Argentina & Chile

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Hola from South America,

It´s been over 5 weeks since Marie and I set off and we are based in Salta in north Argentina at the moment, our last Argentinian stop before we cross into Bolivia. We had planned to make our way to Bolivia via Northern Chile but after 5 days in Chile and not exactly warming to the place, we crossed back over the Andes to Argentina. So, after lots of trekking, overnight bus journeys and only one or two cold showers it finally feels like we have gotten rid of the holiday feeling and now have our travelling boots on.

We have really enjoyed Argentina. Our first stop was Buenos Aires and there was a great feel to the city. As you would expect from a capital city of 13 million people it was big, dirty, full of personality and good fun. It has the feel of a large European city with broad avenues lined with classic architecture, running alongside small side streets full of cafes and places to eat. There was a really good vibe to the place and very laid back despite the crazy traffic!! We walked the entire city in a few days dropping into the cafes for good coffee and even better pastries (they seem to be excellent bakers over here!). Surprisingly, one of the highlights in B.A. were the Tango lessons and tango club. Despite not being what you would call gifted in the art of dance I can honestly say that I enjoyed Tango!! The tango club itself however, was a bizarre experience. Seems that there are more male dancers than female so its not uncommon for men to dance together. Fair enough, though it does not prepare you for the sight of large bearded men wearing high heels and being swung around the dance floor!! Some people have suggested that perhaps we took a wrong turn on the way to the club and it wasn´t a tango club at all!!

They are soccer mad over here and we were lucky enough to get to a Boca Juniors game which Boca won in a bad tempered game - actually all games seem to be bad tempered. The atmosphere was electric (perhaps only second to Thurles on Munster Final day!!). Most of the games seem to start or end in bizarre circumstances. Reading the match reports in the papers is eye opening. One player was knocked unconscious after being hit in the head with a concrete brick thrown from the stands. A game was stopped after the referee was informed by the president of the home team that he should not "forget where his loyalties lie." My favourite report however, was one where at the very end of the match report the reporter casually threw in the line "the visitors also had their bus shot at on the way to the stadium"!!

After a few days in BA we took an overnight bus to Iguazu Falls in the north of the country. It was our first of many long journeys (15 hours +). The bus service in general is excellent here, most journeys being overnight. Most play videos and serve you dinner and breakfast during the journey. In fact the service is not unlike top class airline service and was so good on our first journey that we half expected to be read a bed time story!! Perhaps the only drawback is the constant 80´s music that plays including lots and lots of that favourite son of Argentina - Chris de Burgh...

The Iguazu Falls were amazing. They are a collection of about 250 waterfalls in a semi tropical forest, with the highlight being the roaring "Devil´s mouth" waterfall. They are right on the Argentine/Brazil border and the first day we arrived, we shared a taxi with some others over to the Brazilian side to see them first from that side. They were amazing but the Argentinian side is better still, full of walkways that allow you get really close to the falls. (useless fact for today: the Iguazu Falls were used in the recent Miami Vice film...where the drug dealers live)

After B.A. we travelled across towards the Andes and the wine district of Mendoza. It was a cool city in the shadow of the Andes. It is built in the middle of the desert area, yet they have made such great use of the melting snow of the Andes that the streets are all lined with lush trees (the melting snow flows down the mountains and is channelled through the town via dikes which run along every street. But it has more than great a great irrigation system!! After biking around the winery's (Malbec is the big wine from the region and very good!!) and chocolate factories (chocolate production and chocolate eating is huge over here), we did some trekking, rafting and abseiling. Mendoza was a really great place to take it easy and drink some cocktails under the canopy of the trees.

After the laid back feel of Mendoza, we journeyed to the Lake District where the scenery was simply jaw dropping - a spectacular combination of lakes, forests and wildlife all framed by the stunning backdrop of the snow covered Andes (yeah I know it sounds like I work for the tourist board but it really was like that!!). You just can´t do it justice with pictures. We travelled down the Lake District, along the spine of the Andes stopping at towns along the way. It was a great chance to go trekking and bicycling around the lakes and forests. One small town in particular stood out - San Martin de Los Andes. It was like something out of a fairytale. A picture postcard town with log cabins for houses and chocolate shops on every corner. Every morning I honestly expected to see Hansel and Gretel to come skipping around the corner!!

Not all of out journeys in the Lake District worked out however. We decided one day to journey to a town high in Andes to get a bit off the beaten track. We arrived on a creaking old bus to a truly desolate town - it seemed to have more dogs than people and had the look and feel of a place in horror movies from where backpackers don´t return!! The only place to stay was a small hotel for state workers and fortunately they left us in for the night. We left on the next and only bus the following day! Our own fault for expecting too much from a working village.

After the Lake District we headed west back across the country to Puerto Madryn for some whale watching and a great chance to see some sea wildlife a - penguins, sea lions and elephant seals. Though we also came across a tarantula on one of our treks!!

The highlight though without doubt has been the trekking on the glaciers in Cerro Torre/Fitz Roy mountain range. We did this from a small town in the very south of the country called El Calafate. We had been to see the famous Moreno Glacier a day before which is a really active glacier (well as active as glaciers get!!). You could hear it creak and we saw large fragments splinter off and fall into the lake as it was being pushed forward. But to actually get onto one of these glaciers and experience it up close we had to take a 4 hour bus out of town and to a national park on the Argentine/Chile border. After a long trek through the national park we camped overnight close to the glacier and then left early next morning and made our way to the glacier. It was an amazing experience to trek along it. It felt like stepping on another world - maybe something like Antarctica would feel!! After a few hours we got to an ice wall where we did some ice climbing to finish off the day. Really memorable experience.

Patagonia (the Lake District, Puerto Madryn, EL Calafate and more) is a huge area - the size of France and Italy combined yet has the population of the Ireland. It's a truly beautiful place and for the most unspoiled. It has everything you need as a holiday destination though travelling around can be a little bit of trouble as the distances are huge and some of the roads no more than dirt tracks.

The food in Argentina has been very good. The big draw I suppose is the Parrilla - restaurants that take lots and lots of different cuts of meat and just grill it and serve it up to you. Without sauce or sides so you can tell pretty soon how good it, and for the majority it has been excellent meat. These Parrilla´s also like to make use of offal/sweet breads and cook the entire cow - nothing is left to waste - a thought that struck me as I chewed on cows udder without success one night in B.A.!! The empanadas are also great - flour wraps filled with steak, chicken or vegetables.

From El Calafate we crossed the border to Chile and a town called Punta Arenas. It was fine though even from our first taste of Chile we could tell that it was so much more westernised than Argentina - everything was more ordered and expensive. The redeeming feature was the King Crab, a staple of the diet there (it is so abundant that you can buy it from vendors on the street) which tasted like lobster at a tenth of he price!! After Punta Arenas we made our way to Santiago. Not sure why but we never warmed to the place. Maybe we just didn´t give it enough of a chance or maybe we were a bit tired from travelling around, but both of us thought it was a cold city lacking in character. It was there we decided to head back to Argentina. (My only memorable experience of Chile was at the border crossing with Argentina when I was caught "smuggling". They pulled me aside, confiscated an orange I had in my bag and made me sign a large hard back book before being allowed back on the bus.)

I hadn´t known too much about the country before we came. So it was good to talk to Argentines as we travelled along. Many of the Argertines we came across refer to the Peso (currency) devaluation of 2001 still and the effect it had on their life. Argentina seems to be one of the richer countries in South America (self sufficient in oil) but you only need to travel a short distance outside any major town to see poverty (though more in the north than south). It seems that large US and European interests control large amounts of the natural resources here (common for the entire continent of South America I suppose). In Puerto Madryn, they were proud of the local Aluminium factory as it was the only Argentine owned large factory in the town. And even though it was also one of the main sea ports we were told that the Spanish "owned" the fishing industry there. One Argentine commented to us "Argentina is a rich country with many poor people".

Argentia & Chile has been a really great place to kick off our journey and in a way I suppose an easy place to do so as well.

Next stop Bolivia.

Dave

You can get me at : [e-mail]

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