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Somewhere between Buenos Aires and Bariloche
The view from the bus window when I woke up. The endless cattle plains had turned into this. Know what the unluckiest thing to do in South America is? Bump into travellers fresh out of Argentina. Invariably they'll bore the arse off you about the place. They'll have you believe it's full of supermodels, the food's world-class and everything's so cheap you'll be left wondering why their worthless currency even bothers changing hands.
The country famously spent many years sliding into economic meltdown culminating with an unpegging of the currency from the US dollar in 2002 that led to most of the population effectively losing two-thirds of their wealth overnight. Things have settled down now, but in reality, the weakness of the Argentine economy means the people here really don't have much. Yet in the 1950's the place had one of the biggest economies in the world. I mean, there are cheaper places in Latin America, but Argentina really has the feel of a first world country.
Ask anyone else in Latin America what they think of Argentines and you'll be surprised with how negative the response can be. Most of the world really considers them as a bunch of stuck-up snobs who talk funny. The reality is on-the-whole they're incredibly warm and friendly people. Who talk
funny. Oh, and the men keep kissing me which is nice.
First thing I did was not stop in Puerto Iguaçu, after having been disappointed with the thing from the Brazilian side. HA!! That'll teach them. Something. Although I did hang around the town long enough to go to a decent restaurant and have a fat steak and wine, while laughing to myself at how cheap it was. I then travelled the 20 hours to Buenos Aires in the nicest bus I've ever seen. The seats - which were enormous - reclined almost to horizontal and all the while the staff (more smartly turned-out that airhostesses and pilots keep on dishing out meals wine and champange. And
that was really cheap, too!
Stayed in Buenos Aires just long enough to sort out some loose ends as having cacked up my travelling plans I'll be back there in September to fly home. Then
- zoom! - twenty hours' bus ride later and I'm in Bariloche. It was really nice to wake up, open the curtains and look out of the bus window to see things were no longer flat and green. As we got closer to the
Wood carvings, Piltrequitrón
Piltrequitrón is the huge mountain that runs alongside El Chalten. And somewhere half way up there are loads of these wood carvings. Andes the scenery had become so much more colourful and interesting with different plants shrubs and small lakes dotting the mountainside.
Bariloche was a cool place. In Buenos Aires I was on my way to the bus station to buy a 48 hour bus ticket to Ushuaia, the southernmost city in Argentina when I realised it might be worth taking my time getting down there. And so I made Bariloche the first call. A ski resort from June to September but full of beautiful scenery all-year-round. I stayed there for five days not really walking much as I envisaged returning there by a 17 hour train back there from Viedma about six weeks later. Went out a lot, got drunk a lot relaxed a lot and that was about it really.
By this time we're about half way down Argentina and it's starting to get a bit chilly. Two hours further south and I was in the lovely lovely
El Bolsón. Rocked up to El Pueblito hostel, two miles out of town with the intention of staying for a couple of nights and virtually had the place to myself. It felt so homely, too. They had a big
Atop the mirador, Lago Puelo
Drinking mate against a stunning backdrop with a couple of Argies. fireplace that they'd get going every afternoon and the place felt beautifully remote. Over the next couple of days a really cool group of people formed from all the travellers that turned up and we all ended up hanging out in El Bolsón for a week and a half. We were from all over and what was really cool was that there were four Argies there in total and almost everyone else spoke decent Spanish and we all just clicked. The way I saw it, El Bolsón was a great place to do stuff and El Pueblito was an even better place just to do nothing. There were lakes and mountains to visit and climb and I'd started by rewarding myself with a day off each time I did something productive. My time there finished with six days off on the trot, all of us lounging around drinking mate ('
mah-tay', the ultra bitter Argentine tea that I'm already addicted to) during the day and drinking cheap cheap wine and smoking each night and just generally falling about laughing making arses of ourselves!
So all good things come to an end and after a week and a half we all
Going into town.
In nine nights here we went out once. To this brewery (which was cool) then to a reggae bar (which was rubbish). Learned our lesson and never went out again. kinda felt like it was time to move on.
Argentina's most famous road is Route 40. Running all the way along the base of the Andes down to El Calafate which was where I was headed next. Just miles and miles of deserted road dotted with odd little towns and ostriches. Unfortunately once high season's over no company bothers sending buses down it so instead I had to do three sides of a square to get to El Calafate. 31 hours later and I was there! It's quite a nice little touristy town though its overrun with dogs and all it has to offer is a huge glacier down the road. I left the town without checking it out as I'd have to come back via Calafate anyway and was eager to head on. Four hours further away is
El Chalten a nice little town with some world class trekking just around the corner in the Fitzroy mountain range, with Fitzroy himself looming large over the town.
Spent three nights here and it was just beautiful. Autumn has brought about an explosion of reds and browns in all of the trees. Huge wooded areas are encircled by stunning
Changing the face of Argentine cuisine forever.
All the locals thought I was a freak for putting raw steak on a pizzabase. NOT SO WHEN THEY SHOVELLED IT INTO THEIR LITTLE ARGENTINE MOUTHS!!! mountain ranges with glaciers of all shapes and sizes filling the valleys between the peaks. One day we got a taxi to the end of the road into the park and trekked for eight hours, climbing up to Lago de Los Tres, one of many pristine turqouise lakes fed by glaciers slowly progressing down the mountains. We'd come here because it offered some of the best views of Fitzroy and although it was slightly cloudy all day it still looked amazing. The reds from the trees, the blues from the glaciers framed by the dullness of the mountains' rock was really quite stunning.
Then I had another day off! Then the following day my mate and I walked to a nearby waterfall. And we were followed all the way by this cool little cat. We were so proud of him for coming with us all the way up the mountain we gave him our paté (which actually tasted like shit so really he was doing us a favour).
After a few nights here I jumped back on the bus to
El Calafate to check out this glacier everyone had been banging on about. It was pretty cool actually;
going by the name of Perito Moreno, it's one of the world's few advancing glaciers. Fed by the glaciers that meander down into the huge, gentle river it's about 3 miles across and 2½ miles wide. It must be about 120ft high floating in the water. All the time huge shards of ice break off and crash into the water. It's 50 miles from El Calafate and the buses going there are so expensive that two French chicks and I hired a car for the day to save money. Once this whole glacier thing was done and dusted it would be time to cross the mountains and go trekking in Chile. I could see where I thought the next huge break was coming and actually spent 45 minutes with the bugger lined up in my camera sights waiting for that something special.
Suddenly...! One of the girls asks me how much buses to Bariloche cost.
Cent... trente... Crash. Merci fucking beaucoup.
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sara
non-member comment
cor its tough
you know what i've been thinking mate? Doing your blog when you're away must be a bit like having homework...on holiday! Love the third world haircut. Have you read my blog? http://spaces.msn.com/sarawebster/ Read it. And all your mates. And all the random people who were unfortunate enough to google graham perkins and get here. And your mum (hi Mrs Perkins).