Argentina

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With my parents I took the 3 lake crossing from Puerto Varas in Chile over to Bariloche in Argentina. It was a beautful crossing .. really stunning scenery. We were lucky that the weather was sunny, both for our 2 days in Puerto Varas and for the lake crossing .. the forecast had been shite ... but the sun held out till we got to Argentina. The next few days in Bariloche were horrendous .. pissing it down and windy .. me & mum almost got blown over while walking down the road. Dad didn´t see much of Bariloche as he picked up some nasty food poisoning from the hotel we stopped for lunch at on the lake crossing .. he spent his whole time in Bariloche in bed.

Bariloche seemed a nice place .. it has a very Alpine feeling to it. They have loads of chocolate factories and shops .. so spent a few days gorging on fab chocolates (well there´s nothing else to do when it´s raining!!). I´m planning to go back to Bariloche towards the end of June to do some snowboarding.

After the rain and wind in Bariloche, we were happy to get to Mendoza and see blue skies. We had 2 nights at the Hyatt there .. really nice hotel .. even its bell boys are cute! We went to visit a couple of vineyards in Mendoza, and also a little place that made homemade liqueurs and jams .. which were all fantastic! Mendoza has the stunning backdrop of the snow-capped Andes. I really enjoyed they day there .. would have quite happily have spent another couple of days there. Also spent some time in the Hyatt spa, getting pampered .. it was really cheap so couldn´t miss out! In the evening we had a nice meal at the Hyatt (dinner for 3 including a 20 quid bottle of wine .. came to less than 50 quid .. not bad eh ... oh how I love argentina!!!). After dinner Dad & I went to the Casino at the hotel .. and amazingly my luck was in .. I won a few quid on the roulette tables!

The next morning we flew to Buenos Aires. We had 3 nights in BA. What a fabulous city. 3 days is definitely not enough .. I will be going back there at some point later in this trip. The city has a lot of beautiful colonial buidings .. it is sometimes called the Paris of South America and you can see why. It also has a lot of parks and is well laid out. There are loads of different contrasting areas which make it really fascinating. The shopping is good too .. especially for leather goods .. but I tried away from the shops as I couldn´t possibly fit another thing into my overstuffed backpack at the moment.

Eating is a big thing in BA (well it´s a big thing for me everywhere!!) and we discovered some great restaurants. I didn´t really get out to discover the nightlife .. but will definitely be doing that on my return there!

From BA we flew to Iguazu Falls. We actually stayed on the Brazilian side of the falls in the national park. However we spent one morning on the Argentinian side of the falls. The falls are incredible .. really breathtaking. there are something like 260 falls in total .. and they cover a huge area. You can see from the photos how impressive they are (when I eventually manage to get them up on the web!).

I loved my week in Argentina and am looking forward to going back there at the end of next month. The people are nice (and beautiful), the country is stunning, the food is magnificent and cheap .. what more do you want?!?

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