Since my last update, we have caught our first really long bus ride (28 hours!), visted beautiful Bariloche, watched Sea Lions beg for fish scraps (maybe not "beg" but they were waiting there to be fed!) and.. climbed an active volcano!
From the beginning.
We caught a 28 hour bus ride, thankfully full Cama, from El Calafate in southern Patagonia to San Carlos de Bariloche (known commonly as just "Bariloche"), a beautiful city in the Argentine Lake District. The Lake District here is nothing like the one in the UK. It´s surrounded by evergreen forrests, snow capped peaks, and volcanoes.
The bus ride, even though Cama, was torturous. If 28 hours wasn´t bad enough, for the first 20 the bus´s heating was on full pelt. We were baking, and getting pretty sick from the heat. At hour 21, someone must have kicked the heating controls because thankfully we went back to normal bus conditions... cold!
Bariloche it situated on beautiful Lake Nahuel Huapi and backdropped by the awesome Cerro Catedral (Mount Catedral). It´s an outdoor lovers paradise and is shaping to be the Queenstown of South America.
The lake provides watersport activites like windsurfing and kitesurfing.
Of course for such leisure, you´re charged a fair bit, and being backpackers, the best we could afford was watching the action! The regions prices are inflated not only to the overseas tourist trade, but also because Bariloche is viewed favourably by many Argentines and wealthy locals go there to play.
Within our budget was an awesome day´s bike round around the "Circuito Chico", which takes in a few of the surrounding lakes and scenery. We were joined by an energetic young Irishman. Dara or Gara or something similar. I understood about 50% of what he said at best, but he was a good bloke and good company. We hired mountain bikes and cycled the 30ish km circuit in a few hours, taking a leisurely pace.
we picniced at this spot
The hostel we stayed at for the first few days (Hostel 41 Below - named because Bariloche is on the 41st parallel below the equator) was great, and here I cooked my first real meal of the trip. A beef stew. Previously we´d either eaten out, made do with pasta and sauce (real backpacker fare!) or gone without. And it was awesome. I make the best beef stews full stop. I don´t care how that sounds. It´s true.
We then moved to another hostel to check out a different part of town. And boy were we surprised. La Baracca Suites was the most guest-house place we´ve stayed in. Which is explained by the fact that the owners were about to apply for hotel stars to move up from the hostel trade.
seriously, what hostel have you seen like this?Sunsets in this part of the world are also awesome. I was hoping for a bit of cloud definition in this shot, but we lucked out weather-wise. Apparently we arrived smack bang in the middle of rainy season, but we had clear skies for the entire week we were there. Payback for the Torres, I think.
The town of Bariloche itself is quite nice, and we managed to get a little bit further out of the main touristy bits this time. Hopefully we´ll keep that theme in the coming months. It´s nice to see the real face of the place you are staying, rather than the tourist side. That is of course, if it´s safe!
Although saying that, we did spend a lot of time in the town´s chocolate shops!
In one cafe, we met a waiter who spoke minimal english, and when he found out I was from Australia, he replied "best Rugby team in the world".. Could´ve fooled me mate! I asked why he said that and he replied "Michael Lynagh, John Eales, David Campese"...... I didn´t have the heart to tell him.
When we left the cafe, he shouted "congratulations for David Campese"... ermm. Thanks!
Deciding to forego a horse riding trip for cheaper Mendoza (hopefully it´s cheaper, anyway!), we paid a visit to Cerro Catedral on our penultimate day. Caught a cable car from the tourist base of Catedral to near the summit, then walked the remaining distance. The views were sublime:
In winter, when the entire mountain is covered in snow, it becomes one of the largest ski parks in South America. This time of year, with no snow, the place was pretty much shut. We saw Andean Condors again, playing in the thermals high overhead.
After Bariloche, we caught a 6 hour bus across the Andes to Chile, and a university town called Valdivia. On a side note, my passport is actually starting to get full now because of all the Argie/Chile border crossings, and I´m hoping I have enough blank pages for the rest of the journey!
Anyway, it must be off season, because the town is pretty dead. It´s saving grace is the colony of Sea Lions that pretty much live next to the fish market, getting big off scraps thrown in by the fish mongers. Cormorants, Pelicans, Turkey Vulters, Chimango Caracaras and gulls make up the support crew.
We strolled the market and decided to buy some salmon for dinner. Expecting an expensive price (being used to London salmon prices, and hearing about Chile being a generally expensive place), we were amazed at being charged 1,800 pesos for a massive filet of Salmon. I mean a huge piece, caught fresh that morning. That worked out to about GBP 2.10. A similar sized portion from M&S would set you back at least 15 squids. So we ate the tastiest and best value (is taste proportionate to value? there´s a thought!) fish ever that night.
Also in Valdivia, we decided that we really need to improve our Spanish. After spending a day strolling a local park (and making friends with a local stray dog... too cute), Fran decided she really liked the look of some cake in a cafe window. So we went in and sat down and were met by a fast talking woman saying God-knows what in espanol. Hearing the word "comida" (food), we nodded. "Si, Si". 5 minutes later, we were given a bowl of soup (which was damn tasty) which was then followed by a meat/veg main, and dessert.
We went in for cake and came out with a 3 course meal.
I figured it might be time to learn a bit of Spanish. Now I take the Lonely Planet book "Latin American Spanish" with me everywhere, and read it as much as I can.
Speaking of books, I think I´m reading them a little too fast. In the first 5 weeks, I read 6 novels. I was originally hoping three full novely would last me the full six months, with maybe an option for one or two more if I read quickly. That´s proved to be a dud idea, so now I´m going cold turkey on non-language books for a while and will try and get something once we hit Bolivia around June-ish.
Anyway, after Valdivia, we caught a three hour bus ride to the town of Pucón. Another outdoor place (seems to be very common in this part of the world), with the main attraction the ability to scale an active Volcano: Villarrica. A very active volcano, with the last eruption in 1984. Lava flows are still visible on the base of the mountain. When we were at the top, we heard her rumbling several times. An incredible sound.
The trip departed Pucón at around 730am, and we were hiking with our tour group an hour later. Being within National Park boundaries, self hikes of the Volcano are prohibited unless you can prove to Conaf (Chile´s "National Parks and Wildlife Service") that you know how to traverse mountains yourself and that you´ve done it before. It´s uphill all the way, and the trek to the top takes you through the volcanic rock and sand from the base to the middle of the peak, into the snow and ice covered cone. We took 3 hours and 40 minutes to make the climb, which we were all very happy with. It was an easy climb at first, but Villarica has a typical conical volcanic shape, with a steeper ascent towards the top. That was hard, but thankfully, quick. No mental or physical failing on this trip! Wooooo. On the way up and at the peak, the views were awesome. We really lucked out on the weather, as we arrived the day before to grey skies and rain. As we hit the serious snow-line, we were forced to don crampons, helmets and use our ice-picks. Loads of fun.
On the way down, we were allowed to slide down on bum-boards and with our bodies. However, the snow at top wasn´t deep and it was pretty icey, so we were only allowed to do it incertain section. A few Irish lads in our group, with that goofy look so common of the Irish, decided to pester the guides mercilessly and did improptu slides of their own. Typical!
Anyway, I gave it a go and it was loads of fun, except for two people careering into me crampons-first. That hurt.
We were going to give some local hot-springs a visit tonight (they are open 24 hours) but we´re pretty exhausted, and in need of some rest.
On to other stuff (sorry this is a long post!)
The past week or so, I´ve started to miss a few things from home (wherever that is!). Some of the things are obvious if you know me, others less so. A few ommissions are surprising for me as well. So what am I missing?
1. Blueberry Muffins from Starbucks.. no surprise there
2. My X-Box.. being a PC dude, that´s a surprise. I don´t really miss my computer - maybe because I´ve been impressed by games such as Dead Space and Halo 3 on the X-Box lately)
3. My bike. And that´s probably because we´ve used mountain bikes here a couple of times and I´d love to do the trails here on my Rockhopper.
4. Without a shadow of doubt.. my lenses. The big 300 f/2.8 and 500 f/4. I´m glad I´m not lugging around their weight, but the wildlife hear is begging to be photographed with good equipment!
5. The Breadmaker! Seriously. We used that thing so much back in London it was part of the family. Jo you were nuts not to use it while we were gone!
6. My friends and family. Thankfully only a email/skype call away. But the regularity of contact is what I miss.
Right, that´s it. The photography post I´ve been meaning to write up will come very shortly. I think it´s going to be fairly negative and self-critical so prepare to ignore it! I just need to vent.
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