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Hi everyone, this blog is being written on our very last day in South America! It´s unbelievable to think it was nearly five months ago we were in Bogota feeling massively out of our depth! Those of you who have read the blogs regularly will notice that whenever it's my turn it seems to take ages to happen. Well that's mainly down to my laziness but on this time alone there is actually a good reason. In Bariloche in Southern Argentina I was nearly finished when our internet café host decided it was time for his afternoon nap and shut everything down and asked us to leave. I told him that many other countries take an afternoon nap….Greece, Spain, Portugal, and that it would be down to him and him alone if Argentina went the way of our lazy bankrupt European neighbours. He just shrugged and said `diez pesos`. Another victory for my communication skills on this trip!
Anyway, Kate left off last time on the Brazilian coast and from there we headed for a three day visit to Uruguay. An overnight bus to Montevideo (complete with the best border crossing yet….they didn't even wake us up!) saw us arrive at the Uruguayan capital around 8am. We couldn't check in till 2pm so we set off exploring the city. Montevideo doesn't really have too much about it. Compared to the metropolises of Rio, or Buenos Aires or even Bogotá or Quito, Montevideo seems a bit like its missing that something that makes a place worth visiting...kind of like Birmingham. To the north of Plaza Independencia were fairly run down old tower blocks and some nice old museums but things were considerably better south of the square where the 'Old Town' did show a bit of character. We ate in a lovely restaurant and were relieved to finally be away from Brazilian prices! (Brazil has ruined the budget!!) The following day we headed to the port of Montevideo which I assumed would be developed for tourism but I was wrong and basically the only thing to see is a shipping port and endless cargo. All in all Montevideo lived up to our expectations but our expectations were pretty low!
Our next stop was Colonial de Sacremento which is where we were getting our ferry to Buenos Aires from. Our expectations this time were high and Colonial was just as nice as we had hoped. It's just an old port town but it has a charm that reminded us of Cartegeña in Columbia. Cobbled streets with boutique cafes and a waterfront that had been adapted to the influx of tourists while still retaining its other worldliness made Colonial a place we wished we had more than one day and night to explore.
The following day (February 2nd) we got the ferry to the much anticipated Buenos Aires. After the one hour ferry, a half hour taxi and a check in at our friendly andhelpful hostel we were ready to explore. BA is huge but when you have nothing but time on your hands it's a great place to walk from place to place. As you may expect our first port of call was the café and restaurant area of Palermo Viejo. We were that hungry that even Kate ordered, and promptly devoured, a huge steak. My usual plan is to get Kate to order something big so that when she can't eat it all I 'help her out' but my plan didn't work that day. We spent the rest of our time in Palermo doing some shopping and getting a feel for the place. The following day we took the underground metro to the centre to see the Obelisk, the parliament buildings and the Falklands protesters. Despite the UK being close to another war with Argentina we haven't felt any hostility or had any problems with anyone. In fact we both get the impression that nobody except the government cares…much like back home really. We saw Evita's balcony and then headed back as it was so hot…38degrees is no fun, walking 100m is enough to make you look like you've run a marathon. On Saturday we met up with Kate's friend Beth. She'd just arrived in BA and we spent the afternoon chatting and watching the incredibly boring England vs Scotland Six Nations match. Beth was excellent company though given that she's just starting her trip and we're getting to the end of ours I have to admit I was more than a little bit envious. The following day we
headed to Recoleta. This suburb of BA is full of townhouses and open grass areas. It was pretty cool to spend the afternoon there and just enjoy the scenery and really get a feel for the way the city works. At night we headed back to Palermo to watch the Superbowl. Kate and I are fairly clueless with American football but it was a good night nonetheless. We got back home at 1am ready for a 3.30am taxi to the airport.
BA Airport has three terminals and annoyingly we were at the worst one. They wouldn't allow you to go through to the lounge, they had one cash point that wouldn't work and a rubbish café with one member of staff!! This combined with my hangover and two hour sleep tipped me over the edge. I walked to the other terminals in search of a cash point but by the time I returned it was time to board…I was not happy! This was all about to change though. When we booked our flights online there were two different prices with one being $5 more each. We opted for the more expensive even though there was no explanation of what we got for our extra money. Well it turned out that we had bought business class tickets complete with comfy chairs, free drinks and two meals for a five hour flight! This improved my mood no end and I was positively buzzing when we finally landed.
El Calafate is a beautiful town in the South of Argentina on the border with Chile. The main reason for visiting here is to see the Perito Moreno glacier but the town itself is a great place to spend some time. Peaceful but with plenty of tourists it was incredibly good to be able to walk for 5minutes without sweating profusely!
The following day we headed for the Perito Moreno glacier on a trip called 'Mini-Trekking'. At the start of the trip it was pouring down but every time we stepped off the coach the rain stopped…we had incredible luck this day! The first stop was at the walkways which made for excellent pictures of the glacier and surrounding areas. This part of the world reminds me a lot of Scotland with hills and valleys and lakes/lochs. Scotland doesn't have glaciers of course (and Argentina doesn't have midges!) but it does make you appreciate how back home in the UK we have plenty of beautiful landscapes. After the walkways we got on a boat for some close-up pictures of the glacier. The boat dropped us off at the glacier itself and we went on a two hour trek complete with cramp-on boots and ice picks! The different shades of white and blue in the glacier were astounding and the whole trip was like nothing I'd ever done before in my life. The pictures are pretty incredible so if you have the time please give them a look.
Hello-Katie here, tag teaming in to complete this epic blog.
From El Calafate we headed across the border to Chile once more, to a small, windy town called Puerto Natales. This town acts as the gateway to Torres del Paine national park. The park attracts 200,000 Gore-tex wearing trekkers a year and is know for it's outstanding beauty. Unfortunately with that many people you get a few idiots, chiefly an Israeli guy who set fire to his used bog roll, and caused a huge fire which destroyed thousands of hectares of the National Park in January. There´s a popular 5 day trek called the W trek that had to be part closed and we got to Puerto Natales not really knowing if we could go at all. We were planning to squeeze in a 3 day, 2 night trek in before we had to catch the Navimag ferry to Puerto Montt.
So off we went with our 10kg backpacks, tents and waterproofs, fully aware we were out of our depths! We hiked along the rugged side of Lake Nordenskjold (not so hispanic sounding!) under blue skies and set up camp at the Los Cuernos camp site. As we unraveled our "2 man tent" in one of the last gravel pits (aka camping spot) we started to lose faith in this escapade. The tent was barely big enough for one, let alone the 2 of us with our big backpacks and the gravel pit meant we couldn't peg down the outer layer of the tent. However, it was still sunny and the wind was mild. Realising a good night sleep was most probably beyond us, we made the wise decision to buy a bottle of wine from the refuge to help us sleep. I think we should have bought a crate! As it turned dark the wind began to howl and the rain came lashing down. We were managing a solid 15 minutes of sleep at a time before the wind whipped up so hard that the tent shook violently. At 2 am the tent started to give in to the Patagonian elements, the wind had removed the stones keeping the waterproof layer in place. As I ventured out with my headtorch and rainmack there were some choice expletives used and I swore I couldn't put up with another night like this. Joe will state that he could have done another night, and it was just me who wanted to go back to civilisation…but I can assure you Joe is not a man who enjoys laying on a 5mm roll mat, on gravel, with his nose pressed against the side of the tent because there is simply no room!
So, after a culminative 3 hours sleep we got up, packed away the sodden tent (waterproof, my arse!) and decided to hightail it out of camping country and power walked through the strong head wind back to the minibus pick up point. As we walked we both refelcted that we'd been very lucky to see the Scottish Highlands in their sunny glory as well as the South Island of New Zealand, and that minus the sheer scale of Patagonia and the glaciers around each corner, it looked fairly similar.
The unpredictable Patagonian weather followed us on to the Navimag ferry. The Navimag sails for 4 days up the coast of Chile via the fjordlands to Puerto Montt. It's primary purpose is a freight ferry, with all sorts being transported from remote Patagonia up to the Lake District and vice versa. Freight including cows. I kid you not! It'd been recommended to us by a few people and since we had time to spare we though 4 days exploring the fjords would be better than a 24 hour bus. As a self confessed geography geek glaciers and fjords are my bag. Sadly, the low lying cloud and pissing rain meant that most of the 4 days was spent indoors, looking out at….well, not much really. Strangely we still really enjoyed it, the bizarre 3 foot square dorm we shared with 2 Germans, the best coffee we'd had on the trip (this sadly isn't much of a claim), excellent siesta naps to the lullaby of cows mooing and the endless games of poker using our newly acquired poker chips.The Navimag left us in a rainy, godforsaken place called Puerto Montt. When we realised the next day bus to Bariloche had sold out we plummed for the bus to Pucon rather than stay another night in the dreary town.
Pucon is a town in the Chilean side of the lake district and we spent a few days catching up on correspondance, pottering about and starting to look at jobs and flats in Sydney in earnest! There's hundreds of adrenaline junkie activities both here and in Bariloche, but with the budget already spent we definitely hit the "wind down" phase of our trip. From here we took a bus across our 10th and final border crossing to Bariloche. We had a 3 hour stop in San Martin de los Andes, a beautiful lake side resort that we had no problem filling the time in. Our hostel in Bariloche was high on a hill with great views over Lake Nahuel Haupi. Bariloche is an all year round tourist hot spot, for the lakes and trekking in the summer and skiing in the winter. It has huge Germanic/Austrian influences and though neither of us had ever been skiing in Europe we knew this was exactly what all the ski towns looked like! Log buildings with more Swiss chocolate shops than you can shake a stick at…a bizarre thing to find in Argentina. We decided to hire a car for the day to explore the surrounding lakes. Considering a lot of the roads are gravel, we were a bit surprised when the car hire guy turned up with a 3 door Corsa! We had a great day of freedom, rallying the Corsa around the lakes and dodging the ever present low lying cloud and rain.
Having seen Alberto's parrilla (Argentinian Barbeque) restaurant always busy, we decided we would give it a shot at competing for a position on Joe's Steak Podium…I can´t discuss the result as that would ruin the award ceremony blog that will follow this one. Let´s just say, we went back twice! Suddenly it was time for our last bus, a 21 hour monster, to Buenos Aires. We are having a competition (because we are cool) where we have to guess the amount of hours spent on a bus in the last 5 months-the results of winner and actual time will be in the award/summary blog.
We've had a few days of sightseeing and looking for some tango action. We were entertained by a few keen amateurs whilst we had coffee in a square in San Talmo, but the real deal was seen last night at Complejo Tango. Signing up to see the professional tango show I was told we got a free tango lesson chucked in, and surprisingly Joe didn't put up much of a fuss (I've clearly broken his spirit). As we got split into Caballeros and Damas (men and women) we were talked through our basic box steps, ochos and the most important part-the tango pose, complete with "tango face". I'm a big fan of Strictly Come Dancing and was chanelling Bruno Tonioli "you prowl like a tiger…you were mysterious, like a gypsie by the campfire" and the like, as we stomped about the dance studio. We both had great fun and mastered the tango pose…but not a lot else. The show itself was excellent, lots of lustful looking men and aloof women gliding about looking like they were glued together. The Argentine tango, with all it's fancy steps and intricate flicks of the leg definitely gets more than a SEVEN in my book!
So here we are, back in Buenos Aires, less than 24 hours away from our flight to Sydney and at the end of 20 unforgettable weeks in South America. Luckily we have a 15 hour flight to compile our top highlights, steak podiums and think up some words that do this continent justice in time for the summary blog.
It's been amazing, worth every peso, and so easy to do…so Carpe Diem, or as the locals say- VIVA LA VIDA!!!
Love always,
Joe and Kate xx
- comments
Bren Totally excellent to catch up with what you've been doing. Even camping in torrential rain and low lying cloud sounds fun :) Can't wait to be part of the Australia part of the trip - I hope you will keep blogging?!... Lots of love, and see you soon! xxx
Maccers AMAZEBALLS - that is all x x