor stuff on TripAdvisor but let me tell you Patagonia rocks the beauty scales. Seriously. Get thee to the end of the world...

A view of Ushuaia from the boat departure spot to the Beagle channel

Some sea lions catching the breeze. And some birdies.

Did I mention that they are not over the Malvinas war? Ushuaia

Fall. There are only three types of trees in this park but they are the absolute right ones

 

Train to the end of the world. Tracks originally built by prisoners. The prison was the whole reason Ushuaia got populated. Like Australia.

Tomorrow I return to Brazil with two last daily posts on my life here. Mother's Day I am taking off and then we'll see how often I can post after that. Daily is tough. As Verissimo once said: "The deadline is my muse" which is why my posts are lame as often as they are good. Or more often, who knows? 

And now, the money shot. Taken at 11 am on a beautiful day at Perito Moreno glacier in El Calafate. Priceless. Okay, no fall colors on this one but who cares? To say the obvious, Connecticut has competition.