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Published: April 8th 2013
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Welcome to Argentina Our journey in Argentina began soon after the announcement that there was to be an Argentinian pope but it seems that celebrations were rather short lived owing to a rather dire economical situation. Since Emma´s last visit to the country, things have taken a bit of a downturn. Inflation is astronomical and prices of food and transport have rocketed with bus journeys now costing more than they would in the UK. This is marginally offset by the tendency for bus companies to serve food and drink at regular intervals throughout long journeys, although not so great for Emma since the food invariably involves some kind of meaty option accompanied by an obligatory ham and cheese sandwich. Fortunately, they also offer biscuits and sparkling wine so Emma didn´t go too hungry. Suffice to say, this is not the best country for the budget traveller to spend a long time in and we subsequently had a relatively short visit, spending a week in the Argentinian Lake District before scooting across the country to the capital.
The Argentinian Lake District Having crossed the border, we arrived in the small lake-side town of San Martin de Los Andes and
soon became aware that it was a town for foodies - particularly those with a fondness for steak, icecream, chocolate and fondue. A very popular summer resort for well-heeled Argentinians, it was low season and a bit chilly when we arrived and so things were pretty quiet. Torn between saving money and self-catering, or going out and gorging on some of the many culinary options available, we did manage a balance between the two. It also turns out that eating larger quantities of icecream makes much better sense economically than just having a cone here and there. The same applies to eating cheese: far better to get a big pot of fondue than go for a small plate!
Trying to offset overindulgence with more than just gaviscon, we did have a lovely day walking around Lake Lacar up into the hills and through small village to a beautiful lookout. On the same walk we stopped off at a pretty little lakeside beach, but with temperatures in single figures, not even Chris was game for a dip!
From San Martin, our gastronomic tour continued with several nights in Bariloche. Although quite touristy, Bariloche was a wonderful place to stop
for a few days. We had a nice visit to the Patagonian museum which included a bit of national and natural history. As with San Martin, chocolate shops were not in short supply, and a specific ´chocolate and cake budget´ had to be allocated and incorporated into our usual outgoings in order to limit Emma´s rather enthusiastic contributions to the local economy. This probably wasn´t helped by our travelling here at Easter (but it did mean that we had a very nice Easter egg which might not have been the case elsewhere on the continent)! Further fondue and steak dinners followed, as well as a couple of rather late nights in Bariloche´s bars sampling local beers and wine. We also went on our first ever ´cheese crawl´. Perhaps the less said about that, the better.
Again, we made some attempts to stay active and caught buses to various areas around Bariloche to do some walking. The scenery was superb and we were very lucky with the weather with bright sunshine and minimal wind. On our more strenuous day walking, we covered a vertical kilometre to reach Refugio Lopez up in the mountains with stunning views out over the surrounding
lakes. We did attempt a summit from there, but some of the track involved vertical rock climbing and when it started to feel as though we´d have been better off with ropes, we conceded defeat and spent some time sat on a rockface with a bar of chocolate instead. We nearly stopped by a little too long admiring the scenery and had to do a bit of a downhill sprint for the bus stop at the end of the walk, but fortunately we made it!
Buenos Aires After 22 hours on a bus, we finally emerged at Buenos Aires giant internaional bus station, Retiro, and bleary eyed, we made our way to a cafe in the district of San Telmo where we had arranged to meet a friend Jess, who came to join us on our travels for two weeks.
We´d booked an apartment in Buenos Aires for a week and used this as our base to explore the capital. In keeping with the local cafe culture, we spent rather a lot of time slurping coffee, beers and glasses of wine on pavement terraces. There were also several outings which centred around consuming large cuts of beef,
and late nights aplenty in bars around the city.
Buenos Aires is rather large and so we travelled on the underground and local bus. Travelling by bus around the city was more tricky than it should have been since you need the correct change in order to do so, and one thing Argentina does not have a lot of is coins. Buses only accept change, and rumour has it that they then sell on coinage on at 20% above it´s actual value such is the demand for small money. As such, we only managed to scrape together enough change for two bus journeys the whole time we were there and we used this to take a return trip to Boca, a small suburb in a rough district of south Buenos Aires. Historically an enclave of local artists, La Boca houses are traditionally painted brightly and in multicolour using leftover paint. Nowadays it seems to be a bit of a tourist trap, but we enjoyed our wanderings and visited the installation rich art gallery there before taking root on its roof terrace bar and watching the world go by from a great height.
Other excursions included a trip to
the cemetery in Recoleta, a beautiful city centre collection of grand mausoleums of the rich and famous including Evita and various military and political figures. City wanders took us to Puerto Madero, a port region lined with bars and cafes; an ice rink that had been converted into an art gallery; and past a multitude of ageing grand colonial buildings around the city.
In hindsight, Easter Saturday probably wasn´t the best day to travel to Tigre, a suburb an hour away from the city centre by train, since it seemed that a significant proportion of city dwellers in the capital had the same idea and subsequently the place was packed. Tigre lies on the river delta, and as such, many of the houses and attractions are connected by a network of waterways. The best way to see the area was definitely by boat, and so along with every other person visiting, we crammed onto a tour boat, and were steered around the muddy waterways passing rural shacks, wrecked boats and local people enjoying their weekend by the riverside.
With our week coming to a close, we were fortunate to be leaving Argentina on Easter Sunday, since a couple
of days after our departure, heavy rain fell on Buenos Aires causing mass flooding. Ignorant of the forecast, and with Easter Eggs in hand, we boarded a boat and were soon on our way to Uruguay for more adventures across the water.
Things we´ve learned in Argentina The Argentinians know how to make good icecream, and chocolate, and cake....
Steak = significant proportion of a cow. None of this 4-8 oz nonsense you get back home
If we were to come back in five years time, we´d probably need to remortgage in order to do so (that´s if the economy doesn´t collapse in the meantime)
Best not to mention the Falklands....
And things we haven´t learned Where do all the coins go? Is it time the nation looked down the back of the sofa?
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