Blogs from San Carlos de Bariloche, Río Negro, Argentina, South America

Waking up on the morning of my Birthday is usually a fairly unpleasant affair due to the inevitable hangover from the previous night’s celebrating or, more recently commiserating. This birthday was no different in that waking up was indeed unpleasant, however this time the reason wasn’t a hangover, but because I had woken up on a bus. This unfortunately isn’t a crazy anecdote of me getting hammered the day before my birthday and somehow ending up on a bus going somewhere I had never heard of. No, I was on a bus purposely and fully aware of my actions in order to get to Bariloche in Argentina. We had come from Colonia again in Uruguay after having spent one more night there, and was currently making our way to our destination via a 24 hour bus ... read more

We arrived in Bariloche Friday morning (11ish) to another beautiful day in another beautiful place. We tried hopping off the bus close to downtown, but they wouldn´t let us get our bags so we had to stay on until we reached the terminal, which of course is inconveniently far out of town. Going through our normal routine, we figured out how to get to the town center, where we could camp, and booked our bus tickets to Santiago. It was a little disappointing to book our tickets out before even seeing the place, but because of the bus terminal location it would have cost us $12 pesos just to get back to it later. Plus a lot of time and quite a bit of inconvenience. It took maybe an hour to get organized and then we ... read more

Aanschouw het vervolg op het verhaal van gisteren :) De dag voor we naar 'Petrohue' zijn geweest, heb ik een feestje gebouwd met een hele groep Chilenen uit de hoofdstad Santiago. Aangezien we maar 1 auto hadden en veel gezelschap, zaten we met 12 (oh jawel) in 1 auto!! Wanneer we terug wouden vertrekken vanuit de discotheek, stond de politie buiten als controle.. Was dat ff spannend haha :D Wij als echte professionelen opgesplitst zodat een heel deel van de groep te voet verder ging en later door ons werden opgepikt (totaaaal niet opvallend hahaha maar goed dat de politie hier niet veel voorstelt :P). Na ons bezoek aan de 'saltos del Petrohue' hebben we ook nog 'lago Llanquihue' bezocht wat maar een paar uurtjes verder wandelen ligt. Maar na de (zoveelste!!) insectenplaag waren we blij ... read more

Hoi iedereen!! Eindelijk nog eens een nieuwtje langs deze kant.. Eeerst en vooral: er staan eindelijk nieuwe foto's online (jaja het internet is terug menselijk om te betalen haha). Ik heb zoveel te vertellen dat ik niet weet waar te beginnen, maar zoals altijd doe ik mijn best :P Na Buenos Aires zijn we naar 'El Calafate' vertrokken. Daar hebben we de ongelooflijk indrukwekkende gletsjer Perito Moreno bezocht. We hebben stukken ijs zien en horen afbreken.. Ongelooflijk hoe zoiets volledig natuurlijk kan zijn en zo immens groot. Het coolste was zonder twijfel het feit dat we op de gletsjer zijn geklommen met ijspieken onder onze schoenen.. Dat was een unieke ervaring! We hebben mooie watervallen en diepe gaten in het ijs gezien. Ook het verschil van de kleuren van de gletsjer (afhankelijk van de lichtsinval) zijn ... read more

Flew into Neuquen and hired a car to drive to Bariloche. Approaching Bariloche the ash cloud from the Chilean volcano which created all the plane travel havoc last year is still having an effect on the air quality and visibility depending on the wind direction. Hired mountain bikes and rode around Circuitous Chico (30 kms) up some monster hills that just about killed me but John barely broke out into a sweat! Swims in glacier lakes were welcomed along the way as it was a very warm day. The scenery according to John was brilliant ( g string bathers everywhere) and the vistas were pretty good also. Marguerita's were had at the highest point Punta Panaromias. White water rafted to the Chilean border, visited an Estancia (ranch) and consumed more beef......Visited a black glacier - Tronador. ... read more

Day 46 - Friday 25th November Today was the start of a trip we had both been dreading, an agonising two day bus journey up the “legendary ruta 40” in Argentina. As I may have explained before, there isn’t a lot to see as a tourist through a large swathe across South America. The huge Patagonian ice sheet that covers much of lower Chile has few access points other than the lower portions which we had visited via Argentina. The middle portion of Argentina is largely cattle, sheep and oil country with few tourist sights other than possibly sighting the snow peaked mountains of the Andes. Most sensible people fly down to the lower accessible portions of Patagonia and Ushuaia and then out again. We however got several long bus journeys down and now chose to ... read more