Puerto Iguazu, Bariloche, El Bolson, El Calafate & day 22 of growing a beard.

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Well our bags are safe and sound (touch wood) and the bus was class.

Easily beats the 265 that runs through Chapeltown to Barnsley. We had supper, breakfast, dinner and tea on it washed down with coca cola, whiskey and of course red wine, all on seats that laid almost fully back and had a tv with films on that we watched like Spider-Man, The Time Travellers Wife and one of the greatest films ever made with Jennifer Lopez wearing hardly nothing for an hour or so, then kicking some lucky blokes arse for the last twenty minutes.

After setting off from B.A to Puerto Iguazu we drove through plains and plains of grass that makes it obvious why the meat is so good over here. I reckon each cow must have about 6miles in each direction to themselves! All we saw for the first couple of hours was grass and cows for as far as the eye could see. Then we hit the distinct colours of South America... brown slow moving rivers and dense, lush green foliage until the sun went down and we got the iPod out for a tune off.

A day later we hopped off the bus and got a festival shower in the bus station toilets, brushed our teeth and headed straight to the waterfalls. We got 2 battered beef sarnies to set us up for the day and got on another bus that had us at the entrance of Iguazu National Park in about half an hour. We paid the 170pesos each to get in (just over £20) and ran through the turnstiles like little kids running down the stairs on a Christmas morning. Iguazu Falls!!! 270odd waterfalls set in the rainforest that houses innumerable birds, butterfly's, crocodiles, snakes, monkeys and also, what I think, looked like raccoons. We got a giant map of the park for free from the very kind people at the info desk and naturally went the wrong way at first and ended up at some toilets. We then got our bearings and stumbled upon a train that was literally about to leave to take us up to the top of the falls and the plan was to walk back down. On the train we actually realilsed we were in the rainforest as butterfly's the most amazing colours you had ever seen went fluttering by easily as big as a football. One actually landed on the train right in front of us but I was too slow getting the camera out and it whisked away in the breeze of the train. We got off the train to a comical site of the raccoon lookalike nicking some blokes dinner and the bloke chasing after it hitting it with his hat cursing the greedy little buggar. We strolled through beautiful walkways built specifically to carry people through what was introduced as one of the wonders of the world as recently as 2011. It's a crime that its took them that long to get it recognised as such. Our first glimpse of a waterfall came as the trail took us straight over the top of one and I'm not being corny when, honestly, I say that we both gasped as the view took our breath away. It really did come out of nowhere and no matter how many times I watched Sir David Attenborough talk feverishly about them and no matter how many pictures I have seen of the place, walking round that corner and the spray and the noise and the view smacking you in the face had us both stood in open mouth awe. It was absolutely drop dead gorgeous. It was red hot and proper humid and that made the spray of the waterfall that bit more special to the senses. I really don't want to sound cheesy but it really did. What a place. I can only imagine what it must have felt like stumbling on the place for the first time as someone must have done cutting through the trees or surviving certain death going over the edge in a canoe all those years ago. There really aren't many more words that I can use to describe the scenery so I'll try and upload lots of pictures and let them do the talking.

After walking the length and breadth of the Argentinian side of the park we completely lost track of time and it got to 4pm, and with the Brazilian side closing in an hour we had to decide if we should quickly dart over to the other side to be able to get the photo of all the falls in one panoramic sweep that a lookout on the Brazilian side can offer. We decided against it as we didn't want to rush the experience and promised ourselves we'd get that shot when we no doubt return for the World Cup in Brazil. What we did though was manage to get the last boat ride of the day that took you right up and under the waterfalls and at again around 20quid thought it was something that we had to do while we were here and god I'm so glad we did. Please excuse my blasphemy but I have to get across at just how good the experience was of walking round all the massive waterfalls, in the sweltering heat, all day, then getting a speedboat right up to and through the devils throat and getting instantly cooled down and soaked to death as the feeling of a 30story wet building crashed down on us.The waterfalls we were going under were a third bigger than that of Niagra Falls and is the 2nd largest in the world behind Victoria Falls that separates Zambia and Zimbabwe in Africa.

We were going under it!!!!!

Everyone on the boat, even the 75 year old woman sat at the side of us was screaming as the feeling of the massive waterfalls were felt battering down on us. The feeling is up there with jumping out of that plane and seeing Barnsley beat Chelsea in the F.A cup. It'll take some beating but I have a serious feeling it'll not be the first time I'll be saying that in this unbelievable continent that is South America. We were all going that ecstatic that the driver went round and under them again as we were only supposed to go under them once. We sped out of the mouth of the waterfall feeling 10 feet taller than the waterfall that had just battered us to a wet pulp. Amazing. We then had to leave as the park was shutting in little under an hour and we had to navigate our way back to the bus station. We got lost and we're both absolutely over the moon we did as around a wrong turn we saw two toucans messing about in a tree. The blogs I've read from people on Iguazu Falls all say at how they had missed seeing the elusive toucan and how they wanted to see one so much and we were seeing two courting with each other! We got some mint photos I'll try and upload to show you all. What an end to totally unforgettable day. On the bus on the way back to the hostel we were both saying at just how beautiful the place was, it was gleaming and really didn't feel real at all. Like a 'water world' feel at somewhere like Alton Towers, and it was all completely natural! Crafted to absolute glorious perfection by Mother Nature herself.

The day after Iguazu we just sat round our hostel in our hammocks in the sunshine admiring all our photos, reading our books and preparing ourself for our double headed bus ride of 17 hours, then 22 hours.

The first leg of our trip went by relatively problem free except we had a tyre burst that we had to get sorted, the buses as good as they are don't seem to carry spares so we had to wait a couple of hours on the bus until it got sorted. We eventually landed back in B.A and had a 4 hour wait until our next bus. It was around this time, with both of us knowing that we had 22hours on a bus coming up, that we both started to go a little bit mental. I suppose its what happens when you spend just under 3days on a bus in 30c heat. The second bus was also going smoothly until we got stuck in a load of traffic in the middle of nowhere in a road block. We were sat in a queue for about 3 hours.

In that time we watched a film called 'The Pursuit Of Happyness' a real tear jerker for those who haven't seen it. The bloke on the bus who comes round with the meals and the wine asked Laura if she was okay on one of his rounds as she was crying that much. They also played my favourite Jennifer Lopez film (its been on every bus we've got on while we've been here so far - how I'm able to sleep is beyond me) God she's fit. She beats Cheryl Cole for me. Cheryl probably pips J-lo with the 'down to earth' score but apart from that its Jenny all the way. With J-lo there's many more opportunities that come with going with a girl like her, she could learn you Spanish for example...Anyway back to our road block. As I was telling Laura the pro's and con's of both Cheryl Cole and Jennifer Lopez she said that we should try learning Spanish while while we were sat here doing nowt. I explained that I had some Barnsley FC legend top trumps in my bag and playing with those would help pass the time more quickly, so that's what we did. For some reason after playing top trumps for nearly an hour Laura's heart didn't seem to be in it so I decided a winner would be chosen upon by both of us selecting a 'best 11' from the cards we had available and the winner of that fictional match would be the overall winner of the game, I laid my best 11 out then suddenly we started to move. For some reason Laura then fell asleep and hardly spoke to me for the rest of the journey. I don't know whether or not that's because of me going on about other women and football for over 3 hours or whether its 'cos my best 11 would have easily beaten hers. I think you'll agree that having Joyce and Hassell as full backs and the centre pairing of McCarthy and De Zeeuw, with Watto in the nets would be more than capable of shoring up any attack. This team has goals though and I would probably go for the 'you score one, we'll score two' style as with that midfield, although, admittedly being weak defensively down the left side, can both set up and score goals at will. It's the front 3 that excites me most though, with the workmanship of Super Johnny Hendrie setting up Ashley Ward and Brucie cutting in from the left. You know that Bruce is going to get caught offside quite a bit but the times he does get through he's going to score.

We arrived in Bariloche at Hostel Pudu both absolutely knackered and Laura hardly speaking to me at all.

The woman on reception was a lass from Plymouth who was working there with her fella in return for staying at the hostel for free. She checked us in and recommended a nice restaurant that we went to and shared a trucha with salad and of course a bottle of red. Trucha is a Bariloche speciality, trout cooked with garlic and other ingredients and it tasted delicious. It came to around 30quid which wasn't that bad as Bariloche is apparently 3 times dearer than Buenos Aries as everything is imported in. The next day we got up nice and early to go and rent some bikes to cycle round the Patagonian Lake District.

Over here you can't buy a ticket for a bus ride actually on the bus, you have to get your ticket beforehand. We found this out after waiting for a bus for about half an hour. Then we struggled to find where you can get bus tickets from, as it was a Sunday most places were closed, but in the end we managed to get some tickets for the bus from a supermarket. The bike ride we wanted to do was called the Circuito Chico, 15 and a half miles round one of Argentinas many beauty spots. We rented the bikes from the Circuito Chico bikes rental company and turned up thinking we could pay for them on our card, which you couldn't do, so the kind woman (Carolina) who sorted us out with our bikes said that we could give the money for the bikes to our hostel and she would go and collect the money at a later date.

After hearing and reading horror stories about South America before we set off all we've encountered so far is kindness and helpfulness in abundance and long may that continue.

What a sound lass. She didn't know us from adam and it really sorted us out as we would have had to go to the nearest ATM and back, which was about 20miles away, and most of the day would have gone. The Circuito was amazing. We've got so many good pictures again and I'll try and upload as many as possible. It was a really nice clear day so we got to see everything really clearly which was lucky as the days before and after we're a little cloudy. We saw all sorts of birds, one of which was perched on a branch we noticed so we had a closer look with the binoculars. I don't know what bird it was but it looked like a baby bird of prey. Laura took loads of pictures and I was telling people that were walking past about it and showing them but they dint have the same enthusiasm for it as us. We were there for ages just looking at it wondering if it was a rare baby eagle but then on the bus on the way back there were loads of them pecking at the floor in the car park of the local supermarket. I think it was just a South American pigeon. When we got back to our hostel we made some tea and had a game of cards and got talking to some of the other people who were staying with us. One French guy was sat eating and we got talking to him. He hardly spoke English but did speak Spanish but it took him about 15minutes to say a sentence as to speak to us he was translating from French to Spanish to English. It was really funny trying to speak to him with his facial expressions and him going "er.....chi......no,erm......wis....oui....do...you.........er...........like.........er........I don't.....know" This conversation continued in the same manner with us talking slower and louder when Laura asked him his name and what he did for a living. "Antoine.......I........er........will.....no, erm...I do.......wis......no,er....study?" Loz tried to ask him what he studied and his reply, although it took him absolute ages to say it was proper funny. ".........er............so..........oui.......I study.........masters............oui.......wis...no, er.....oui.......er......masters in......er........communication"

That night we got talking to some more people aswell and we swapped stories of where we've been and what we've seen and where we're headed and ended up blind drunk playing some tunes with a bloke called Ricardo and an Israeli kid who looked exactly like Orlando Bloom from Pirates of the Caribbean.

We headed next to El Bolson described in the Lonely Planet book as a 'hippie headquarters' and famous for its tea and jam....

'El Bolson and the road to El Calafate' - by Laura Cook aged 24

I've decided its best if I write about our time in El Bolson as Mike hasn't enjoyed it that much and I don't want people to get a negative perspective on what I think is a wicked place.

I woke Mike on the bus when I saw the sign for 'El Bolson' after 2 .5 hours on the bus from Bariloche, driving though mountains and passing farm after farm. I knew from what I'd seen and read I was going to love El Bolson. It would also be our first opportunity to camp in our tent and massive sleeping bags that we've been carrying round for over 2 weeks.

'Have a look on your side for a camping sign' I said to Mike 'and I'll check this side' a few minutes down the road Mike jumped up and shouted 'Loz ! There....camping and SKY !' 2 minutes later the bus pulled up at the terminal, sorted !

Now I don't know why we even thought camping and sky could even be a possibility

1) in Argentina or

2) camping and tv don't usually come as a package?

But Mike was adament! So hungover, tired, hot and struggling with our bags we walked back down the road .........after 20mins and endless promises of 'Just after this Loz, I swear' from Mike we stopped for a drink and I had (I think a well entitled) strop when we heard 'hey chicos', a French guy called Phillip who had a very impressive beard popped his head over the fence and invited us to stay at his soon to be fully functional hostel. He described it as better than camping but not quite a hostel just yet and offered us a double bed for $50 each/night which is cheap, in BA and Bariloche we paid $80 pesos/night. We thanked Phillip for his kind offer but explained we'd ben carrying round our tent and massive sleeping bags and we were determined to use them ! He fully understood and invited us to pop round one night for a beer, nice guy.

Mike decided we must have missed the sign and although I was beginning to doubt this campsite had sky I did say it wasn't this far from the station when he called out. So bags strapped back on and back down the road after about 15mins and 1 block from the station we saw a massive sign

'CAMPING, PESCA, SKY'

Hmmm!

It still looked a little dubious to me, a small house on the main road with a boat and two massive satellite dishes in the garden ?! I looked at Mike but I knew what he was thinking.... 'they've definitely got sky!!'

We went inside.........fishing tackle shop ! The lady didn't speak a word of English but kindly pointed us in the direction of the tourist office also just round the corner from where the bus dropped us. At this point we vowed never to break our number one rule again

1) arrive at a town - get a map !

While we're on with the rules I'll let you know number two

2) Thou shalt NOT rely on the lonely planet book.

As we realised for the thousandth time in the tourist office pointing to the campsite listed in there ...the girl looked at me and I knew it didn't exist ! She gave us a map with listed campsites and we headed to the nearest 'La Lomita' which was also by a river, bonus! $25 pesos each/night which is about £3, BARGIN !

We had the campsite to ourselves, toilets, showers, picnic bench and a BBQ ! I love camping and, so I thought, did Mike but all he did is moan because the showers are cold and there are stray dogs all over and he's found dog shit on the field. It was getting dark so we headed out for some food and cooking utensils for our BBQ, Mike still complaining about what we were spending could have gone towards a double bed at Phillips ! Im sure he just wants to go to Philips and ask for tips on how to grow a beard but anyway we need all camping stuff for the rest of a trip so it's still cheaper! As soon as Mike got back and lit the fire his eyes lit up, his chest all barrelled out and he had that ''me man make fire' smile on his face.

Wow! Our dinner of steak and carrots was amazing, washed down with a bottle of red of course. Tunes on and stars out a perfect night !

The next morning I woke to a dogs choir at 9am after having a nice sleep in my cosy sleeping bag. I got up and washed the pots.........hot water ! Yes Mike will be happy. I knew today was market day so I got washed and had breakfast and told Mike there was hot water and asked if he wanted to go to the market ..... I got a straight NO ! Mike hates markets so I had a mooch round town and to the market and it was full of crafts, things made from wood, leather and stunning jewellery you would pay a fortune for in England ! Also home made jams, cakes, chocolate and smoked trout ! I had a coffee and headed back to Mike who was drying out in the sun after a HOT shower. We decided to find out about the buses and the best route to El Calafate. We booked a bus to Comodoro Rivadavia for Thursday as there is no direct bus. We headed back to the market to buy some trout for tea and raspberry jam for tomorrow's hike.

The hike was amazing even though we didn't/couldn't follow the map we got to the top of Cabeza del Indio and wow! what an amazing view. We could see Rio Azul, the river that runs between the mountains to a lake called Lago Puelo which lies on the boarder of Chile. We ate our pack up of El Bolson cheese and smoked trout amazed at the view and headed back down to El Bolson following the sound of barking dogs and the loudest car engines you've even heard in your life! On the way back to our tent we bumped into Ricardo (who had been staying in our hostel in Bariloche!) so after a shower we met Ricardo at his hostel for beer.

In Argentina when you buy a beer from the supermarket you pay for the beer and the bottle, when you return the bottle to the store you can either get your money back for the bottle or replace it with another beer, sounds simple, but when the shop owner tried explaining to us in Spanish that we only had enough money for one beer and the bottle and not two beers ...very confusing!! The hostel owner also joined us for a beer taking his chance to brush up on his English before his visit to London next month. In exchange for our London tips he gave us fresh hot bread from his bakery next door and 2 bottles of his home brew !

After chatting with Ricardo and people in his hostel we found out there IS a direct bus to El Calafate just not with the bus company we went to. Ricardo kindly offered to go to the bus company with us to see if we can refund the ticket we had bought and get us and him on the direct bus to El Calafate. No refunds on credit cards ?? Doesn't make sense to us but that's the rule here if we had paid cash then no problem but we didn't. So we have to catch a 13 hour bus, wait for 2 hours then another 12 hour bus and stay over night in Rio Gallegos (which we've been told isn't the most interesting place ). Finally to catch the 9am bus (the bus we should have got from El Bolson that left the day after we did) for 4.5 hours then we arrive finally in El Calafate. On our last day in El Bolson we packed up our bags and our extra camping stuff, let the tent dry in the sun and had some lunch at the camp site waiting for our 5pm bus. The climate is special in El Bolson hence the reason for growing so much fruit! In the morning it's damp and cold then around 11am the sun burns away the clouds and the temperature reaches around 25c bearing in mind it's Autumn here I don't think we've done too bad camping but Mike has hated it! We set off into town loaded up with all our gear when bang, crash, wallop I went down like a sack of spuds ! Tripped on a stone, if you lose your balance with these bags on the only way your going is down! So with a grazed hand and knee, a little dented pride and a quick brush down I tried to keep a smile on my face for the horrendous journey ahead !

The first bus wasn't too bad, we traveled over night had and nice meal of pasta with steak in tomato salsa. Arrived in Comodoro Rivadavia at 5.45 waited in the bus station for the bus to Rio Gallegos at 7.45. On the second bus the road was right next to the coastline and looked beautiful with the sunrise. We saw sea lions and plenty of birds but no whales that were dying to see.

The bus though was very old, dirty, the toilets stank and apart from us there was only one other person on it........Elder frost !

Elder or Mark (his real name) was a missionary from Georgia US and his 2 year mission in Argentina was just coming to an end. In the Mormon Religion when they get to a certain age they are sent by The Lord Jesus Christ to spread the word. At the age of 19 they travel to another country and for two years where they go on the mission is decided by Jesus. The conversation for me was very awkward in some parts without wanting to offend such a nice boy. How do you explain to someone that what they have devoted there life to is what I think is a load of shite?? So when he asked about our faith we came up with the answer we used in South Africa .......football is our religion ! Mark politely laughed but persisted 'yes but you go to church right ?' Erm.......I've been christened and I used to go to Sunday school when I was little and we live next to a chapel.' Mike answered a straight 'no, sorry pal' I was praying inside he didn't say anything about the musical that's just been released 'the book of Mormon' it's by the makers of South Park and just completely rips the Mormon religion via the medium of a musical ! We quickly veered the conversation away from religion and asked about his time in Argentina, he reassured us that he didn't know any Spanish at all when he arrived and was now fluent....yes there is hope ! But all I could think was imagine at 19years old having to travel out of your country for the first time on your own to a place where you don't speak the language knowing you can't return before 2 years, wow I mean what an experience but at 19 I don't know if that's what I or most 19 year olds would have wanted. We chatted about Iguazu falls and showed him a few pictures. We asked Mark about his life in Georgia and he said he was also very passionate about his American Football team, the 'Auburns' and there biggest rivals 'Alabama'. We explained that if our money lasts we might visit Georgia and go see them he also suggested we visit the Mormon temple and get married. In normal marriage he explained they say till death do us part but in a Mormon marriage at the temple you are bound in life and death, kind of like soul mates I guess. I thought this was really nice but looked over at Mike and he was just shaking his head. Haha, Lets just see if we get through this trip fist ey ? Mark got off at the stop in the town where he lived with his companion (another Elder, from Texas) and we said our good byes and 'God be with you's.'

I think Mike summed it up well, as long as the message he is spreading is for people to be nice to each other and not cause anybody harm then that's fine by us who are we to say whats right or whats normal.

Amen !

Laura Cook

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After leaving the dog filled 'arsehole of Argentina' behind things were looking up. No wonder the guide book said it was a hippie headquarters, you'd have to be stoned out of your mind to get to sleep in a dog shit filled campsite with endless barking through the night.

To arrive in El Calafate we had to spend a night in a place called Rio Gallegos. We obviously didn't have any Internet access while we were camping so had to hope that somewhere in R.G had availability.

R.G is only a really small town and doesn't have many hostels to chose from so after sleeping in dogshit land and on buses for the last 5 nights we decided we should get a hotel. We heard about one nice place and headed there only to be told they didn't have any availability that night and we should try our luck at the other hotel round the corner. This hotel did have availability but I wish it hadn't.

We got majorly ripped off at a price of $300 for the night. The bitch behind the reception desk could obviously see it was late and we didn't have anywhere to go so could basically charge what we she wanted. Bear in mind we paid $80 a night for our place in Buenos Aries that was really clean and cool, and this place was more than triple the price and reminded me a little bit of the hotel Richie and Eddie stay in in the Bottom film Guesthouse Paradiso. Not particularly pleasant or particularly clean, and definitely not worth all that money. One bonus that we found out though was that right next door to our 'hotel' was a pizza place that became our saving grace. After being sat on a bus for two days eating nowt but crackers and getting ripped off we found the pizza place to be MINT. Seriously so good. It was worth all that messing about on buses to eat what we eat in there. We ordered a pizza and a beer and the woman serving brought us little plates of mushrooms with cheese and tomatoes on and a big dish of unshelled peanuts aswell. We must have looked hungry. The pizza came and it was delicious. We ordered a Grande 50/50 with Laura having chicken and me having the special. The special turned out to be anchovies and nuts, not the first things I'd put on a pizza but it tasted nice. The staff were friendly and kept asking us about where we were going and where we'd been, a real god send of a place after like I said a pretty shit couple of days on crap buses. Would recommend anyone having to stop over in R.G on the way to El Calafate to eat there. The name of our god send......? El Muzza's !

The next morning we headed out of R.G and got on the four and half hour bus to El Calafate, we got on and sat down to find that Ricardo was sitting on the row behind! We landed at El Calafate to find a woman at the bus station holding a sign for a hostel in the area that we had previously checked out the reviews for (and they were all mainly good) and after her offer of paying for our taxi and Ricardo meticulously checking out her offer we went to the hostel.

Ricardo is an absolute god send. He really has become one of our good mates as he's kind of travelling the same road we are for a week or so and he helps us out teaching us Spanish and generally helping us out.

The hostel were at is called America Del Sur and this is where we're at now as we write this blog. The place is class, admittedly it's the most English speaking place we've been so far but it really is proper nice. We have great views of the Andes and the staff are so friendly and helpful and the place is really clean that it may just pip the hostel we had in B.A for me.

We booked on the 8am bus to see the Moreno Glacier with Ricardo the day after checking into our hostel and had another hearty meal of steak the night before to set us up for what was going to be a brilliant day...

Wow! The Moreno Glacier was epic! As we got the bus up to and through the national park early in the morning we saw massive eagles (proper ones!) eating road kill and later found out that they were Southern Crest-Caracara's and we also saw two massive Black Chested Buzzard Eagle's tucking in aswell but I was slow getting the camera out and I missed out on getting the pictures. The glacier is the third largest provider of fresh water on earth behind the two poles and scientists apparently still don't know how it grows as it does. Again there are not many words to describe what we saw but I'll try and upload a lot of pictures. On the bus going through the national park we got talking to some of the people on the us and got chatting to a guy from London called Martin who stuck with us for the day. Martin was proper sound and we later found out he was one of the producers for the Take Me Out T.V programme so we got a few good words in for our mate back home and he said he'll see what he can do....! We got the first boat trip of the day that took us to just 40meters away from the front of the glacier. It was absolutely freezing as we were stood on top of the boat taking pictures and just staring at this unbelievable site. It's about 60 meters high and 9 miles wide and massive slabs of ice fall from its face every so often. A massive slab fell off as we were stood on top of the boat and the noise was incredible.After the boat we got a warm in the cafe in the national park as neither of us could feel our fingers then went for the hike round the national park that takes you on walkways right along the face of the glacier. Chunks kept falling off throughout the day at deafening decibels as the glacier grows and swells. When we got the bus back we returned to the hostel and Laura made some rice and a salad and we all got drunk on red wine and swapped stories of the glacier with other people in the hostel that had either been or were going.

And that now bring us to today, our last full day in Argentina as we leave for Puerto Nutales in Chile in the morning to do the W trail at the Torres Del Paine. We've got all our washing done and been to supermarket to get our last Argentinian steak that were going to have then its on to Chile to find these elusive killer whales..... Thanks for reading if you've managed this lot, it was meant to be in three parts but with us not having Internet for a bit it's turned into one big one.

Hope alls well back home and were both preying to god that both Barnsley and Wednesday are still in the championship by the time we do our blog on Chile....!

Mick & Loz

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Comments

[elaine hilton]

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what an amazing time your having hope everything carries on happening for you