Argentina!

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Hello again!

I have managed to get to a computer with sufficient speed and Internet to write the second part of my blog...no mean feat in South America!

So, following our few weeks in Chile we arrived in Bariloche, Argentina after a 12hour bus journey past volcanoes and jagged mountain peaks. On our first day in Bariloche we rented mountain bikes and completed the 'Circuito Chico Loop', an up and down route that is fairly strenuous on rickety rental bikes but completely worth it for views of the brilliant blue 'Lago Nahuel Huapi' surrounded by soaring mountain peaks and alpine slopes blanketed in bright yellow wild flowers. In fact a photograph taken of these views won the National Georaphic photo of the year! The uphills were tiring, but the downhills exhilarating, the strong, chilly wind making our faces tingle. We also took a detour to the small wooden, Swiss colony where there was a quaint crafts market and some amazing barbecued sausages which made a well deserved lunch for the tired cyclists. We spent our second day walking up 'Cerra Campanario' to see breathtaking views of the National park and of course drinking the rich hot chocolate that this town is famous for.

On the evening of the 23rd, we arrived in El Bolson, a town with a hippy ethos about 2hours South of Bariloche. We took a bumpy, dusty bus ride down dirt roads to our hostel which was 5k outside the town. Hostel Casona de Odile was like an oasis, surrounded by trees in which hammocks hang for the weary traveller to laze, clear streams bubble and at the end of the garden is a gushing river surrounded by flowers. Inside the hostel, we could sink into comfy armchairs beside the blazing open fire. We spent 2 days in Bolson, on the first day we trekked to a retreat with some German girls we met at the hostel. On the way to the retreat we explored 'The Sculpture Forest' which was created following a forest fire when a group of artists got together and carved the remains of the trees into sculptures. In the afternoon we pottered around the crafts market where over 300 local artists sell their work. The next day we felt in need of a rest so we lay in the shade making use of the hammocks and went for a little walk from the hostel. That night we started our bus journey to El Chalten in the heart of Patagonia.

After a bone shaking 25hours on the bumpy dirt roads of Ruta 40 with nothing to look at but miles upon miles of flat, uninhabited scrub land we arrived weary and bog-eyed in Chalten. The next morning we headed off on the long hike to Fitz Roy base camp. The view when we reached it was spectacular! A line of snowy, grey mountains jutting out of the landscape like great canines, bellow this a frozen lake and to the left a glacier roared as it crashed into an iridescent turquoise lake bellow the mountain range. After 8 hours of hiking we were sweaty and tired but it was 100% worth it! As a result of our slightly achy legs we had a shorter walk on our second day, along a dusty road to some beautiful waterfalls where blue-green glacier water crashed impressively into a deep pool (just right for dipping our hot feet into). By the next day we felt sufficiently rested to do another long hike, this time to Cerra Torre. This peak is slightly smaller that Fitz Roy but is just as impressive and its pointy top protrudes sharply out of the landscape and soars dizzyingly into the sky. To the right of the peak a glacier sweeps down from the mountains, the glacier melt creating a huge lake in which ice-bergs bob up and down in the freezing water. We walked up a stony ridge from the lake towards the glacier and had lunch on a smooth rocky outcrop which sat precariously on the side of the hill above the glacier.

The following day we travelled 3hours further South to El Calafate, a considerably bigger but equally dusty and remote town as Chalten. On the day we arrived we visited the main attraction, the HUGE 'Perito Moreno Glacier'. Having seen so many postcard photographs of the glacier I was unconvinced about whether it would impress me, however, I couldn't fail to be not just impressed, but speechless when we arrived at the glacier. It is simply impossible to take your eyes off this giant, which disappears into the mountains as far as you can see and glows an amazing luminous blue. This glacier is seemingly alive, creaking and groaning, and every few minutes letting off a sound like a gun shot followed by a low thunderous rumble as part of the glacier crashes into the lake bellow. It is quite comical to watch, each time the glacier emits a sound any tourists in the vicinity will suddenly spring up as if electrocuted, cameras at the ready only to sit back down with a sigh when they fail to get a photo of the ice falling. After a freezing afternoon at the glacier we went back to our hostel and had a meat filled barbecue where the beer and wine flowed and we got to know the others staying at the hostel.

Yesterday we arrived by plane into Beunos Aires and it is suffocatingly HOT compared to what we left behind in Patagonia! But the city is beautiful and vibrant, filled with old colonial buildings, tango, an 18 lane road which runs through the centre of town (!!!) and passionate football supporters! We are going to take in as much of this huge city as we can before going up North to Salta tomorrow night.

Farewell for now.

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