As I passed a group of guys going back home from their night out, I looked forward to some more sleep on the bus. Driving the unpaved Route 40 is supposed to be one of the most beautiful/ dangerous/ long journeys in South America (depending as ever on who you talk to), but at 6 o´clock in the morning that seemed a bit far off; besides I had two full days to enjoy it! Admittedly the countryside is spectacular: typically patagonian with sparse brown scrub as far as the eye can see, occasional guanacos, nandus and lots of birds. Houses (or [View Full Entry]

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Many apologies for my laziness; I am now foregoing exploring leafy Palermo to belatedly write this. It might be short! My last day of spanish lessons was the best yet - a wander around Bariloche taking in museums (one suprisingly interesting given it´s modest initial impressions, one closed!) and a coffee, one of my favoutite pasttimes in the town. The lesson was good because we just chatted and it was great to finally put some of the grammar into practice. Having delayed leaving for a day in order to have a last hurrah paragliding off Cerro Otto, I was pretty disappointed [View Full Entry]

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After arriving back in Bariloche (and a much needed shower) I wandered up the road to my new homestay. Not quite believing my luck, I was welcomed to the biggest house on the street by Bernado and shown to MY OWN room! Dora and Bernado had 3 other guests staying (english, french and canadian) and my spanish was severely stretched over a delicious home-cooked supper that night. The double pronged attack will hopefully improve my language skills, although remembering and using what I´d already learnt was difficult enough without adding more... Mid-week we went out for a birthday drink, and were [View Full Entry]

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We caught an overnight bus to El Bolson and collapsed into a taxi with all our bags for a quick hop up to a hostel we´d pre-booked online. Having been promised a working farmhouse, with the option of sampling their breads, jams and other produce, we were pretty disappointed on arrival to find a hippy commune where no-one was up yet (it was past 11) and the single dorm was small, dirty and crowded! We didn´t hang around long enough to call a taxi and walked back down the hill (which by now seemed much larger - thankfully we were going [View Full Entry]

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The bus arrived 5 hours early in Puerto Madryn, so two very sleepy people were slightly surprised and confused having being woken up and told to get off. After finally having woken up, and several very cheesy empanadas (small pasties) later, we walked out to the Ecocentro on the outskirts of town. Welcomed by the skeleton of a Right Whale outside we stepped into the perfect beach house - and a cool exhibition about the local area and why is is so important to a huge variety of sealife. We spent the whole of the next day in a minibus. Well [View Full Entry]

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Friday afternoon, school finished and onward bus tickets booked we jumped aboard the collectivo (local bus) heading for Colonia Suiza. This time we jumped on at the bus terminal, having learnt how difficult it was to get seats, so congratulated ourselves for bagging a comfortable 40 minute ride out. The first walk was straight uphill to Refugio Lopez. It took about three hours with the view opening up all the way, by the top we could see the whole of Lago Nahuel Huapi, Bariloche, plus a scattering of smaller lakes, peninsulas all laid out beneath us, whilst behind the tops of [View Full Entry]

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On sunday I climbed my first hill in Bariloche. I thought the views from the hostel (10th floor with balcony overlooking the lake), were good before this... The views from the top were spectacular. Cerro Otto is just out of town and easily reachable on foot, a 5 hour hike took me to the top, with great views over the main lake and Bariloche town. However a panoramic/rotating restaurant hogs the best views and a cable car brings lots of people up so I moved on to another viewing point for... more amazing views. There were even condors soaring above and [View Full Entry]

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Arriving in a somewhat catatonic state from our marathon journey we took a while to get to Pousada Ventanas de Chacras in a suburb of Mendoza. The owners were very welcoming, despite our appearances, and we were soon not only installed in a very comfortable cabin but also enjoying the pool just outside. Thoroughly deserved for all our hard work (!) over the last few days. Sebastian and Michaela (plus help from Lucas and visits from dad, mum and other brother) looked after us amazingly well, the pousada became a home-from-home and an excellent base to follow up on all their [View Full Entry]

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For various reasons, some of which are too long to explain here and some of which made little sense even at the time, the next step from Iguacu involved a 70 hour sleep-deprived road trip, more of which later... But first an extra day in Iguacu because of bus schedules gave us the perfect excuse to indulge ourselves. The rest of you 'dam fans´will already know that Paraguay is the world´s largest exporter of hydro-electric power, produced by the Itaipu Dam just across the border from Brasil. Imagine our disappointment then, when having run across the border (in retrospect not such [View Full Entry]

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Iguacu Falls [View Full Entry]

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