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Published: February 11th 2007
Entry to Argentina Our Argentinian adventure started on Monday 8 Jan, when we crossed from Puerto Natales, Chile into Rio Turbio, where we changed bus to Rio Gallegos. Nick was a bit wary of Argentina, when the first sign at the border was "The Malvinas / Falklands are Argentinian", and expected to get a bit of grief, but the Argentians were incredibly friendly everywhere we went. Fabluous people! Even the border guards were friendly, getting onto our bus asking "anyone have any drugs?" very cheerfully. Another example of the friendliness of Argentinians was the office worker in Rio Gallegos who invited us in when we got stuck in a downpour.
We spent Tuesday in Rio Gallegos, it's only really on the tourist map because everyone changes bus to go north there. However, there´s a few things to do, including the Malvinas museum, which explains why the Malvinas should be part of Argentina, and Nick was very interested in seeing the argentinian point of view. However, the museum was shut! The islands lie about 500km east of Rio Gallegos.
Puerto Madryn That night, we travelled 18 hours to Puerto Madryn, gateway to the sealife of Peninsula Valdes. Our
hostel there had lost our booking, and as it was high season (as for our whole time in Argentina), we were a bit worried about finding a bed, but finally managed to get one in Chepatagonia, a new and fairly functional hostel. We had a great seafood lunch round the corner at Nautica restaurant.
On the 11th Jan, we did a tour of Peninsula Valdes, a long day of driving, where we saw Sea lions (on a boat tour from Puerto Pyramides, a great way to see them up close and a highlight of the trip), Elephant seals, penguins and an armadillo in a car park. Sadly, we were just a bit too late to see the southern right whales that come to the gulf to breed and give birth, and the Orcas that catch the seals from the beach. Like most places in Argentina, we have vowed to go back! We finished the day off with a parilla, a restaurant with an indoor BBQ / braai (it has a massive chimney), a common sight in Argentina and usually amazing, as our waistlines now prove.
The following day, we tried to scuba dive with the sea lions, however,
the sea was quite rough and it wasn´t possible. It´s meant to be great fun, as the sea lions come and play around you. We had to settle for lying on the beach and not swimming in the 14 degree water.
Trevelin, Futaleufu & Esquel We arrived in Trevelin on the 13th, after another overnight bus journey. Trevelin is near the Chilean border, and one of the many villages in northern patagonia founded by welsh immigrants, and many of the people there are descendants that still talk welsh. We finished our first day off with welsh tea - great tea, 2 slices of home made bread, scones and 5 types of cake. We went away with a great doggy bag! Our home there was casa verde, an amazing hostel in a log cabin surrounded by large grounds, incredibly friendly owners and a great view over the Los Alerces national park. Our second day there, we cycled 17 km along a very bumpy gravel road and up a pretty big hill to Nant-y-falls, 4 waterfalls falling 100m in a beautiful valley, wonderful for picnics and swimming in the river. We were accompanied there by the hostel´s dog, Tango, who
insisted on following us the full 34 km there and back, and by the way he chased the cows at the end, he had far more energy left than us!
On Monday 15th, we went rafting on the Futaleufu. This is one of the best rivers in south america for rafting or kayaking, crystal clear grade IV-V big water, in a beautiful valley. we rafted the main bridge to bridge section with Expediciones Chile, class IV-IV+, it took 2 hours and had many good rapids where the guide got the good line avoiding some monster holes.
We had to talk to about 5 different people to figure out the logistics, but for anyone who thinks south america is disorganised, check out our day. 8am get the bus from Trevelin to Argentinian border, a 90 minute ride. Quickly get through the argentinian border by jumping off the bus first. Jump into the waiting minibus taxi on the chilean side, rush through the chilean border, straight to the rafting office. Go rafting. Chill out for a couple of hours in Futaleufu town square, then repeat the whole journey back to Argentina. We were amazed all the connections we were told
about worked, and had a great parrilla dinner in Esquel to celebrate a fantastic day.
Bariloche Bariloche was the next stop. The town is in the Argentinian lake district, surrounded by the snow capped peaks of the andes. This was the most touristy place we went in Argentina, swarming with holiday makers here to party, sunbathe by the lake, trek and climb in the mountains. We had a tasty dinner of wild boar at Familia Weiss followed by ice cream, a bariloche speciality, and we must have had one of the best flavours - amazing chocolate and dulche de leche (~toffee from condensed milk).
On the 17th, we cycled the circuito chico. 70km on tarred road round the lakes with beautiful views, including stops to get a chairlift up a hill for the amazing vista, and a swim in the freezing but refreshing lake. Kez did very well, as it was reasonably hilly! Just check out the photos. The only downer for the day was we cycled back along the main road just as all the sunbathers had given up for the day. The drivers were not very bike friendly, beeping you to get off the road
if they couldn´t get past in 5 seconds and driving VERY close. In retrospect we would have rented from the company where you can drop your bike off near the end of the circuit and get the bus back, much more plesant.
Our last day in Bariloche was spent sunbathing and eating amazing pasta at Alberto´s restaurant, before hopping on the night bus to Mendoza.
Mendoza On 19 Jan, we arrived in Mendoza and stayed there 3 nights. Sadly Hostel Chimbas had messed up our booking and we had to stay just round the corner at another hostel. The owner of Chimbas was very friendly and apologetic though, and we ended up spending a lot of time there as it was a very friendly hostel with a pool and cool garden. We had a great Asado (BBQ / Braai) there, and also went out clubbing with nearly the whol hostel, including the owner, who still managed to get up early the next day to work!
Medoza town was fantastic, lots of wide tree-lined avenues with 5 metre wide pavements, beautiful plazas and a wonderful park to spend a day chilling out in. It also had many
cheap parrilla restaurants that were amazing quality. We also did a wine tour by bike, quite a cool idea, and we enjoyed the day, but the vineyards were a bit disappointing. The ones that charged a tasting fee had disappointing wines, and some didn´t charge, but gave you cheap rubbish. Very disappointing, as we drunk many great wines from Mendoza in restaurants throughout Argentina.
Our other adventure in Mendoza was with a service wash. The laundry not only tried to completely overcharge us, they also lost our 2 thermal tops, which ended up in a 2 hour argument in whether they´d lost the tops or not, counting through all our underwear on the living room table of our hostel. Hilarious looking back on it, but very infuriating when the laundry acuse you of making up the lost items in order not to pay.
Estancia La Bamba On Monday 22nd January in the evening we hopped on a bus to St Antonio de Areca (with the destination on our ticket scarily marked just as Pan American Highway cos the town is too small to have a stop). The reason for going to this seemingly random town is that
it is the centre of gaucho culture in Argentina and we were going to stay on an Estancia for 4 days to chill out in luxury and do some horse-riding. Our estancia was called La Bamba and it was the first estancia in Argentina to add guestrooms and become a kind of country lodge. They still farm cattle and soya and the family are very involved in the farm and in the lodge.
Our bus pulled off the highway at about 7am for us to get off and we spent a few hours walking around the gorgeous little town, eating yummy pastries and drinking coffee at a little bar on the square that has been there since well forever really. Just as we were about to get a taxi to the estancia, the heavens opened and it started to absolutely pour down. We ran to the tourist office, totally soaked and two minutes later the electricity went down. They kindly let us sit there for the next nearly 2 hours until the rain stopped and the telephones worked again. Unfortunately the taxi couldn´t get us to the estancia cos the dirt road was just thick mud, so we got
fetched in a russian jeep type vehicle and skidded our way slowly all the way to the farm.
The estancia is really a wonderful place, incredibly relaxing and the rooms have all been kept in a very traditional style. It has a huge garden and beautiful pool and every day we went horse-riding, except the last when the crazy rain had returned. Everything is included in the price and we spent our days chilling out, drinking G&T´s and red wine and eating amazing food. Lunch was a traditional asado (braai/ bbq) and dinner was superb every night. We also met some wonderful people there, including a lovely couple from Buenos Aires who invited us to have dinner at their place when we got there. It´s experiences like this that make learning Spanish so worth while - there were 10 guests at the farm and we were the only ones who could speak spanish other than the locals and so we were the only ones that chatted to the Buenos Aires couple and of course then the only ones that got invited to their house. It really makes a huge difference in the way you experience a country if
you can communicate with the locals.
On our last day we went back into town to visit the tiny chocolate factory, silversmith museum and gaucho museum. After lunch on Friday we caught the bus to Buenos Aires.
Buenos Aires We stayed at a wonderful hostel called Ostinatti in San Telmo, a tango district. It´s a modern building with a roof terrace, lots of space for socialising, good breakfast and free yoga and tango lessons. Our double room was enormous and we really had a great time at the hostel and met lots of cool people. Our first night we went for drinks in our road (there are so many bars and restaurants that it´s quite hard to choose where to go!) with a couple who were just starting their adventure.
On Saturday we spent a few hours trying to get our mobile phone fixed (you might remember that the screen got smashed in Torres del Paine somehow). The end of a very long story - with much false hope and many frustrating hours of trying to figure out in spanish how much truth there was in the numerous stories we were being told - is that
we had to buy a new phone. We spent the afternoon in Palermo, walking for hours through the botanical gardens and all the many other parks in the area. Buenos Aires is an incredibly green city in the richer areas. In the evening we went to a Milonga club with some other people from the hostel. Milonga is a kind of less formal tango and were amazed by how good everyone there was. We spent most of the evening just watching in awe and only ventured onto the dance floor once when they were playing a short spell of salsa. But after much laughter and accusations of who was murdering the song more by our less than co-ordinated dancing, we retreated to our trusty bottle of red wine and watched some more as these couples did their thing on their dancefloor.
On Sunday we got up late and meandered down the road to the market they hold every sunday in San Telmo. We watched some professionals tango in the square and soaked up the atmosphere. In the evening we went for dinner at the people who we had met at the estancia, Mirta and Ricardo. Their appartment is in
Recoleta, one of the most beautiful areas in Buenos Aires. Mirta is a chef by trade and she has trained at various top hotels in Europe (like the Savoy in London) so we were treated to an absolutely top meal with amazing roast beef as the highlight. It is also good to spend time with locals so that we are forced to speak spanish because in the hostels we end up speaking so much English (with a little bit of german and french thrown in when we have to - but we are finding it harder and harder because our brains our flooded by spanish).
The next day we explored the city centre in the morning and then went on a really boring city tour by bus where we hardly learnt anything new and spent more time picking people up from hotels than seeing the city. We did visit La Boca, a very famous part of Buenos Aires with funky little shops and restaurants all in colourful tin houses. It is also a very poor area in most parts and on the way out we saw tin shacks and really run down places which reminded us the Beunos Aires
is not only about the very swanky posh areas that visitors spend most of their time in. To the footy fans, La Boca is probably a very familiar name and we did go to visit their stadium of course! It is pathetically small and old and ugly but the fans of La Boca are some of the most fiercely faithful in the world! In the evening we had a tango lesson but didn´t get much past learning to do the "tango walk" and then we met Ricardo and Mirta at a lovely little restaurant in San Telmo called Abril and had a wonderful evening with great food.
Tuesday morning we went to the famous Recoleta cemetary - it is unlike any other cemetary we have ever visited. It is like a miniture village with all these mausoleums made mostly from marble. It´s so difficult to explain so take a look at the photos. The sculptures and other decorations are so amazing. Among many other famous Argentinians, Eva Peron is buried here. We did a fantastic free guided tour in english, if you go there you should find out when it is - at the moment at 11am on tuesdays.
We heard so many interesting stories and learnt so much from the wondeful guide. Afterwards we headed to the japonese gardens in search of sushi, but the restaurant was closed! In the evening we went to a Tango dinner and show at Esquina Manzi, the musicians and dancers were brilliant and the food was good but it was really expensive for what you get and we were expecting it to be a lot better with loads more dancers.
Our last day in Buenos Aires we had lunch at the recently redeveloped Madero Port and did lots more walking in town. In the evening we hopped on a bus to Iguazu falls!
Iguazu Falls We stayed on the Argentinian side of the falls at the Hostel Inn which is between the town and the falls. It is a huge hostel, almost like a resort really with an enormous swimming pool with deck chairs all round, a pool bar, organised events like volleyball in the pool, braai/ bbq/ asados etc. Our first day we went to see the falls from the Brazilian side as you can see the “big picture” of all the falls. They really are spectacular and
totally lived up to all our expectaions (Kez has been looking forward to visiting since studying The Mission as a set work film in matric! Incidentally we tried to find the DVD to watch it in Iguazu but couldn´t.). It was 45 degrees C that day and soooo humid, the sweat literally just pours off you all the time. The next day we went to the Argentinian side where to can get much closer to the falls and walk around to see them from all angles, including looking down the falls and going in a speed boat right under some of the falls. The boat ride was awesome, we got absolutely soaking wet, which was a pleasure in that heat and getting up so close to the falls is a brilliant experience! Definitely a highlight for us. In the evening there was an asado at the hostel and a samba show and the barman taught us some samba moves at the pool bar. A good laugh!
On Sunday we just chilled by the pool in the morning, watched the Man United v Tottenham game (although Man U killed Spurs it was a surprisingly boring game). In the afternoon Kez
got stung on her stomach by a very mean bee. It left a big red very itchy welt about 10cm in diameter which stayed there for 4 days and itched like mad. And then on Monday it was time to move on again - to Rio this time! So here we end the Argentinian chapter and next entry will be from Brazil. As a sneak preview, we are having a fabulous time in Rio and the tales to come are going to be good!
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punk and staplets
non-member comment
wow!
I've always wanted to go to south america, now i want to go even more!! sounds like you guys are having a really great time! keep up the good work with the blog, we all really enjoy reading it!!! richard and sarah