lucyrid

It's very late, but I decided that I needed to send something, or I would be home before most of you read this. This is called Argentinian retractions, because I made some very bold claims about the food (not in a good way), that I need to revisit. Since I posted the last blog, I have had some of the best food I've ever eaten and possibly one of the best dishes of my life! More to follow. After Bariliche, we hired a car and (with trepidation, given we were driving on the other side of the road) made our way to Villa La Angostura. It felt like we were driving into the mountains and then we discovered that we were actually the other side of the same lake, Nahuel Huapi. We went to the information ... read more

Well, if I thought that I was coming to Argentina for a foodie tour, I have so far been sadly disappointed... the infamous steaks and barbeque are pretty good, but there is only so much meat that a girl can eat. Salads are hard to come by and tend to be of the chopped carrot, sliced cucumber variety (a la 1970). And if you're not eating meat, then it's pizza, which is good, but heavy on the cheese. On the sweet side, I have good news - there is something called dulce de leche, which is irresistable. Translated rather unappealingly as "milk jam", this is basically caremelised condensed milk... and seems to go in or on anything, including toast for breakfast. The other good news is that Bariloche (where we now are) is the chocolate capital ... read more

...or at least back in semi-civilisation, with access to computer and phone. Huarez seemed like a veritable metropolis when we got back in this morning, so I am likely to experience massive culture shock when I hit a real city. Trek was hard! 16 nights camping, sharing tent, no washing facilities etc... so quite hard core from my perspective. Also not helped by the fact that I was quite sick in the first week and had ongoing stomach issues throughout. Still not quite sure what it was, though I suspect altitude and physical strain had something to do with it. I came armed with lots of drugs, so at one stage I was taking 2 kinds of antibiotics for the tummy ailments, plus diamox for the altitude. BUT none of that mattered, because it was really ... read more

For those of you who are sick of receiving these at work, youll be pleased to know that this is likely to be my last blog before I leave civilisation for 18 days... Before I start, let me explain about apostrophes. Work on some keyboards. Not on others. This one is a no... so I havent changed my silly grammar habits and I have to admit that its hard, but strangely liberating, to be without them. Im now really starting to get acclimatised. Yesterday was my first proper walk. I was quite liking hanging out in the garden, but did remind myself that this is a walking holiday. So I suppose we can be expected to walk... We drove about 50 mins out of Huarex, up a steep winding path, with houses and livestock right on ... read more

So this is my first blog entry - not sure what access to computers will be like, but I´ll try. This is the same site I used for my Guatemala trip, with largely the same distribution list, so apologies if you don´t want to be bombarded by tales of my holiday (tee hee!) I´ve made it as far as Santiago, Chile... really not much to report. At all. In my excitement to leave, I hadn´t read itinerary very closely, so was a bit shocked to discover that I have 8 hours in transit. Nearly enough to go into the city (which would mean that I could count Chile as one of the countries in the world that I´ve been to - the rules being that airports don´t count). But my body clock was telling me that ... read more