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Published: April 23rd 2009
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Mountains, Cowboys and Steaks... that kind of sums up our last week in the beautiful country of Argentina!
When we first arrived in Buenos Aires we were so overwhelmed!! We turned up at midday and dumped our stuff in a 12 bed dorm room, dark with people still sleeping the last nights hangover off.. then walked onto the busy street with not a clue where to go or what to do!! We ended up finding a park and just chilling for most of the afternoon, just taking it all in!
We felt much more relaxed the next day and began working through our list of "to do´s" that were recommended by a Brazilian girl I met who had done far more research than we had!! So that day for lunch we sampled empenadas, which look like a cornish pasty but the filling was rather more "gourmet" and the pastry a lot thinner and lighter! e.g. we had empenada with mussles and prawns in a tomatoey sauce, another with salmon in white creamy sauce, another with curryfied veges...etc... gourmet indeed!!
Dinner consisted of fillet steak (lomo) and a bottle of house wine...for the grand total of 100 pesos (18 smackers....bargain!!!)...and
the steak, korrrr....it was special!!!!!! put it this way mum...i didnt need bbq sauce with it!!!!
We visited the old town, tango district.. it was so pretty and the buildings seemed older and higher % of cobble stone streets...lots of antique shops and small squares with tables for tourists to grab a drink or food on the patios.
All in all, BA seemed a city with so much european influence.. it really didn´t feel like we were in the southern hemisphere so many thousands of miles away from Barcelona or Paris!!!!
We decided to head via bus to a town called San Carlos de Bariloche in the Andes. The bus was great, much better than any we´ve been on in the UK, the seats were massive and really comfortable, and reclined almost flat, the meals were great and there were DVD´s playing on several flat screen TV´s, I guess you need all that stuff if you are stuck on a bus for 22 hours straight!
Bariloche itself is quite a small city, on the shore of Lake Nahuel Huapim and surrounded by formidable looking mountains. It has a Swiss Alps feel to it in the buildings
mmm empenadas
Sitting on a bench in BA´s version of Canary Wharf´s docks... matt scoffing empenada! and the many chocolate shops along the streets.
Our hostel was great so we decided to eat in most nights, pasta and tomato puree, but at 50p per meal you cant complain.
There are loads of outdoor activities around the area, and we did a long trek the first day , about 20km round trip, then went horse riding the second day. The horse riding was fantastic as at certain points along the trail it was basically a free for all with everyone going as fast or slow as they wanted, no more staying in single file and playing follow my leader like the UK. Nat was a picture of control whilst Matt had more of a ´kick hard´then ´hold on´approach. The ranch where the horses lived was beautiful, nestled in the hills amongst golden trees and old wooden barns and stables. The day included a BBQ (Parrilla) lunch with wine which made the afternoon session even more fun than the morning!
The following day we embarked upon quite an expedition for the two of us, which comprised of a 2 day hike involving a night in a mountain hut at 2000m known as a ´Refugio´
The hike up was great fun as the scenery was constantly changing, from flat valley floors, into dense forest and finally out onto a ridge made of volcanic rock which felt like being on the moon. After a 4 hour hike we reached the Refugio, which is at the base of a Glacier below the snow capped peaks of Mount Tronador (Thunderer) so called because every few hours there was a loud crash as a huge chunk of ice plunged hundreds of feet off the edge.
The Refugio, called Otto Meiling, was very quaint inside even if it looked a little shabby outside, the views from there were astonishing, and at night the sky was so full of stars it was unbelievable. As we arrived we were greeted by half a dozen enormous Andean Condors (9 foot wingspan) just "playing around" in the thermals.
That night we hunkered down on our mattresses alongside the other intrepid hikers, and awoke to a howling gale and horizontal rain! We were a little worried at the prospect of walking down in this, but the mountain guide said it was fine so we prepared for the elements.
We set off early
to get out of the weather as soon as possible, and after about 2 minutes we were soaked and both nearly got blown off our feet by the winds. We followed the markers as quick as we could and got down to the treeline out of the wind, after which it was plain (but very wet) sailing. We were both so glad we went on the trip though, as it was a great experience spending a night on the mountain and gave us a good sense of achievement too.
Today is our last day in Bariloche before we head to Pucon in Chile for more mountain madness, so we have been resting our weary legs by spending 3 hours uploading our photos to the internet (see...its not all fun and games!).
Hugs / High Fives to all.
Ciao for now!
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Kelly Dockerill
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oh my god
Am so jealous looks amazing - matt looks like proffessional hiker! So and I have got our stuff sorted for our Andes trip. So let us know all the tips - plus any unwanted lizards or insects etc as can always back out xxx