Dec 2006

After leaving El Bolsen we were looking forward to spending christmas in our cabin in Bariloche, people had said how nice Bariloche was, with activities like Windsurfing and Mountain Bikinig to keep us occupied! We arrived mid day with clear blue sky, however there was a freezing strong wind blowing! Summer had definitely not arrived, but it didn’t matter as we jumped into a cab and headed for our cabin.

We had been researching cabins in Bariloche for over a month and had chosen this one as it looked the best and had an open fire, we were not disappointed. It was situated 6.7km out of town, but with a regular bus service just on the door step. It was one of six cabins built in a large plot of land with its own forest, it had one bedroom, bathroom, and a living room / kitchen, cable TV and most importantly and open fire! (oh and I forgot to mention, the cabin came with a dog named ´Calvu´, a very friendly old labrador who became a regular visitor over the following week).

In the afternoon we had unpacked and headed into town for some supplies. Now Bariloche was not what we were expecting, we had heard it was like a swiss town built next to a beautiful lake, so we were expecting a nice water front and nice restaurants etc....Bariloche was not quite like that at all, there was no water front to speak of, or any nice restaurants, and to be honest full of pikies! The lake however was amazing, too cold though for windsurfing!

The wind was so powerfull that you would beleive it was the sea (well Emily did comment that ´I think the tide is coming in´!). We did manage to find a pub selling pints of Guinness so Rob was happy! We stocked up on supplies for christmas and headed back to the cabin. That night we cooked a great meal and I (Rob) promptly smoked out the cabin with a fire that was a little to large!! Ok I got a little over excited!

The few days before christmas were spent going on walks, trying to kick Calvu out of the cabin, and shopping in Bariloche. We had agread to buy each other pressies up to a max price of 20 pounds each. Now I had already secretly bought Em a ring in El Bolsen so was very relaxed about the whole thing, and only had to buy a few extra small presents which was lucky as the shopping was not good here, what was Em going to get me??? Emily tried to get into the festive spirit by decorating the cabin while I (Rob) went in search of a christmas tree, equiped with my trusty penknife! I didnt manage to find one but did cut a branch off which resemled a tree!!!

The tree lasted all of 1 hour in our hot smokey cabin but fingers were crossed for it to stay up for chrimbo day. Stocked up on boose, inlcuding a few bottles of wine, champagne and a large bottle of Vodka and some beer, oh and our chicken - we were ready for Santa!

On christmas eve we thought we would head into town for a meal out, we downed quite a few vodka lemonades first and caught a bus into town....big mistake! We arrived at around 8.30 to find the town almost deserted, now we new it was early (Argentinians dont eat till 11 onwards) but everything was closed. We found a bar to have a drink, the only one open and planned our next move. There were a couple of restaurants opening and were doing set menus but they very expensive, so in our now rather drunk state we found a corner shop, bought a pizza base and went home and cooked what turned out to be a really nice pizza...with no cheese!!

We woke up on chrimbo day, with small headache a may add, and the beautifull hot sunshine and no wind! Yipee chrimbo was here and we were ready for the day. Eggs were on and Rob even managed to find himself bacon! One present later from under our branch, oh i mean tree, and we decided to head out to the lake and build up an appetite for lunch.

The outskirts of bariloche is just like the lake district, green lush trees, a gorgeous MASSIVE blue lake, cabins and hotels, and long windy roads through the scenery. While the chook was in the oven, we consumed our champers and smoked salmon with Calvu in the blazing sun.

After an amazing chrimbo dinner (robs gravy worked a treat and my homemade stuffing some how tasted good) we enjoyed the rest of the day watching movies and more drinking and presents.

Travelling is so hard!!!!

After christmas day and the huge consumption of food and drink we headed out to hire bikes for the afternoon. Unfortunatley what was a 4 hour bike ride around the outskirts of bariloche took only 2 hours. I was disappointed by the lack of exercise we had but happy to leave my moaning about the huge uphills behind! (yes i got of and pushed my bike many times. I´m sure the brake were constantly on!) We stopped at a small cafe on the edge of a strem for our sarnies.

Wood carving on cycle route

Bariloche may not have been the best place to go or live up to our expectation for christmas but the cabin and Calvu certainly made up for it.

After a disastrous rather quick visit to Puerto Madryn we headed to El Bolson as soon as possible. The journey was one of the best we have had, cama all the way!

– we slept through the night journey and woke up in El Bolson. Thankgod for the amazing Argentinean buses with bed seats!

El Bolson is a small town south of Bariloche in the Lake District area of Argentina. After a quick hot choc we headed out to find a Cabana (Ems thoughts were to hide for a while and just watch TV and cook our own food). We found a gorgeous place to stay, ´El Surco Cabanas´.

El Bolson was a particularly quiet sleep town surrounded by huge beautiful mountain ranges. The so called ´non-nuclear municipality´ had a friendly atmosphere and a hippie market on the Tuesday morning selling everything from cheese, chocolate, jam and cherries to rather scary painted foam hand puppets, a variety of witch like ornaments and an array of herbs and plants. We attempted to buy a few presents during our visit but was not too successful (oh except for the chocolate for ourselves!)

A lovely lady called Betty owned the cabanas however conversation was interesting with the lack of our Spanish speaking and her English understanding. Betty was so helpful and even let us take her mountain bikes out for the day! Well, out of pure kindness we attempted to ride them to the mountains. With a slight adjustment to the wobbly seat angle (painfull for Robert), a good pump up of the forever flat tyres, and a practice at the peddling backwards to slow the bike down, we managed to get about 5 minutes down the road. Sorry Betty but we don’t think the bikes had been rode for a very long while. We did try.

As the town was so sleepy we spent the majority of the time in our warm cabana enjoying our home cooked food, gorgeous red wine, numerous beers, and many card games of ´shit head´ (by the way Em is currenlty in the lead)! We said a sad goodbye to Betty and headed to Bariloche excited about christmas. Betty gave us some jam for chrimbo too - bless.

´It seems betty was warned of Emily´s cooking - hence the fire extinguisher!!´

We arrived in Puerto Madryn, on the east coast of Argentina after a rather long 24 hour mini bus and coach journey, at half 3 in the morning!!! Being poor travellers we didn´t want to pay for a hostel for a few hours so we headed off in the darkness to find a cafe. As it was a friday night there were many people rather drunk hanging around the streets. Being called a yank by some of them was not too welcome!! Eventually found a cafe and had some food and drink to pass the time. At sunrise we headed off to sit on the beach and find a hostel. The town seemed like a nice area however during our morning stroll equiped with a full backpack, rucksack on our front, handbag and all, 3 guys and a stick (or broom handle!) decided we were a perfect opportunity for them to become rich, shame we had less than $1 on us!. After a few minutes and a few blows to Rob legs we were saved by a local guy shouting at them. The offer of some toilet roll out of Robs pocket didn´t surfice!

Our idea of staying in Peurto Madryn we slightly different following our morning attack! We booked the next bus out of there for that evening to El Bolson and hired a car to drive to Penninsula Valdes in hope of seeing some whales! This area is know for the wildlife (seals, dolphins and whales). Our luck was not in with the whales or any animal in fact but the picnic on the beach (admitidly in the car as it was so windy and the flies were slightly annoying) made up it. This must have been the most expensive day we have had, rented a car, paid a fortune to get into a national park to see non-existent whales, booked an expensive coach trip for 15 hours inland to the mountains and nearly got mugged. Thankgod we didn´t have any money on us!!

We listened to everyones recomendations to come for El Chalten from Calafate. Unsure of what else to do we got a bus north to the small quiet town to do some form of hiking or in our terms, a stroll!! Once again we arrived in wind and rain. So much for following the sun!

We eventually found a hostel with 2 beds (extremely small room not big enough to swing a cat with a small set of bunk beds! Rob bad luck was on top!) after a couple of hours of searching.

Forgetting that El Chalten did not even have one bank or ATM and the money we had on us was not that much, we needed to find somewhere very cheap to stay. The next morning we got up early, made a picnic and headed off for a long days walk to Lago Los Tres just beyond Fitz Roy.

This must have been the best walk we have done. We past through some amazing terrain and the views were spectacular. After a 3 hour walk with Fitz Roy mountain looking over us and passing by a couple of glaciers, we reached the start of the very steep climb to the top of a mountain to reach the lagoons.

The views at the top was worth every minute, every step, every slip and every skipped heart beat as Rob once again nearly goes flying down the hill (that damn weak left ankle!!!! Whatever! more like two left feet! he he). This was the first time we had any snow during our travels so Rob decided a snow ball in my face would be good. Bad luck as it hit the old lady behind me! Yes the poor woman recieved the blow rather than me. Classic!

First lagoon we reached was half frozen. We had been informed that a couple of days before we arrived the weather had been terrible and freezing cold. Good for us as it made the photograph fab!

After another short climb over the second hill we reached another lagoon. The lagoon was a deep blue colour in contrast to the snow covered mouantins behind. Once again a picture doesn´t quiet give the view you have when your there.

A quick snack of the usual choclate and a few cheese sarnies we headed back down the mouantain and started the 4 hour walk back!

Once we reached the bottom we counted out the pennies and just about had enough for two large pepper cover steaks (Rob in heaven again!).

With no money left we were up extremely early to catch a bus to Puerto Madryn to see some whales - hopefully.

We forgot to mention that on the first night we had bumped into some of the cast of ´Shameless´in a cafe, Fiona Gallagher and Steve, who seemed to be a couple. They had commented on my submarino hot chocolate, but Emily was still unaware of who they were until I told her after they had left!!!

Alter a long flight from Lima we arrived in Calafate airport! The first thing we noticed was the gale force winds and the lovely fresh air! On the way to the town you drive along a massive blue lagoon which the town is next too. The town itself is lovely, quite compact and based along one street with loads of cool little shops and restaurants, oh and chocolate shops selling flakes the size of my hand!

We booked ourselves into a hostel, and headed straight for a steak house as we had missed the Argentinian meat. We were not disappointed, but as well as steak we had some amazing lamb…………I LOVE ARGENTINA AND MEAT! Once again Em felt too full and we had to order something sweet! Oh my mistake she made me order something sweet!

The next day we went for a walk and picnic along the lagoon, which was made slightly difficult by the gale force winds, but hey it was sunny!!! We then headed into town to find out prices of a hire car…mmm I wonder if you can rent Corrado´s here! We had heard it was cheaper to hire a car for the day rather than jump on a tour to see Calafate´s main attraction – the ´Perito Moreno Glacier´. So we booked our car for the following day, a VW Gol, which is a cross between a Golf and a Corrado, but with no build quality!!!! But hey I was going to drive again…just on the wrong side!!!

Peurto Morino Glacier

This was a good hours drive from Calafate, and were really looking forward to seeing it.
We were not disappointed, as we rounded a bend it came into view, it was massive!

We had decided that instead of driving to the typical view point in front of the glacier, we would park the car on the other side and walk around to the glacier, and therefore get a different view and have a nice walk!

As we neared the Glacier the sheer scale of it was impressive and not easily conveyed through pictures. What we didn´t expect was the noise from the glacier, the constant cracking and creeking coming from it was amazing (it moves forward 2metres a day!). We hoped we would see a piece fall off into the lake, and we were lucky as a huge slice sheered of into the lake, producing a large wave which crashed into the shore!

We had never seen a glacier before, but we were both totally in awe of it, and could have spent hours just watching and listening.

After a bit of late lunch we headed back to Calafate as the weather closed in, but with the feeling that we had seen one of our favourite sites so far on this trip!

I think we are both going to love Patagonia!

The following day we headed north for El Chalten.