El Calafate and Bariloche

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Hi Guys,

So we have arrived in Argentina in the beautiful town of El Calafate! We took a 6 hour bus from puerto natalies which was fine and got checked in to our hostel America del sur which was a tad hard to find but otherwise very nice. We got talking to an Irish guy Alex who is working there he is from Galway and he was very helpful with telling us what there is to do in the area. We headed down into the town for some lunch, we struggled to get money all day the atm's all seemed not to be working so we had to put everything on the card. We had lunch in this lovely cafe and Laura just loved how they brought out some smarties when you got your tea or coffee, she is very easily pleased! Alex had recommended a restaurant to us as he said we had to try the Patagonian lamb, so of we went. Ian ordered the lamb while Laura stuck to her usual! Patagonian lamb is cooked by putting a whole lamb over an open fire and left to cook for hours. You see it in the window of loads of restaurants. The lamb that came out was massive and most importantly it was amazing, even the fat tasted so good but you wouldn't be able to eat to many of them or you'd be in for a by pass. Laura wants me to mention also that the chocolate brownie was really good too! The restaurant had great views over the lake and it was nice sitting there having dinner watching the sun go down.

The following morning we took the bus to the Moreno glacier which we both could not wait to see. The bus took about an hour and a half to get to the park but once we got through the gate the views were just amazing. They have the area around the glacier done very well there are so many different walk ways to view the glacier from all sides. We spent hours just sitting and watching big chunks of ice crack like gun shots and then fall into the lake creating big waves. The glacier was so different than the ones we had seen in New Zealand it was so clean and white and being able to see bits falling off was just amazing! That night we had a lovely BBQ in the hostel with a few beers and got talking to some nice people as we always do.

We decided to take a walk down to the bird sanctuary which is on the lake. We spent a couple of hours walking around looking at hawks and falcons and flamingos while both getting pretty burned lesson learned! We have booked a long and expensive bus journey tomorrow to take us to Bariloche. We could not believe the price of the bus our lonely planet had sad it would be about 300 pesos and it cost us 900 pesos big difference we think. Inflation here is just crazy we have heard people noticing prices going up in the space of a month! I don't no how the locals cope with it.

Bariloche

We arrived in Bariloche at about 6pm following our 30 hour journey. We booked with TAQSA and the bus was nice had movies and we got fed pretty well with hot and cold food through out the journey. The time didn't exactly fly but it didn't feel like forever either so we didn't mind. We got checked into our hostel El Quijote and headed out for dinner to the town. When we got back we had a very mature gentleman in our dorm and once we were in bed he continuously belched throughout the night like he had been drinking fizzy drinks all night, me and laura could not stop laughing! So in went the ear plugs and on went the face mask!!

The following morning we went exploring around town looking in all the different chocolate shops and walking around a lil market and a museum about the history of the town. There are so many lovely log cabin type buildings around which make it look like a ski town which it is in the winter. We didn't get up to much just relaxed and ate a lot of lovely Empanadas. They are like lil pasties filled with meat and different things, really tasty! There is a lot of hiking that you can do around the lake but it was very hot so we just enjoyed our time around the towns and also doing some planning for our next few weeks.

Tomorrow we have another long over night bus to take us to Mendoza where we will be spending some time trying some of there lovely wines.

Chats soon

Laura and Ian

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