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Published: February 3rd 2009
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... the truth is I never left you.
Well technically thats a lie, seeing as I have stamps in my passport that say I left for 2 weeks to visit Chile. But you get the idea, and I'm now back in the land of steak. Except I'm now camping in the land of steak, which means that steak is kind of off the menu. At least for the time being. Otherwise I could have called this entry steaks and lakes, which would have had a nice ring to it.
From Petrohue, we got a bus to Puerto Varas, intending to get a bus crossing the border from there. Unfortunately, we were told that there were no buses with space left for 2 days. This presented a problem, but we decided to plow on, and get a bus to Osorno where hopefully there would be more options. This proved to be correct, and an hour after arriving there, we were on a bus heading across the border. I love it when a plan comes together.
First impressions of Villa La Angostura were that we had just arrived in the tourist capital of Argentina. Which is strange, as we came
here because we thought it would be quieter than Bariloche. A quick 2km walk out of town saw us arrive at our campsite, and after setting up, another 2km walk saw us back in town looking for food. However, in a scene horribly reminiscent of Petrohue, we arrived to find the shops all shut, bar one, which didn't really have much to offer. Not fancying continuing the diet of eggs, we got a slightly pricey meal out.
The next day, we went for a bit of a meander down the Bosque de Arrayanes, a peninsula on the Lago Nahuel Huapi. The first sign that good things were afoot was when there was noone around to collect our 30 pesos entrance fee. This meant that we would be having free fun! The 12km walk to the tip of the peninsula was knocked off in record pace, which left us plenty of time to lounge around, go for a swim in the freezing waters, and just generally enjoy the spectacular scenery. I'm told that in scenery terms, the Lake District is just the warm up for Patagonia, in which case Patagonia is going to be incredible.
After our last 2
hikes were blighted by bad decisions, today it actually looked like we were going to pull off a successful sendero. And then disaster struck... Chris' sandal broke. This left him having to walk 12km with a broken sandal, a quite harrowing scenario I'm sure you'll agree. He wasn't about to let the side down though, and it was with a modicum of joy that we crossed the finishing post back into town, where we were met by a dodgy cover band doing a version of Karma Chameleon. Hmmm.
On our second evening in Angostura, we finally managed to find an open shop, which meant we cooked up a delicious treat of pasta in tomato sauce. I could wax lyrical about how it was a treat for the tastebuds, but in reality, it was just pasta... in tomato sauce. Still, it made a nice change to eggs.
The following day we had an early bus to Bariloche, which necissitated an early night. Despite that, and in keeping with recent tradition, it was by the skin of my teeth that I managed to get to the bus stop in time for the 9am bus. Of course, the bus turned up
Fish´s eye view
Nearly dropped the camera for this one. at 9.20. Typical.
Stewart
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