Bariloche, Nov 26 - 28

Well, the 17 hour bus trip was every bit as comfortable as we had been led to believe, featuring dinner, breakfast and lunch, and even a game of Bingo as we neared Bariloche. The two American films screened on board, in English with Spanish subtitles, were amongst the worst offerings I have ever been subjected to. No doubt our future bus journeys will feature more cinematic triumphs.

As we neared Bariloche, which is in the ´Lake District´, it was already impossible not to draw comparisons with the South Island. We had been told as much, and a couple of lakes bear remarkable resemblances to Lakes Hawea and Wanaka.

Arriving at our hostel in Bariloche, we were delighted to find out hostel didn´t just have the ´lake views´it promised - it was actually on the lake front with a front lawn leading to the waters edge. The lake here is quite large, and reminds more of something in Fiordland - Lake Te Anau perhaps. The sun is beautifully warm and we take the opportunity to lie on the grass to wind down.





Bariloche is very much a ski resort town and reminds hugely of Queenstown - lots of stone and wooden buildings and activity, ski, and excursion shops everywhere. It is more expensive here than in other parts of Argentina - here everything is more-or-less the same price as in NZ.

We spend the next two days in a rental car, touring around the fine scenery all around. The first day it is unfortunately generally overcast and even rainy, but there is a ´good atmosphere´ in the car and the boys are enjoying a mini-roadie. The scenery continues to bear a strong resemblance to NZ - so much so that you need to remind yourself you are actually 10,000 km away.

The wind is up and it really whips up some decent chop on Lake Traful. Up at the main Mirador (viewing point) it feels very similar to standing on the deck of the ferry with a 50 kmm southerly blowing.





The woods and forests are very much like some parts of the West Coast, large trees in a sub-alpine environment with lots of rocky streams. It is, however, perhaps more ever-changing than NZ - with subtle changes in flora and topography. We manage to fall in to the midst of some major Argentinian classic car rally, so all the way back to Bariloche our Golf is overtaken by cars with their drivers bedecked in all manner of driving apparel.

Today we did our second tour, to Tronador which at 3,478m is the highest peak in the area. It is at the end of a 55km gravel road, but the trip is well worth it. The mountain spawns several impressive glaciers, but by far the most incredible is Ventisquero Negro (black glacier). Here the ash from Tronador (yes, it´s a volcano) is merged into the ice and it flows all the way down near the road. At its snout it breaks up into huge lumps of ice which are contained in a lake of sorts. It would be better described as some kind of soup. All very surreal and certainly unlike anything I have ever seen before.

So tonight is our last night here and with it being Friday it looks like a late night might be in order. Tomorrow we again take an overnight bus, this time a 14 hour effort to Puerto Madryn which is on the coast of Argentina. Here we know we will find a beach, but we have just been told it is too cold to swim. Doh ! Still, there´s whale watching and other activities and the town comes well recommended.

Until then, adios.

P.S. Photos added to other posts now. Cheers Stevo !

Mendoza Nov 23 - 25

Mendoza has been a really pleasant stòp, and an ideal introduction to Argentina. Mendoza is set out in a grid format, with all the streets lined with towering sycamores. They provide its residents with plenty of shade to escape the hot sun - life here would veer towards being unbearable otherwise.

The trees are irrigated using open water channels whereby water is taken from the rivers which flow off the Andes, is then diverted through all the channels, and is collected at the end and put back in to the river. It was a technique created by the Incans, enabling an otherwise desert location to grow crops and the aforementioned trees.

Mendoza also has a number of beautiful plazas (large open squares) which the locals enjoying sitting around talking in, smooching in, and playing chess in.

It is impossible to to notice the high percentage of teenagers who have mullets (approximately 100%). It is perhaps inappropriate for me, in particular, to comment on hair trends, but this one really is a shocker (no pun intended). The straggly mullet is accompanied by a huge swathe of a fringe which waves well down across the eyes, and I am quite sure that if the trend continues, in ten years time it will be compulsory to cut two holes in order to provide vision. We have decided that the collective noun should indeed be ´a Mendoza of mullets´.

Santiago and Mendoza have both provided evidence of elaborate displays at traffic lights. Forget your evening paper, some flowers, or a dude doing window washing - on this continent that just doesnt cut the mustard. In Mendoza I have seen a troupe of three jugglers run in to the middle of the road and starting hurling Indian clubs into the air, but even this was nothing compared to Santiago. Here, two burly blokes stand in the street, accompanied by a female acrobat. She commences by doing a massive back somersault many meters into the air, and continues with standing on one foot on the man´s upstretched hand. The display finishes with a final flourish being a twist culminating with a horizontal drop into the mens cradling arms, and the performance is over.





Speaking of traffic, we watched with amusement on Saturday night as a stag party came past. The groom to be was chained in to the back of a ute - standing, and totally naked. Town was absolutely packed, and the locals loved every minute of it. Whether it´s a tradition or not remains to be seen - we´ll have to keep an eye out next Saturday. And hope its a hen´s do instead !

Yesterday we went for a great walk in the Aconcagua National Park. As mentioned earlier, it is the highest mountain in the Americas - indeed it is the highest peak outside Asia. Ariel, our host, went so far as to describe it as the third highest mountain in the world, but I had neither the heart nor the exact answer at the time, to correct him. I believe it is actually around 150th or so.

The walk took us to some lagoons which provided a great view of the mountain, although it is not overly spectacular due it being reasonably round-topped.





Some of the surrounding peaks, though a lot less lofty, are stunning. We also stopped at Puente del Inca which features a natural stone bridge with thermal springs incorporated into its walls. With many centuries of minerals pouring over them, they are an incredible brown colour. We had our togs ready as we had been told by the guidebook to expect an ¨"unforgettable dip" but unfortunately it had been closed for a year or two.

After our endeavours, we decided a slap-up meal was in order, and we went to La Barra which is one of the cities better eateries. The matambre (fillet) de cerdo was perhaps the best pork I have ever tasted - the light skin salted and a modicum of garlic - and then barbequed to absolute perfection. I refused the temptation to horrify the cocinero (chef) who was also the owner/host by asking him for some apple sauce. This is meat that needs no accompaniament at all. We ate like kings, drunk excellent wine, and paid around NZ$70 each. Not as cheap as many places here, but for a top notch restaurant, this would have been double the price in Wellington.

Things here actually aren´t quite as cheap as you´d expect - yes, they are less than NZ, but the whole equation has had the edge taken off it over the last few months with our dollar losing around a third of its value. Consequently although things are reasonably inexpensive, we are not finding many examples of jaw-dropping bargains.

On our final day in Mendoza, Craig and I did a tour of three vineyards. They varied greatly - the first an organic vineyard, the second a small boutique vineyard, and the third was of factory proportions a la Montana or Villa Maria. Perhaps the biggest highlight of the afternoon was the storm that descended on the region. Where we were, there was hail the size of cherry tomatoes, but when we arrived at the third vineyard we were astounded at the size of some of the hail that had fallen. Check out the size of this puppy !

The severe hail storm had caused loads of leaves and small branches to break off the myriad trees, but its not uncommon and the locals were straight out into the street to sweep it all up and into bags to be collected by the council. Some of the streets had temporarily been converted into rivers, and Ariel chuckled as he explained to us that back in Mendoza there would be people inadvertently falling into the irrigation channels - unable to identify them from any other piece of flooded road. As it turned out, Mendoza had escaped with barely a drop of rain - hard to believe with hailstones the size of this one falling only 15 km away !

And so Mendoza draws to a close, and at 8pm we are on the overnight bus to Bariloche - a mere 17 hours away. We are assured by other travellers its actually a surprisingly enjoyable experience - one would hope so given the cost - around NZ$130. Admittedly that is for ´Premium Economy´- quite what that entails remains to be seen !

Mendoza Nov 21 - 22

The trip over the Andes from Santiago to Mendoza was utterly spectacular - quite simply one of the greatest road journeys I have ever taken. The road gradually climbs through a valley with a incredibly fast moving river - the sun is very hot and the large amount of winter snow continues to mely very quickly, albeit only at increased altitudes now. We then climb steeply up a series of hairpins and are well and truly up in the snow.





All around us there are towering peaks, and massive mountains of rock. The summit is around 3200m but we continue with no fan-fare and descend a few hundred meters to the border post. Just before here we catch sight of Aconcagua - the highest peak in the Americas at just shy of 7000 metres.





Descending in to Argentina the valley is vast and the road is far shallower in gradient. The colours are amazing - the rocks vary from brown to red and grey, the flora varies from straw colour to light green, and everywhere it is merged and smudged like an artists palette. A photographer would have a field day here - we had to make do with the odd snatched shot through the window.





Mendoza itself is on the plains and we arrived here around 6 hours after leaving Santiago. The area is awash with wineries - around 1500 of them, most producing Malbec. We had a bit of a trudge to the hostel we had booked which was a good bit of exercise (he says euphemistically) in the afternoon heat. It is hotter here than Chile - low 30s rather than high 20s. The hostel itself was a dump and our plans to stay 4 nights were quickly whittled back to 1 night.

We were understandably already starting to wonder what it is with Mendoza that makes people fall in love with it, but I am now writing this from a new hostel where we have been greeted by the incredibly affable host Arrial who has given us plenty of info in order to plan some activities for the next few days. A trek up towards Aconcagua would seem to be in order, as is the possibility of horse riding (dont laugh) and white water rafting.

For now, its 1.30pm and we´re off to get some lunch and then explore the 450 hectare city park. Presumably éxploring´ will involve a fair degree of horizontal exploration - Arrial has told us to take a book - not to read, but to use as a pillow.

Hasta Luego mi amigos

Santiago Nov 18 - 21

So after a couple of years of being unreasonably NZ-based, it seemed time to hit the road again. Yes, yes there was the small matter of the cricket world cup in the West Indies in 2007 but I am not counting that for some unduly arbitrary reason which I cannot justify, but I digress. It´s my first time of ever writing a blog, so there will be hiccups for me to contend with and general boredom for you to contend with, but you may or may not wish to bear with me. It´s great to be travelling with Steve - he´s on a bit of a global odyssey and is a bit of a fan of South America, so it makes all manner of sense for us to get on the road together, and we´ll be joined by another mate of mine Craig. So we arrived in Santiago, Chile on November 18 and I was immediately struck by how much more relaxed it was than I expected. Streets were wide, relatively uncrowded, and clean, and whilst many people were going about their business it was in an un-hurried and non-frenetic way - something I had not envisioned in a city with a population around that of New Zealand. Steve and I hooked up in the hostel with YK - an enthusiatic Singaporean urologist who was attending a conference in Santiago and then doing 3 weeks of travel in Chile. On our first evening we did the obligatory testing of the local beer as well as Pisco Sour which I believe is a brandy-ish concoction but tasted similar to a Margarita. The evening meal introduced us to the gigantic sizes of meal - Steve charged into his steak, eggs, onions, chips, and sausages for 20 minutes and you could still barely see the plate. My pork was unusually presented in a huge hunk of ciabatta. Well, until I realised that it was actually all pork. One normally expresses meat sizes in terms of grams - perhaps 350g or so for a meal. Here I think they express it in terms of percentage of the animal you are consuming. My pork probably around 2% of a pig. In Santiago we did plenty of walking - in truth there´s nothing incredibly beautiful or ´must-see´ although the two hills - Cerro Saint Lucia (cerro = hill) and Cerro San Cristobal both afforded fantastic views of the city, which sprawls as one might expect. There´s the obligatory Plaza here and there - the grassy ones are very popular with trysting lovers who love a PDA. Kissing and holding hands are de rigeur, even on the subway you may only be half a meter away from some couple going at it hammer and tongs. Speaking of the subway, its something the locals are justifiably proud of - very clean and cheap, and you never have to wait more than 2 minutes for a train. Northern Line eat your heart out. The locals are very friendly - happy to practice their English, and never pestering you for anything. Gringos aren´t overly common here, and with blue eyes and non-black hair being not overly well represented in their gene pool, there was the occasional approach from a group of women to say hello. Even my ´hairstyle´seemed to have some degree of credence here. I might move here. We got in to a bit of the famed South American nightlife on our second night, although the music and decor of the nightclub we eventually ended up in was more akin to 1980s New Zealand with chrome, mirrors, and disco and pop music to boot. I surprised myself by attracting the attentions of a most beguiling young woman who I danced with for some time, talked a lot with, and then managed to come to the inexplicable conclusion at the end of the night, to the absolute astonishment and incredulity of Craig and Steve, that I could not accept her further invitation because, wait for it, I thought she was a hooker. Oh boy did I regret that incredible non-sequitur in the cold light of day ! Might have to take it easier on those Pisco Sours if it does that to my logic. So all in all Santiago was a pleasant welcome to a new continent for me. They say it is the ´least threatening´ of the South American capitals, and it is not at all hard to see why. From here we are heading over the Andes to Mendoza in Argentina to put together a bit of a plan.