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Hi All,
Firstly, apologies for the big gap in blogs....we've been too busy sunning ourselves in Brazil, a week of which was in a tiny town on the coast that had no internet (and we were at the beach or chilling anyway...)
So back to the story... We made our way from El Calafate in Patagonia to the Lake District of Argentina. I think it is safe to say we are having an amazing journey and wishing we had a few years to explore.
We arrived in Bariloche by plane which is in the Andes at an altitude of 900m and is on Lake Nahuel Huapi. Flying in beside the Andes was really impressive from the air - some great views of lakes and mountains. We had decided to keep the purse strings tight while in this part of the trip so we waited for about 45 minutes for the local bus which cost 6 pesos rather than 45…..thankfully it was a beautiful sunny day so we tried to get a bit of colour on our pasty white bodies. The drive on the bus was beautiful, beside some of the lakes and mountains we had just seen from
the plane. Thankfully we had a map so we knew when to get off the bus.
Following our walking and increasing fitness levels we decided that whilst in Bariloche, the Lake district of Argentina, we would do a minimal amount of walking and commence the wine tasting! Sounded like a great plan...
We checked into an awesome hostel and asked for directions to the local grocery store and were told about a shop run by “the fruit nazi”. Apparently this guy has the best fruit and veg in town (this is not very hard to do as the fruit and veg in Argentina looks like the stuff you find in the bin in the supermarkets…) but you are not allowed to touch the fruit, and if you do happen to test the fruit yourself he goes crazy. So, seeing as we hadn’t eaten much fresh fruit and veg recently, we purchased a huge selection of the healthy stuff and, to mitigate the affects of this, headed next door to the take away BBQ for the 3 local delicacies……the first was empanadas which are like mini pasties filled with very tasty meat, the second was a meat called Matambre
which is amazing and melts in your mouth and is lovely and salty, the third (and our favorite) was choripan, a plain white crusty roll with crispy chorizo sausage which has been cut in half and barbequed over hot coals and covered in a sauce called chimmi churri (one of our favourite discoveries over here).
We spent a couple of days exploring the town and eating the delicious food which seemed to be available on every corner. One night we went out to dinner with some people from the hostel. The top floor of the restaurant contained a butcher, a huge flaming bbq grill and about 8 tables. We sat, ordered some wine and a couple of 400gram steaks and waited. About 15 minutes later we received about 800grams of some of the best steak ever! Cooked to perfection! Happy days!!!
For those of you that know (of) Bariloche, it is famous as a ski resort in winter, and in summer, there are many walks that can be done, with awesome views of the lakes in the area. We did none of these! What we did do was write the first few blogs that you received, continue eating
large helpings of the sensational Argentinean steak, and drink some lovely Argentinean red wines!!! Getting 400g of of prime cut sirloin steak from the local supermarket cost about 2 pounds, or 3 dollars…
We obviously couldn’t just do this, so we decided to hire a car and drive the seven lakes circuit, which stretches from Bariloche in the south through to San Martin de los Andes in the north. We then paid a visit to Argentina's hippy town of El Bolson. So, after two nights in the hostel in Bariloche, we headed north in the morning with two full packs, way too much food and some hired camping supplies. A large chunk of this drive was on unpaved roads that are being prepared for a surface to be laid. Combining this with the fact that there had recently been storms in the area this road was worse than some of the four wheel drive tracks we’ve seen. Knowing this in advance, we thought it would be prudent to be well prepared, and decided to get ourselves a chevvy for the trip (picture attached). As you can see, this was probably not the best car for the job - most
of the pot holes were bigger than the car's wheels and some of the puddles and mud we encountered threatened to bog us if we went too slowly… It was only two or three hours in each direction that we had to drive this but it felt much much longer.
The weather had been really good in the lead up to this trip, so we thought it would continue to be nice and mild in the evening but we were sorely mistaken. There was a weather change the day we left and when we returned, the hostel owner told us she had been really worried about us... The weather reports for the three nights we had camping said we had minimums of -3, -4 and -7. The huge -9 sleeping bags we’ve been lugging around to fill space in out bags proved themselves worth while here!
The actual drive was spectacular. On the first day we drove through really remote country side with great views of the lakes. The sun was up and it was sensational! Second day we drove through similar country side (and similar roads) but instead of lakes, we saw some rock formations that were
mind blowing, we got some photos, but unfortunately, the places to stop were really limited on the dodgy road but we took our lives into our hands a few times and ventured out of the vehicle. We did get some crackers though (again some of these are attached…)
Our last two nights on the road were spent in a town Called El Bolson. This is the town where all the hippies live. So we ventured into the markets and looked at all the quality hippy merchandise. There were some great wood carvings and some leather stuff but in the end we decided to settle for a couple of bracelets. There was some great walking to be done in El Bolson, but we decided that cooking up a storm in the camp site and enjoying more Argentinean wine was a better option. Our campsite was surrounded by hills and provided an excellent backdrop. A lovely way to spend a few days!
After successfully returning the car with zero damage (but a lot of mud) we spent a few more days in Bariloche just checking out the town, eating ice cream, chocolate and more steak and veg. Heaven for both
of us…
A few days of this and then we were off to Brazil (where we'll tell you about next). Who’s jealous?
We’re thinking of you all……………………
Love to you all
Aaron and Catherine
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Sheila
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Love that Beard!
I'll no doubt get into all sorts of trouble with a certain person for saying this, but I really like that beard. After all it goes SO well with the purple dress :)