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So after six weeks back in Norwich catching up with friends and family and boring countless people with my stories and photos, it was time to reunite myself with my (borrowed) backpack and head off to South America for another adventure. This trip was destined to be a totally different experience as I was travelling with my girlfriend Sarah who came to visit me in Thailand last August. After settling back in to life at home, there was a part of me deep down that felt I should stay and find a job but I knew that was the safe option and I'd probably never have a better chance to travel for an extended period again so I packed my bag with a flutter of both excitement and nervousness.
Our flight to Buenos Aires (via Madrid) was at 6am so after a night in a Heathrow hotel, we were up at 3.30am to catch a bus to the airport. Thankfully our flight was on time and after a two hour lay over in Madrid we arrived in Buenos Aires on schedule. Somewhat surprisingly and despite Sarah's best efforts to cheer me up, I felt very low on the flight (maybe the lack of sleep?!) and the thought of spending another three months living out of a bag just didn't appeal at all. Those feelings disappeared as we collected our bags and made our way out of the airport with the challenge of finding our way to our hostel setting the adrenaline flowing again. Despite some rather feeble attempts to learn Spanish prior to the trip, my knowledge of the language was minimal and after some frustrating conversations with some touts outside the terminal, I somehow managed to get us a taxi to the hostel for what seemed a fair price. The hostel was decent enough (although Sarah wasn't impressed) and after a decent breakfast we headed out to take in the sights and sounds of Buenos Aires. After the cold of a harsh Norwich winter it was nice to feel the sunshine again and as we turned the corner from our hostel the heat went up further still as we were confronted by a Mercedes parked in the middle of the road fully ablaze. Now I'm sure that in the movies cars always blow up when they are set on fire so I was a little nervous that several locals were getting very close to the car to take photos. I'd bought a new camera with a decent zoom for this trip so I made good use of it to get a couple of snaps and then we moved swiftly on. It rained for most of the rest of the day but we managed to take in a few of the main sights and then headed back to the hostel for our trip to see Boca Juniors play that evening. This was one of the things I was looking forward to the most on the whole trip and it certainly didn't diasappoint as the atmosphere in the stadium was probably the best I've ever experienced. It was made all the better as the home team won 3-1 and the singing and flag waving went on long after the final whistle had gone.
We planned the next stage of our trip the next morning and after talking to the travel agent, all our planning went out of the window and we decided to go in completely the opposite direction to the one we'd originally planned! We were working on the basis that our pre booked trip trekking on the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu was still happening (heavy rain had caused flash floods in January and damaged much of the area) in early March, so based our route around that date and booked a bus South for the following day. We went to the Recoleta cemetery that afternoon which was incredible with hundreds of the most ostentatious tombs imaginable arranged in a large landscaped park. We saw Evita's grave which was surprisingly low key in comparison to some of the others and then headed over to the swanky Puerto Madero area for dinner. It was a lovely redeveloped dockland area and we had a nice meal overlooking the water. We'd been advised to go for wine and steak in Argentina as it's reputed to be some of the best in the world and after two nights it hadn't disappointed. The Spanish for 'well done' was proving to be somewhat difficult to determine though as everyone had a different opinion on how to say it!
We'd heard good things about the buses in Argentina and our bus to Puerto Madryn the next day was lovely with our seats matching business class seats on a plane. Sadly the promise of champagne didn't materialise but the 17 hour journey was pleasant enough with a few movies (in English!) and a decent sleep. Our hostel was right by the seafront and we made the most of the sunshine that afternoon walking along the promenade and people watching. The hostel had a BBQ that evening which was very nice and most of the hostel joined in so we met lots of people and had a few beers. We'd booked tours of the nearby area for the next two days so it was up early the next day for a trip to Puerto Tombo and it's penguin colony. On the way there we took a boat ride and did some dolphin spotting which was very similar to the trip I'd taken in New Zealand but equally fun as the dolphins came up close to the boat and played around in the swell. Next stop was the penguins which were amazing. The area for the colony was huge and they occupied miles of coastline where,in certain areas, you could walk within a couple of feet of them. I think penguins are always good comedy value and it was certainly funny to see them waddling around us acting like we weren't even there. The pathways had give way signs dotted along the route and we had to stop to allow them to cross in front of us on several occasions. After the penguins we stopped off at a town called Gaiman which was colonised by the Welsh in the 1800s. The town was a real throwback and very quiet with many of the original buildings still in use. The Welsh influence still stands and the town's school still teaches Welsh on the syllabus! We finished the day having traditional Welsh tea and cakes in a local cafe which was very nice but quite surreal.
The next day saw us up early again and on a trip around Peninsular Valdes. We skipped the boat trip this time (didn't fancy the tour of rock formations and cliff fossils!) and sat in the sunshine in a very sleepy little seaside town enjoying a hot chocolate for a couple of hours before heading off for the rest of the tour. During the rest of the day we saw a large sealion colony and then a big elephant seal colony, had a couple of chance encounters with armadillos and a desert fox before rounding the day off with more penguins. Very educational and enjoyable all in all and I even got to try mate', which is the national drink of Argentina, on the bus on the way back. A quick shower once home and we were straight out for dinner with a Welsh/Australian couple we'd met in the hostel. They took us to local seafood restaurant which was amazing but I was more than a little surprised to find that their Spanish was worse than ours even though they'd been travelling for 2 months already. Maybe there was hope for us yet in the language stakes!
Flights in Argentina (and the rest of South America) were proving to be very expensive so the only alternative was bus travel as the rail network is almost non exisitent. After a rather fraught planning session we decided our next stop was to be El Calafate which would require another near 24 hour bus ride via Rio Gallegos. We could only book as far as Rio Gallegos and were told we could catch a connecting bus when we arrived which made me slightly nervous but the bus trip turned out to be reasonably smooth and we made our connection (more by luck than judgement) to El Calafate with 20 minutes to spare! El Calafate was lovely and had a very 'alpine ski resort' feel to it which reminded me of Queenstown in NZ. Our hostel was also very nice with our own big bathroom and even a TV which was bliss after the previous 24 hours. We booked ourselves on a trip to the Perito Moreno glacier for the next day and then treated ourselves to a great meal (more steak and wine - delicious!) that evening. The glacier trip was awesome and we managed to see the glacier from the water and from land. The glacier was immense with huge shards of ice falling from it into the water at regular intervals and loud creaking and cracking noises providing a constant soundtrack in the background. Truly one of the most awe inspiring things I've ever seen!
We took a bus to El Chalten the next day (only four hours this time!) planning to do some trekking in the mountains. After checking in to our hostel we wandered out to a nearby waterfall to warm up for our big trek we'd planned the next day and then strolled around town and found a decent restaurant for dinner where we bumped into the couple we'd shared Welsh tea and cakes with in Gaiman. The next day was tough to say the least! Our planned trek to the Three Lakes point to view the Fitz Roy mountain range was a 25km round trip and it started well with bright sunshine and great scenery. The climbs got steeper and the weather changed to a cold wind and drizzle around midday but despite the weather improving later, our legs gave out at around 10km in. It took us another 4 hours to get back to the hostel by which point we'd walked for almost 21km and we both had feet that felt like lead weights. Cue a quiet night with minimal walking and lots of wine! It was Valentine's Day the following day so I treated Sarah to a day of planning the next stages of the trip! We were both aching from the day before so we didn't go far and ate and drunk way too much while we waited for our 11.30pm bus north to Bariloche. Only two companies run this route from El Chalten along the famous Ruta 40 with one having an overnight stop which we didn't fancy so we opted for the hardcore 32 hour non-stop option. The reason for the marathon trip turned out to be the fact that most of the route is unpaved so we spent roughly 18 of the 32 hours bumping along gravel roads at around 20km/hr! Not an experience I'd like to repeat and one which prompted me to buy a Ruta 40 t-shirt to mark the achievement when we arrived in Bariloche!
Bariloche proved to be very picturesque with the added bonus of the widest array of chocolate shops I've ever seen in one place. We took in the sights and then took a sunset horse riding trip to the nearby mountains where the scenery was again quite breathtaking. Argentina was proving to be full of surprises with scenery on a par with anything I'd seen anywhere else. Our group on the horse riding trip were good fun and included an ex-French international rugby player (poor horse!) which made for some interesting stories over dinner. Our dinner was a lovely four course feast in a log cabin at the foot of the mountains which was both totally unexpected and very welcome. The next day was wet and windy so we killed some time at the local museum before jumping on (another) night bus to Mendoza which was due to be our last stop in Argentina. We arrived in Mendoza with high hopes as the guide book reviews were very positive and after checking in to our hostel we found our bearings and set about finding a decent cycling wine tour as these had been recommended by some other travellers. Strangely, the first two travel agents (one called w***a Travel!) warned us off doing a tour due to poor roads and some dangerous areas so we decided skip this idea and booked a tour with our hostel instead. Central Mendoza was a little disappointing after the rave reviews but it had a decent central plaza where we enjoyed dinner and lots of wine! The wine tour also turned out to be good fun and we took in four wineries and also a chocolate and liquer store where I tried some absynth which was almost 80% proof which,if I'd been wearing any, would have blown my socks off!
Our original plan to spend 10 days in Argentina had long been scrapped and we found ourselves leaving almost 3 weeks after arriving as it had turned out to be far better than either of us ever expected. It's certainly a country of many attributes with every kind of climate and landscape you can imagine and very friendly people. We were a little let down by our lack of Spanish but we fumbled our way through and enjoyed every part of our journey. Next stop was Chile where we planned to get to the coast and then work our way North to Bolivia. Stay tuned for another update soon.
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