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9th March 2012 Travelling to El Calafate, Argentina
Our bus was leaving at 10:00am. There was a tiny women lifting our bags onto the bus which made us feel quite bad. It got very hot on the bus as the air conditioning wasn't working. However they opened the roof of the bus which made it better. We were also given coffee if we wanted it. We arrived in Puerto Natales at 1pm. We first went to the bus offices as we needed to book an ongoing bus to El Calafate for tonight. We struggled getting through the door of the bus office with our luggage but once we got in we managed to book the bus for tonight and leave our cases there. After coming out of the supermarket for buying snacks for the bus journey someone asked whether I wanted any camping equipment (in English) and it amused me as I answered them in Spanish (non gracias).
The bus was due to leave at 6:00 but it probably left about 6:30. This bus seemed to be quite full of young backpackers. I had sat down when the driver came and said permisso. I had sat on someones keys. I am still not sure whether I was sitting on the bus keys or someones house keys. The border crossing was fairly simple but we weren't sure exactly what we were doing. I purposefully didn't point out the sign at the border crossing which said the Malvina Islands were Argentinean. Mum was worried enough about that. We saw a boy racer on the road- you get them in Argentina too. We were watching the scenery and there were hardly any built up areas. Ahead of us we could either see a large moon or sun-we never worked out which.
I began to doze and when the bus began to slow down and go onto the verge I thought maybe the driver had fallen asleep or the bus had broken down. All the driver wanted was to go out of the bus for a wee (and possibly fresh air). I then went to sleep but mum couldn't as she was watching the driver who kept twitching and opening windows. She thought he was getting tired and who could blame him as it was a long drive and there wasn't hardly any traffic on it with no difference in scenery. My thoughts on the matter is if he was going to crash I would rather be enjoying myself sleeping than watching him. Much to Mum's relief we arrived in El Calafate and we drove past a taxi rank. It looked a nice town. We got up to the bus station where there was only 1 taxi and mums age came into benefit as the taxi driver asked mum ahead of everyone else whether she needed a taxi. We arrived at 11:30 at the hotel and after going back down to find out the time for breakfast. We went straight to bed.
10th March 2012 El Calafate, Argentina
We went in a travel agent and booked a tour to the glacier for the afternoon and a trekking tour of the glacier for me tomorrow. We then had to rush to the bakery to get some food. As we arrived at the hotel I said I don't believe it there was Sheila and Rodger again (we met them in Chile on the ferry from Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales) stopping in the same hotel as us.
We waited outside the hotel until the tour vehicle drew up. We then drove to Perito Monreno glacier. On the way we saw an Amardillo and rocks shaped like a row of elephants. We stopped for 2 photo stops- one for view over the lake and one for views of the glaciers. When we got in after the 1st photo stop I was obviously tired as I got confused about the seats. I got out of the bus to let people in when the other people were already in their seats. Once we started off the person in front of me seat hadn't clicked in so she suddenly shot back towards me. We first drove to where we picked up the boat to the glacier. The boat trip was stunning and we were quite close to the glacier when ice began falling into the water. It was fantastic but was a little bit of a concern when all these waves began coming towards the boat. The glacier was very beautiful. We then drove to where the boardwalks were for walking around looking at views over the glacier. There were 3 main boardwalks with views over the glacier. Mum did really well with all the steps. I took her on the hardest circuit first (red) then we did yellow and then I went and did the blue. The blue led to a car park with a restaurant- I almost got to it even though I didn't want to as guide had only suggested we go so far along it. I didn't know when I should turn around though. I missed an ice fall as I was around the corner on the path.
11th March 2012 El Calafate, Argentina
I had breakfast at 6:55am which was a bit of a rush as I was due to get the tour bus at 7:00. As usual the tour bus was a little late. As soon as I was on it I began to doze on it and woke up to find floods of people coming in from one hostel. A girl called Chelsea sat next to me from Arizona, USA and we began talking. I then went back into a deep sleep till the national park entrance. After arriving at the national park entrance we were then given information to fill in. Of all the times to be given information to fill in-when the roads are at their worse and bendy. We first arrived at the board walks to walk around them again and I went around with Chelsea. I am glad I went yesterday as the weather was better and it meant it didn't really matter how much or little I saw from boardwalks as I had been around yesterday. We then got the boat across to refugio and went out on deck for a bit while we were going past the glacier. It was quite a sleep slope to walk up to refugio where we had a bit of time to sort out our bag and use the toilet.
We joined the Spanish group (Chelsea and I) to walk up the side of the glacier through forest and then up the hill to where our crampons were fitted and our harnesses put on. We were joining the English again later. At the side of glacier we could see blues in the glacier, waterfalls down the side of the hillside and meltwater coming off the glacier. The only problem I found as we were all walking in a line there was little time for photographs. At the place for fitting the crampons we had time for a drink and a bite to eat. We then walked down to glacier and our crampons were put on. There were these little stools around on the glacier at the entrance for the guides to put our crampons on. We first had to make sure our hiking boots were tight before the guides put our crampons on. It felt weird to begin with in crampons as we had at least 6 spikes on our foot. It was a good job there were no enemies in the vicinity as we had this large spike on the front of our foot. Not that I would ever spike anyone but could see it with a James Bonds movie as they sometimes have daggers on the front of their feet. We were then given tips on how to walk with crampons. I was a bit concerned walking on the glacier to begin with as it felt very weird with the crampons and I was worried about going over on my ankle. We were also going past crevasses in the ice. It was a fantastic experience and I got used to walking up and down the glacier with them. My only criticism of the tour was that we weren't given enough time to take photos- guides weren't happy as the group kept getting spread out but we wanted to take photos. Its not everyday you get to walk on a glacier. We ate lunch in the middle of the glacier-a ham and cheese sandwich. I did get a cold bum sitting on the ice despite having ski sellopats on. When walking back I did begin to feel a little tired but I was also being less careful than I was as I had got used to walking in crampons. I had to keep reminding myself to be careful as this is when accidents were likely to happen.Trying to get the crampons off and wrapped back together was a bit of a challenge after we got off the glacier and the hill back down to the refuge seemed a lot longer on the way back than it did on way there. I was taking lots of photographs though on way down we then waited for the boat. Unfortunately the only hot drink was coffee so I gave it a miss. While waiting for the boat we took photographs with the statue and the glacier. We then began the 10 minute boat ride back where we got biscuits and whiskey. I picked my whiskey up before realising what it was but I managed to pass it on to someone else. The heavy rain that had been threatening all day began while on the boat so we didn't spend it outside on deck. We had been so lucky with the weather. On the bus back I slept most of the way to the hotel. The streets were flooded in El Calafate and we were struggling to find ways through the puddles when we went out for dinner and booking a bus.
12th March 2012 Travelling to El Chalten, Argentina
We had a quick walk to nature reserve. However, there wasn't really time so I went on ahead but it was a bit of a disappointment when I got there as they were constructing a road and I could just see the lake from there. I'm sure if you walked round it though it would be a lovely nature reserve but there just wasn't time to do that. From the entrance to the reserve it wasn't attractive. The hotel had ordered us a taxi to bus station and it was slightly later than expected but all fine.
We got the Chaltentravel bus from El Calafate to El Chalten which took 3 hours. On the way we stopped at La Leona Roadhouse which made for a nice resting stop despite the history of Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid stopping here. It also has nice views of the River Leona. Our next stop along the road was to stop at the National Park information centre. It told us some lovely walks and I regretted not being able to stay in the town for longer. We then drove on to the bus station and there wasn't a very helpful person there as he spoke so fast and seemed to be in a bit of a mood. Anyway I managed to find out that we stay on the bus till we got to the hotel. We just dumped our bags in the new hotel and then went for a walk to waterfalls. There wasn't time to do much else but I insisted on taking water out for mum. It was a good job I did as it was supposed to be a very easy walk but we only got the distance for the distance there not the round trip. At the waterfalls I climbed further up so I could see where the stream was flowing down. Mum panicked when she looked upwards and saw where I was. I had to do a little bit of a climb but nothing much. Some other older people before me had done a worst climb. Luckily another person also came up so we could get photos of each other. It took me a long time to gain mums attention for the taking of a photograph of her. It was quite a beautiful waterfall too after all the waterfalls I've seen. We were saying its always a bit of a concern when you walk to see a waterfall that it may be a bit of a disappointment when you get there after all the beautiful ones we had seen.
13th March 2012 Travelling to Perito Moreno (town), Argentina
We had breakfast and then got the bus at 8:30am by walking to the hostel next door. My plans had been a little scuppered of taking photographs of Mount Fitz Roy from the bus due to the windows steaming up. At the bus station which was about 5 minutes up the road, I got out to try and take some photographs. The photographs weren't quite what I hoped for in that I had a few telegraphs to try and get round as I was still in town. We then began our long bus journey. The road wasn't too bad at first. At 10:00 we stopped in the garage at tres lagos. There I took photographs of a baby cow. There we first heard of problems of flooding of the roads and thought this journey could end up a bit longer and we thought hope we get through. Parked up at a garage was a vehicle that we would have thought would get through flooded roads. Looking at that we thought the bus would have no chance. In fact the bus did get through but the road got more bumpy, more muddy and deserted. We even had to go off the ruta 40 in places which was basically just a dirt track. Problem was we couldn't even look at the scenary as the whole bus was covered in mud including the windows. At around 3:00 we stopped at a service station near Gobernador Gregores. There we were able to get a sandwich and everyone began to try and do a bit of cleaning of windows. Mum managed to begin cleaning ours and then everyone was asking can she clean theirs. The driver or guide made some comment but we weren't too sure about what he meant. We discovered afterwards that what he meant was it was a waste of time cleaning the windows. We were off on the muddy dirt track again. The windows only managed to stay clean for a short time. The bus did some skidding on the road and we went past a jeep which had spun off the road. The driver stopped the bus and helped them out. I must admit I was a little worried that he stopped the bus that we wouldn't get going again. My mum could probably comment on the road more than I could as I kept falling asleep (as usual on a bus).
At 7:30 we stopped at Bajo Ceracoles. The roads did improve a little after this. We arrived at 10:00 at our basic hotel in Perito Moreno. The hotel reminded mum and I of Fawlty Towers hotel. What we saw of Perito Moreno didn't look much. The hotel was clean and it was somewhere to rest our tired heads. Our first experience of it was after collecting the keys, trying to put the key in the lock. The key went straight through to the other side of the door. With a little bit of fiddling I managed to get us into the room. We went pretty much straight out then to eat dinner in the hotels restaurant. The restaurant was clean, there was a little shop there and the man who was serving in reception was now serving in restaurant. He was a man of few words, shuffled his feet and just placed things on the table without saying things. I had a nice steak and both our dinners were good. Mum made sure she used her parmesan before he took it away again.
14th March 2012 Travelling to Bariloche, Argentina
At 7:45am we left in the bus. We had a clean bus so we could see out of the windows and the bus stayed cleaner today. I slept most of the time again and mum saw an overturned vehicle along the road. At 10:15 we arrived in Rio Mayo where we bought sandwiches and had a nice hot chocolate. It was a little bit of a weird hot chocolate as they gave us a cup of boiling water with a chocolate bar. We then had to melt the chocolate bar in the boiling water but it tasted good. We travelled again till about 1:45 and stopped in a cafe along the road. We decided after I had ate my pizza we would go and sit in the sun. We were lucky that we came across a friendly alsatian rather than a fierce alsatian otherwise we would have had a chunk out of our backs. We decided to sit down on a brick wall in front of what we thought was a deserted house. The next thing mum felt something on her back, it was the alsatian sniffing her back through the rails of the houses fence.
From here onwards the scenary got better with colour, plants and mountains. It was very beautiful and it would have been nice to spend some more time along the route. I also watched the film zookeeper in between the scenary. We stopped just after El Bolson at 6:30. Unfortunately after that the toilet began to smell horrible. We were right at the front of the bus so goodness knows what it was like at the back. We had to spray perfume on our wrists and the roof of the bus was opened to try and get rid of the smell. After arriving we went out to supermarket, out for dinner and when I got back to the hotel I thought I will just have a look at bus tickets and flight tickets to Mendoza. It was a good job that I did as nearly all the seats were fully booked on the bus which we decided we would do as otherwise it would be a 1000 pounds for two of us on the flight from Bariloche to Mendoza (both in Argentina).
15th March 2012 Seven Lakes Route, near Bariloche, Argentina
We had a 8am pick up at the hotel. Our first stop was at Lago Nahuel Huapi where we took a photo over the lake at Bariloche. Our second stop was Villa La Angostura which was a beautiful little town and somewhere which would be a nice place to stay. The only problem was the volcano explosion in 2011 ash settled there each day. Each morning they would spray the roads and pavements with water to get rid of the ash. We stopped in the tea room for a lovely hot chocolate and a chocolate mouse cake. Our next stop was a beautiful view over Lago Espejo. We saw the following lakes: Lago Correntoso, Lago Traful, Lago Escondido, Lago Villarino, Lago Falkner, Lago Hermoso and Lago Machonico. They were beautiful lakes and it was a stunning day out to view the lakes. I couldn't believe that Shiela and Rodger had been told to avoid the area due to the ash. Ok it did cause some problems but the area was still stunning. At one of the lakes (I think Lago Falkner) we stood on the beach area overlooking it. Some we only saw from the road but where we could do we looked at them at viewpoints.
At San Martin de los Andes we had lunch- I thought I had ordered pizza as I scanned the menu too quick. What I got was breadcrumbed meat with ham and pineapple on top of it- it was still very nice though. After lunch I had a walk around the Plaza San Martin and surrounding area taking photographs of the double decker bus, the chocolate shop and the Parque Nacional Lanin sign. We made two stops on the way back one at a viewpoint over a lake and a waterfall and one then back in villa la Angostura. The driver kept laughing at me because I kept falling asleep even though mum was sleeping a lot more. Problem is if I am in a vehicle and it is very quiet and no-one is talking to me I will fall asleep. At Villa la Angostura we just walked up a short way in the park and sat on the bench. We went for a meal in the restaurant next door to the hotel. The waiter said bon appetite and mum replied with merci instead of gracias.
16th March 2012 Bariloche, Argentina
We had a bit more of a relaxed day today- ok yesterday was relaxing but today we didn't have to get up early. We then had a walk around Bariloche civic centro (we didn't realise we were at civic centro at the time)-it was beautiful and there were all these grown up and cute St Bernards puppies around. Unfortunately couldn't get photographs of the dogs as had to pay to have your photo taken with them. We walked to the cathedral which was also beautiful with altars made out of stone and nice wood carvings in the cathedral. We then had a walk next to the lake and then walked back up to the town to try and find civic centro. We found it to be in the same place as we had been in earlier. After lunch we went back to the hotel and then got taxi to bus station for the bus to Mendoza at 3:30. When getting on the bus, one of the people wanted tipping at the bus station for lifting our bags onto the bus. Mum gave him 2 pesos and he gave a look like thats not enough so we were a little worried about the security of our bags.I then enjoyed watching the film 3 days before having tea, cake and crackers etc. We then had the surprise of playing bingo on the bus. The main problem was trying to struggle to use the plastic stick given to poke out the numbers on my paper copy. I translated most of the numbers and only misheard one. Luckily someone corrected my translation but it didn't make too much of a difference as someone else won.
We were slowed down by protesters on the roads again lighting fires along the road. We weren't moving much for an hour. We were getting quite used to experience of protesters on the roads. I then began watching another film before being served with dinner which was chicken. I was so tired after dinner that I went straight off to sleep.
17th March 2012 Mendoza, Argentina
We arrived in Mendoza at 8:30 but we weren't sure we were there. We expected to be an hour late due to the hold up but the bus arrived on time. We then got a taxi to the hotel. The hotel was beautiful with chandeliers up on the ceiling. We paid a very reasonable price for it too. We went for walk around Mendoza to Plaza Independencia, Plaza Espana and Plaza San Martin, walked up Sacramiento (main street), Mercado Central where we saw a pet shop after going through mop and bucket shops. Compared to other churches we have seen the church near San Martin was a little bit of a stuffy church. The plazas were beautiful and the Plaza Independencia (main square) had fountains in the middle of it. When we walked through Sacramiento we decided to stop in a cafe.
After walking around the places above we went for lunch along a side street and got a set menu. For lunch I had beef in sauce and then fruit salad. Again I had to pick up a key from the bar to use to unlock the toilet. On the corner of the street I think possibly there was someone selling dogs. She showed interest in other people and I was looking at the dog but she just ignored me. She knew I was a tourist as I was talking to mum in English so I think she must have decided to ignore me. Just before the wine tasting which was held every night in the hotel we asked the concierge about a wine tour. He told us that the only thing we could do tomorrow as it was Sunday was hire a private driver. We decided that this was too much money but two Canadian girls overheard in the wine tasting. They wanted to do the same thing so we decided to split the cost of the driver between us. Mum enjoyed the wine tasting in the hotel and it was enjoyable talking to Canadian girls- Christa and Krista. We then rushed out to go to the bank and mum said do you mind if we don't walk across the main square. She was worried about it being dangerous. I pointed out that we would be safer walking across the square as it was full of families, people and police watching it. Its the side streets you have to watch. We got to the bank and then went for dinner.
18th March 2012 Mendoza, Argentina
At 10:30 we began our trip to vineyards along with Christa and Krista. We first visited Achaval Ferrer vineyard which was owned by a group of about 5 friends and was a fairly small vineyard. We first took photographs around the vines before being taken on a tour around the processing plant. They use the wine barrels only 3 times before getting rid of them. We then sat outside having tastings- the others only got to taste a small number of wines. I wasn't interested especially as I was meeting my homestay hosts later at day but it was a pleasant place to sit. We also talked about health and safety and how we wouldn't be able to go near a processing plant at home with wires trailing across the floor.
We then visited Belasco de Baquedano which was a larger vineyard and set in a nice building with a more imposing drive than the other vineyard. First we had a tour around the storage area and processing. I preferred this tour though as also got to go in the aroma room and guess the different smells. We then had tastings down in the bar area before I had a photograph cuddling a llama. We then had a fantastic lunch-5 courses and steak as the main meal. For each course there was a wine but the others shared out my wine. We had photos out on the terrace before the driver drove us back to the hotel.
Mum and I got a taxi to my homestay. It wasn't too far from the hotel but I was already later getting to the house than I had planned. Mum went in a bar while I went to met my new host and hostess. Only my host Marcelo plus the dog Avana who was a young golden Labrador. She reminded me of laser when she was younger. It was so nice to stroke a dog again. I then went to meet mum in the bar. At the bar I used the toilet but it must have been an old house as this time in the bar toilet I discovered a bath with plants in it. Mum and I then walked to the Spanish school to see where it was in relation to the house. We then walked back to the hotel passing all the locals in their local ice cream shop. Later I got a taxi back to the house and a waiter next to the house helped me with a case through the gate. When I arrived most of the people in the house had gone to bed. There was only the mum and the older boy awake.
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