Buenos Aires

Imagine. Imagine a small, smokey, dimly lit room. Imagine dark wooden tables with couples sharing bottles of wine around them. Imagine a small stage with a blood red curtain draped over it. Imagine a small harmonika starting a soulful song, then the quiet violine jumps in, followed by a gypsy guitar and the powerful piano. Imagine a couple dressed in 20´s suits coming onto the stage. Imagine the tango...

What can we say - we have been blown away by Buenos Aires, the shows, the music, the dance, the colours, the passion.

Well, after the slopes we painfully dragged ourselves out for a quiet night in Mendoza, the Argentinian wine capital. But as time is fast running out the next day we had to take a flight through a nasty thunderstorm to Buenos Aires. There we spent a couple days chilling around Palermo district (think designer labels and designer food). After a small break in BA we took a flight to the mighty Iguasu Falls. Unfortunately we could only spend a night in Iguassu falls but then again, there is only so much time you can spend watching water fall. Even though there is a drought going on in that part of Argentina the falls certainly didn´t fail to impress. They where enormous. Hundreds of little waterfalls tumbling from the edge of the rocky plateau.

We´ve returned to BA to spend our final couple days in South America. Buenos Aires is a lovely, lovely, lovely city with so much passion, so much good beef and good wine running through it that it would be impossible to have bad time. It´s amasingly european in feel. The architecture, the people and even the cars are european. To top it all off our hotel room has a balcony overlooking the main drag, Ave de Mayo. It is quite a sight.

Anyways we must say goodbye to Argentina (don't cry for us ... ) and head home. One night in Sao Paulo and then London. Adios

Vamos Inglaterra

If you thought England was bad during the international footy games - well you should be in Argentina during the world cup. Even the cats and dogs were on the streets waving the flags after the first group match. You would have thought it was a carnival. Every house, every window has a flag drapped over it. There is no escape!!! Even the cars or guitars did not escape. The whole country is painted in blue white blue. And just try to get anything else on tv apart from Messi, Crespo... and the replays of Argentinian goals, and then the replays of the replays - well you should get the picture by now.
Vamos Inglaterra!!!

Riding the Andes

High altitude, good powder, stunning scenery. That is what it is all about. We went on a mission to snowboard in the andes, and by hook or by crook we made it.

After hanging out with the whales in Puerto Madryn we left Patagonia for the Argentinian lake district and the slopes of Bariloche. But as with the lake district on the Chilean side we ended up with just lots and lots of rain. All we could do is watch football (and with 3 matches a day - we could do a lot of that)

But our dream of boarding was washing away, along with the time we had left here in South America, so we had to head north to the most exclusive of resorts, Las Leñas, tucked away in the middle of the Andes, 400km from Mendoza and a long way away from anything else. 24hrs of travelling, 5 of which were in a cafe at some ungodly hour in the morning, took us to this windswept, treeless paradise of snow.

We managed to get 2 great days on the slopes, and we had an absolute blast. We couldn´t stop smiling. We managed to hurt almost every muscule in our bodies and we have bruises in the most suprising of places, but we wish we could have stayed longer.

Our Journey Through Patagonia

in the last 10 days we´ve done:
18 hours, 3 buses, one ferry from Puerto Natales to Ushuaia,
16 hours 3 buses, one ferry from Ushuaia to El Calafate,
24 hours 2 buses from el calafate to Puerto Madryn,
and
13 hours one bus Puerto Madryn to Bariloche.

total hours with only flat Patagonia steppe to stare at 67.
hours of mountainous lake district last 4.

border crossings: 6 passport stamps.

animals we saw:
guanacos, condors, rhea (choique), southern right whales (doing hanky panky!), elephant seals, sea lions, patagonian hare (mara), penguino, sheap, cows and random birds.

one but wickedly cool, noisy and GRANDE glacier - perito moreno!

number of footy matches watched: lots - some not even slightly amusing.

Was Magellan Straight?

yup - we crossed the mighty Magellan Strait on our 15 hour, two bus, one ferry and one minibus journey from Puerto Natalles to Ushaia (the southern-most city in the world). It´s the end of the world as we know it (and we feel fine)!

The towers of pain

Sorry, Torres del Paine (one of the major Chilean National Parks), but well there were moments when that was how it felt.

Would you believe it, we actually went on a 3 day hike and lived to tell the tale. On our boat trip to Puerto Natales we met a young fit Australian chick, Alicia and cool Irish lad, Tom who made us believe trekking through the park is a good thing, no. Ahhh I pity the fool.

Anywho, long story short, we loaded ourselves with food for 3 days trekking and went into the deep deep wilderness of Torres del Paine. First day 18km to the Refugio was good, the sun was shining, the peaks were stunning and legs were still working. Second day the rain started to fall but we still managed to do a 16km trek over half frozen track to the glacier. On our last day we did the first day in reverse but by then we got used to walking so 18km back was a doddle. Especially with the dream of a shower and a pizza at the end to keep us going.

The best bit was that, apart from pumas, guanacos and condors, we were all alone in that mighty park. Didn't see a single soul on our way. And having a 200 beds refugio to ourselves was wicked. We ended our days by sitting next to the fire, drinking wine and watching the sun going down the peaks. Ahhh

The boat to Patagonia

4 days, 3 nights on a boat with 12 other people, 100 cows a few trucks and nothing to do but watch films, play cards and drink good Chilean wine. The Navimag boat from Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales was a fantastic experience. The stunning scenery passing us by was breathtaking, the force 6 gale we weathered in the pacific was vomit inducing (although fortunately not for us) and the company was lovely. It was an amazing way to travel the 1000kms through the Chilean part of Patagonia and we made ourselves a whole bunch of new friends. We even managed to get up for sunrise (it is getting later down here).

Our friends in Puerto Montt

There is not much to say about Puerto Montt (the town we went to after Pucon). It's a town with a port. Nice strudels though.

Our stay there was made special by a lovely Gonzales family. We met up with Nestor, the friend we made in Santiago and a native of Puerto Montt. He showed us around the place, took us to what is probably the only rock bar in Puerto Montt to check out a very inventive Chilean band, all decked out in silk pajamas.

We got a couple of side trips in before we caught the boat south to Puerto Natales. We went to Puerto Varas, a beautiful spot on the side of a lake next to a Volcano. We even managed to trek up the volcano (well a bit of it!) We also went to Chiloé, a lovely island just 30 minutes by boat away, but much further away in feel with weird people and far too many churches. The island is a starting point of the might Pan-American Highway that end somewhere in Alaska. That is cool, eh?!

After all that tramping around we were invited to meet Nestor's family, who were amazingly welcoming and lovely people who like Yugoslav movies, Kusturica and No Smoking Orkestra. That certainly started the conversation going. Wicked!.