Buenos Aires.. so much to do and a lovely city

Buenos Aires- 1st big place on our trip for over a month!

We have been here for almost a week now and on our way to Tucuman next on train on Good Friday

SO what have we done so far:

Whirlwind tour of the city on the anniversary of the Malvinas

James feeling guilty to be English today!
Whilst in BA the much loved old Argentian president Alfonsi died so offical public holiday today and state funeral!
Visited the widest avenue in the world! Avenue 9 Julio!
Lots of nice old buildings, very much like old Spain or Italy
La Boca- the colourful street in B.A.


Visited a Tango show in Cafe Tortoni

150 years old and where King of Spain has visited! Very nice as more like a show of dancing music and theatre than just dancing so very nice for all the family to visit here.

Tigre

Lovely City on a delta north of BA. Went on boat trip round the city & visited Art Museum

Eating lots of fine food

Including home cooked food and more ice cream mmmmmmm! :-)


Family party or reunion

Met most of the extended family on saturday and was great fun. Lovely family and had great fun including a solo performance by Mariana´s cousin on the violin. It is a bit of a tradition to have this get together with the Bianchi family

San Telmo Market

As to James´s spanish it is coming along "despacio" as they say in Argentina but improving all the time!

MORE TO COME........

Mar del Plata & the legendary Pinamar!

We got to Mar del Plata early in the morning and hang around at the terminal until by chance and out of nowhere Mariana´s dad appeared!

Well we have finally made it to Pinamar and it is lovely to meet Mariana's parents

Casa Miriam is a lovely Home from home near the beach and we´re having grest fun going to the beach each day and her parents are throughly spoiling us!

Wow the ice cream in Argentina is fantastic and that is coming from an icecreamaholic! You get up to 40 flavours to choose from, wow!

Found a place in Pinamar called the Liverpool Bar, wow must be fate!

I can understand while Mariana loves this place so much.

Visited lots of places near Pinamar that have history to do with Mariana´s family so nice to get to know their history here. They set up the first church in the area!



MORE TO COME........

On the road again... with the truckers

So it was time to leave San Martin and once again our hitch hiking adventures begin!

We wait only 30 mins before some crazy snowboarder from San Martin picks us up. He tells us of how he knows people from Wanaka, small world!

Only takes us short distance, and wait a while for next lift. Just when James giving up we see a lorry. I remember saying to Mariana, they`ll never give us a lift but to my surprise they stop! It seems to be that whenever I think they will never pick us up and lost some hope we get a lift, so that has to be my tactic from now on!

These truckers, both 26 are delivering asphalt from Cordoba to San Martin to build a new road and back again!

Interesting having a lift off a truck and they´re kind enough to drive us all the way to Neuquen about 350km away!

Get there at around midnight.

Next day visit to Cipolletti, chill out in small town with not much but good to have a break from tourist activites.

Get lift off people outside city who take us supposedly to where the coach should stop but maybe lost in translation or (more likely) a blatant lie they drop us off not 2km from the town but 20km! James not impressed and starts to worry that will miss the bus to get us to Mar del Plata to meet Mariana´s parents next morning! Not a good 1st impression! Lucky find a local old man stopping at petrol station who agree to give us lift to the next town. Great until we realise v old truck, no speedo & I reckon top speed is 60km/hr & not the usual 130! Still we get there slowly but surely and luckily have a few hours to catch our bus.

Villa la Angostura & San Martin de los Andes

We arrived mid afternoon and after our usual visit to the Tourist information office we headed to the supermarket.

The place looked amazing, really green and relaxing and we were determined to make the most of the time there. So as we couldn´t leave the big bags in the info center we oops forgot them for the rest of the afternoon in the supermarket´s customers desk, we walked down to the National Park Los Arrayanes where we spent a few hours enjoying the beautiful views of the peninsula.

We got a lift back to the city by a nice couple and picked up dinner and after get a bit of a told off, also our big bags. We head to find a home sweet home for the night, which we find next to Rio Correntoso.

Nxt moring we got drop off at the begining of the ¨camino de los 7 lagos¨ where we found conviniently located a blackberrys tree and James decided that that would make a nice lunch as there were plenty of them... a few hours later (after stuffing ourselves with blackberrys and of course, turron -James favorite snack im Argentina-!) and sitting by the beautiful lake Espejo (see photos) we got a lift from a nice guy, Leo, a forest fireman who was on his way to San Martin de los Andes to put out a fire that started in Lenin´s National Park.

Bariloche WOW! what a nice place and hospitality thanks to Andrea y Luciano

The first day in Bariloche we got a lift into the city center (this time by Andrea and Luciano, no hitchinging for a change) where we spent all morning and part of the afternoon exploring it.
Late that day we met Andrea back at her place and started a trek up the mountain where we visited Otto Meiling house-museum, a legendary german who funded the Bariloche´s 1st Andinean Club and owned the first ski factory.
We got up to the top where the chair lift finishes and enjoyed a really awesome view of the Nahuel Huapi lake and surroundings. By then, and after a few hours of listening Mariana and Andrea catching up and gossiping, James was fluent in spanish! (yeah, right!)
We finished the day with a delicious dinner with typical Andinean food, smoked dear, venison, salami, etc.

We would have liked to spend more time in Bariloche but the time its always tight when the distances are so long, and so we spend one more day when we visited Cerro Campanario and Andrea took us to have a look around to a Swiss village and a few lookouts. She was also leaving the next day, so we said goodbye on friday the 20th and head off to Villa La Angostura by bus.

Esquel, Trevelin, El Bolson

Nxt morning Esquel & after talking to Tourist information went to Trevelin. Its meant to be a village settled by the Welsh so is meant to be Welsh looking (not sure if I know what that means) but apart from alot of Tea Shops it looked like Argentina to me In fact Patagonia seems to have a lot of Tea shops. Strange.

Next hitching to El Bolson. Managed to get dropped off a pretty bad location and I was sure we weren´t going to get a nother lift for the day but Mariana again proved me wrong we a lift off the Tax Man of the area! They seem to like to drive at 130-140km/hr in Argentina so we soon caught up with time.

El Bolson was really nice and a glimpse at what Patagonia (the area we had been all this time) can really be like. We managed to trick the supermarket security people to look after our heavy bags as the tourist information didn´t want to look after them. So we claimed that we were going shopping. You can imagine the secuirty officer must have thought we has either got lost or really like the shop as we turned up again to pick up our bags 4 hours later after sneaking out of the store!

The mountains round El Bolson amazingly resemble the Remarkables in Queenstown (if you know them)

Next off to Bariloche by another hitch from plumber at night to arrive at Andrea, a friend of Mariana´s and our 1st taste of home life for almost 3 weeks! ......

Gobernoreos Gregores, Puerto San Julian, Comodoro Rivadavia & beyond!

Civilisation finally but we quickly realise that our hitchinking luck hadn´t returned.

Wed managed to get all the way to El Chalten from Punta Arenas to Ushuaia & back again without getting a single bus, which we were quite proud of!

Now we hadn´t managed to get a lift in 3 days! And as there we no buses available still to Perito Mereno township we were stuck again. So we stayed in a nice small town with a little camp site and bought our 1st decent food in while! We even managed to find a supermarket open!

As there we literally no cars going to Perito either we tried to hitch to Puerto San Julian but when we realised there no was no cars going that way either we managed to find a very expensive bus that would take us there.

We got there at 10pm and stayed in a nice municipal campsite overnight.

Next morning hitching again. This unfortunately involved getting out to the Ruta 3, a long walk with our heavy bags & to add to insult started to rain for the 1st time in Argentina!

Ruta 3, "A paved oasis" after all the gravel roads we had experienced over the past 5-6 days! A nice lady from Rio Gallegos picked us up and drove us 430 km to Comodoro Rivadavia, wow now that´s a lift!

Mariana & the lady proceeded to chat all the way, whilst the confused James sat in the back listening and trying to understand the Spanish he could. In the end he admitted defeat & fell asleep!

Friday the 13th!! Always to be remembered!

Friday the 13th shall be remembered for a long time by James & Mariana!

First James got sick from some mystery virus or something. So couldn´t eat for most of the day.

We also couldn´t get out of a little place called Tres Lagos in the middle of nowwhere in Argentina. It was like Groundhog Day. We left at 9 in the morning and we only managed to get a lift back to the same camping place we stayed the night before, which was only 2 km away at 10pm!! Now that is moving! And James wasn´t impressed!

I think we also found that it was also the windiest place on earth. The wind didn´t stop blowing all day and seem to be at 100km/hr all day. We managed to stay in a sheltered camp site for the night but Tres Lagos is a typical windswept nothing exists there kind of town with Tumble-weed blowing down the middle of the gravel road! We made friends with the owners of the local petrol station "YPF" as it is the only place open in town & that is a warm place to shelter from the wind all day, so spent most of the day there. We try to hitch hike, as all the buses are booked out for 4 days up the legendary Ruta 40 (the endless gravel road, well for 600 km anyway!).

Still, looking up the weather seems to be warming up the next day & we get a lift to !

Luckily I have completely recovered, don´t worry mum!!

El Chalten

So El Chalten was the next stop!

Nice scenery again and great mountains. Had a nice 6 hr walk to base of Mt Fitz Roy (3405m) & Cerro Torre (3102m). Amazing weather again with blue sky at start but clouded over again by end of the day.

Unfortunately Mariana wasn´t well (I guess not surprising after that little hike! I´m getting her into training for the Inca Trial) so we had a night spoiling our selves in a very nice hostel at El Chalten.

Next day our attempts at hitch hiking were not going well from EL Chalten as this was a little town in the middle of nowhere but as the buses were booked up for 4-5 days we had no other choice!

El Calafate & Perito Merino Glacier

WOW!

Well we made it after a made it after a mad dash over the Chilean/Argentinian border just before it closed at 10pm from Torres del Paine. We got a lift off some nice argetinians that were driving to EL Calafate.

Camping overnight & then explore of El Calafate- capital to the Glacier National Park.

After catching up after being in the wilderness of Torres for 3 days, it was nice to have a good proper town to explore and buy provisions at last. There is only so long you can live on crackers!!

We attempted to hitch hike to Perito Merino Glacier, which are shown in our Argentina photos opposite. But with little success, so we camped by moonlight on Lago Argentina, very nice!

Next morning it was a v early start, which wasn't helped by the fact Mariana had been unwell overnight :-(

We were rescued by a lovely spanish couple called Diana & Richie who picked us up and we then spent the rest of the day travelling with them.

The Glacier was amazing!!! Huge beyond belief and there right in front of you as if it was bearing down on you. We had a great day with Richie & Diana and saw some amazing wildlife which Richie managed to pick out.

After that it was time to move on to El Chalten.....

Parque Torres del Paine... WOW! what scenery!

So it was off to Torres del Paine in Chile which James was really looking forward to.

We managed to get a lift of a group of French travellers in the back of a 4x4 after only 5 mins hitching from Puerto Natales! Wow that was quick. Maybe it was because the day was sooooo windy and they were feeling sorry for us looking frozen!

Well as we arrived in the park and found wow 26US$ to get in! This was a matter of much discussion with Mariana and the Park guards but they weren't budging on the price!

Well we arrived there late so we started to walk (after dropping off our heavy bag with the visitors centre, phew as we would never manage to carry that around!)

We arrived at the southern campsite just before sun down.

Next morning it was an early start 9am, well for us anyway!, we seemed to managed to get stuck in not being able to get up before 950am every day prior to that!

The Scenery whilst walking was amazing as we were coming from the south. We realised we didn't have enough food for the "Big W" & thought that we didn't really need to see the Grey Glacier there as we were off to Perito Merino Glacier after this anyway. It was also partly as Mariana hadn't been too well as well so wasn't really up to 3-4 days full on walking!

So we found out the campo Italiano & Britanico were closed due to problems with the bathrooms but that wasn't going to stop us. We were off and no one was going to stop us. James was a little concerned re this as Campo Britanico was a long way that day. But still that was our plan!

The weather was great, a little over cast but alot warmer than it had been so far in the trip. James was amazed how cold it was in Punta Arenas, Ushuaia & Puerto Natales (8-13C!) so was nice to find some warmer weather

The trip across to Italiano had some lovely scenery along the lake & we arrived in Italiano late. We hoped to rush past the guard without him knowing so that we could stay at Britanico and were really pleased when he didn't stop us. There we got chatting to some people from no less that Auckland, and one of them was a Medical Obstetrician Consultant at Auckland Hospital!!

It was a rush up to Britanico but we were both amazed by the scenery but ut was getting late with sun down soon. After the big trek up the French Valley, with lots of photos we arrived at camp just before dark!

Day 2

We realised that we wouldn't be able to get to the next camp in time for end of day, so we had to camp in the middle of nowhere and hope we didn't attract the park guards! The weather was rainy & windy in the morning, which was a shame as the scenery from britanico was meant to be the best of the walk. Still at least some nice photos the day before. By the time we got down to bottom of the valley, the sun came out & blue sky..... typical!!! Still the rest of the day had some great views again. By the end of the day we had to find a nice place to put the tent. We eventually managed to find a nice spot.

Day 3... to the end

We started off in high spirits and apart from James going the wrong way we were going well. Then it was decision time.....
Should we go up to the Torres. Now James is a pretty keen hiker and so wanted to go but realised we had to leave the park that night as we didnt really have enough food to last another night in the national park. So we decided that Mariana would head back direct to the visitors centre (which she was pretty keen on as she wasnt the keen hiker James was) and James would go on to the Torres with no bags and almost run it! So we left our separate ways and arranged to meet up at the guard station between 5&6, well that was the plan!

So off went James to run to Torres. It was a stunning day and I was making good speed. Pretty much ran up the rock scramble. When got to the top, wow perfect blue sky with the Torres. So after some photos / going for a chilly wade through the water from the glacier there (my hat blew into the lake...argh!) I met a nice Chilean. We then chatted on the way back to the Hosteria! Me trying my limited espanol and he was doing most of the translating!

.... Meanwhile Mariana was enjoying the hostel at the end of the track & taking her time as she thought she had lots of time! Anyway time flew and then she suddenly realised she had to get the bags from the southern entrance V centre. So off she went but our very successful hitching from the rest of the trip was not going so well in the park. James also found the same problem & we both almost had to hitch 3to4 km in hot sunny day, not good. Anyway to cut it short, we both managed to arrive at the guards station only 20 secs apart! It must be fate!!

After that we got a nice lift off a French couple to Chile-Argentina border, phew lucky!

Welcome to Puerto Natales

Well we have made it to Puerto Natales and all is well!

Still pretty cold down here 13C apparently today but feels much colder!

We´ve finally been able to add more photos now that we´re in the land of internet again so click on our link!

UPDATE:

Puerto Natales

We get to Puerto Natales following a long day getting from the Argentinian border via our friend the lorry driver from Puerto San Julian.

Well Puerto Natales main point is to serve as the main city to Torres del Paine National Park & is the 1st time we see lots of tourists. The National Park is one of the highlights of Patagonia so there are lots of hostels etc here, and as most of the Patagonian cities is really very windy.

We see to have this ability to pick up lots of dogs on our trip, so we have decided to start calling them after the city where we visit. So today we have met "Puerto Natales" who is a very loyal dog and has been looking after our back packs as you will see in the photos. I think really they are only after some food but we like to think they are our friends on the trip. Well for a short time anyway :-)

We stayed in a really nice little place that was more like a private house with some rooms off it than a hostel in the centre of town and it is always nice to have a proper place to stay after we have been camping for a few nights. Well its off to Torres del Paine National Park after this......