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Published: November 10th 2005
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Viva La Revolucion
Argentina´s 'unnofficial' national hero Buenos dias from Argentina. Birthplace of Tango, Che Guevara (Argentina´s unnoficial national hero, along with Diego Maradonna) and paradise on earth for meat-lovers!
We came from Pucon, Chile to a place called San Martin de Los Andes, a 5 hour bus ride through the mountains. Argentine immigration and customs is housed in what one can only describe as a large barn! There´s a nice, large open fire and a few labradors siffing around for contraband! We has planned to stay a night in San Martin en route to Bariloche but after seeing what little there was is this small (but nice-looking) town we decided to press on and bought tickets for the next bus to Bariloche. Fortunately for us, they took credit cards as there was no ATM at the bus sation and all we had on us were a few crumpled Chilean Pesos. The 4 hour bus ride to Bariloche was anything but pleasant. The seats were very uncomfortable, it was hot, the bus was a ´minibus´, every seat was taken, and the icing on the cake was when a noisy, small brat threw up everywhere! (sorry to any parents for using the word ´brat´but given the smell we
Beautiful Bariloche
Patagonia as seen from the shores of lake Moreno ensued for most of the ride, it´s the only word we can think of without being uncouth). When the bus finally arrived in Bariloche we got a cab to the nearest bank and then to the hostal we had booked into. Upon arrival at the hostal we found it to be a mile or so out of town so we got a cab back into town and looked for alternative lodgings. As we were both a bit tired after such a long day, we decided to treat ourselves to a hotel. We found a nice one in the middle of town with a bath and proper heating and hot water. Needless to say, we were delighted to find the cost to be the same as the hostal we were
not stying at! We had a bath and went out for a really nice meal in a good restaurant, sampling one of the local specialities, wild boar... delicious!
Bariloche is a fantastic place to rest up for a few days and do nothing much. It's on the edge of a beautiful lake, surrounded by snow capped mountains. We spent a few days exploring the streets, walking by the lake and
Guinness 1
Best half in a long time! enjoying the Argentinean cuisine (fantastic meat!) There are restaurants here which offer ´tenedor libre´which basically means an all you can eat buffet. Whilst we are not the greatest of fans of such establishments, they are superb value (gbp3.80 each) for excellent and varied cuts of meat, cooked to your liking. We both ate at one on one occasion and then a night or two later Guy snuk back on his own after an afternoon on the draught Guinness and Vino and had solo a late night feast! Bariloche is also a great place for chocolates, every other shop is a chocolatier. As hinted in the last sentence, there was also a nice bar that did draught Guinness, so we were both in our elements!
As you may recall from our last blog, we were planning to get from Bariloche to Ushuaia via Rio Gallegos. After enquiring with various bus companies, we found out that is would take 3 separate, mammoth (15+ hours) bus journeys to get to Ushuaia. Neither of us fancied that so we managed to find some (reasonably) cheap flights from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia and back instead. So we are currently in Buenos Aires after catching
Guinness 2
Best PINT in a long time! an overnight bus (19 hours, very comfortable) to get here. In Buenos Aires we have been to the colourful (but sadly, rather dissapointing) La Boca district, and also to a great little place called Tigre which is an hour´s train ride from the city. La Boca is basically one very touristy pedestrian street with lots of colourful corregated-iron buildings and shop selling Maradonna & Che Guevara t-shirts and other such overpriced tat. A block or so from this street is the Boca Juniors football staduim which was worth the visit, shame there's not a game on while we are here.
We are staying in the centre of town, close to the famous obelisk and we are quite near a big ben replica (although it looks nothing like it) called Torre Ingles (English Tower). Ironically, they have built a commeroative shrine to all the Argentines killed in the 1982 Falklands war opposite the English Tower! (Argentina still considers the Islas Malvinas to be their territory, so the maps here would suggest)
George'Dubya´Bush has been in Argentina while we have been here. You may recall from the recent news the riots in Mar Del Plata... we saw numerous marches and protests
After the Guinness...
... things got a bit blurry! in Buenos Aires, thankfully they did´nt turn nasty as they did in Mar Del Plata.
We have both decided that we have had pretty much enough of big cities. We are much prefering the great outdoors, lakes, mountains, small towns, etc. Tigre was no dissapointment! An hour on the train from Buenos Aires and a popular weekend retreat for
Portenos, we found ourselves in a quiet little town by the merging of 2 rivers. This is a great place to stoll by the waterfront, have a relaxing boat ride up river, and sit in the sunshine outside one of the (numerous) street restaurants and watch the world go by over a few bottles of beer and a couple of steaks!
So it´s off to Ushuaia tomorrow for a few days, we are staying in an Argentine family home, should be fun!
Enjoy the photos!
Pip Pip,
G&R x
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