Some ice with that?

Glacier Perito Moreno
If you can recall from previous posts, we are no strangers to glaciers, having visited both the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers in New Zealand and even had the opportunity to walk on the glacier - still a highlight of our trip. But seeing the pictures of the Perito Moreno glacier in real life could be described as an amaizing experience. Or as one of our friends who we met up with in El Calafate said "it gives you a smile inside" which doesn't go away for some time!

We arrived in El Calafate the easy way, by plane, and after hearing the stories of the 33h bus ride that it takes to get here from Bariloche, we were glad that we "cheated" a bit on this part of our journey. On our the first day we puttered around doing admin tasks like sorting out our onward bus tickets to Ushuaia - otherwise known as the end of the word - which is surprisingly difficult to get to. I'm pretty excited about going there, but more on that later when we actually reach. We also booked the 10am bus out to the glacier.

When we got there, our bus stopped at the boat terminal and said that anyone who wanted to take the boat should get off now. Surprisingly we were the only takers! We got off, bought our tickets and headed to the pier to catch the boat which would take us closer to the glaciers. As we were about to join the queue, we bumped into a Swedish couple that we had met a few weeks earlier in Salta when we went horseback riding. We joined them and another friend of theirs and boarded the boat.

The boat took us close to the glacier and even hauled out some ice so we could touch (and taste) it. We were taking some pictures at the back of the boat when someone gasped, Johan shouted "video" and I caught this on my camera.



Amazing, isn't it? Feeling very lucky to have caught this on film, we felt that the boatride was definately worth it. We climbed back on to land, had a picnic overlooking the glacier then followed the trails around the glacier to get a look from different angles.

With a smile inside, we caught our boat at 4pm and headed back to El Calafate to have a parilladila (Argentinan barbeque) with our friends. In all an amaizing day.

San Martin de los Andes

Or San Martin for short, is a beautiful sleepy little town just on the edge of the Andes, and is an ideal place for hiking and enjoying nature. Now, we've doen quite a bit of that the last few days and will probably do more of it in El Calafate, so we've just relaxed a bit here.

But that doesn't mean its not eventful. When we were casually walking around in town, we suddenly stumbled on a London bus. We were trying to get away from that busy bustling city, and this place could probably not feel farther from London, so seeing that bus was highly unexpected.

Then as we kept walking down the street, we stumbled on an Irish pub called Dublin. Ok, I admit, anywhere thats worth visiting eventually ends up having an Irish pub, its just one of those facts of life. But it still felt a bit out of place.

Our third surprise for the day was when we say a sign for a chocolate store called "Smaken by Johan" , yes Swedes get everywhere but still unexpected. It was even more unexpected to find out Johan was Dutch and still spelt his name with only one 'n'.

So San Martin is a nice relaxing place that keeps you on your toes we concluded and went back to our hostel, where the token guitar strummer had found some girls to jam with. Or so we thought. Turns out the two guys in our hostel decided to go travelling with their guitars on their break from univerity. They had been playing by the street the day before, when the two girls passed. They liked what they heard so they invited them to share their gig at the Irish pub (where else?), and they were now busy trying to reherse enough songs to make it through the night, and they were good. So in the evening (Argentinan time) we headed over to the pub and had some beer and enjoyed the show, which was really really good. Not just considering they had only been rehersing for two days and that one of the guys only had played guitar for three months. It was really, really good, and they played for well over two hours as well, quite impressive....

We'll definately go see them when they play the stadiums in Europe in a few years time. :)

Hikes & beers in Bariloche

From misty mountains to clear blue skies, it seems like the weather here is as unpredictable as it was in London. Still, we were not complaining when we woke up to sunny skies and t-shirt weather :)

So we donned our hiking boots and hopped on the local bus to the nearby Nahuel Huapi National Park and headed to one of their publicised walks by the lake. The scenary around here is very beautiful, with clear blue lakes, snow capped mountains and forests full of clean fresh air.

We finished the 3k hike quickly and found the tourist information centre at the end. Unfortunately, as will many things Argentinian, it was siesta time so the centre was closed however we bumped into an older British couple who told us about another walk which started not too far from the start of the walk we had just completed, which gave stunning views of the lakes in the park. Feeling energised from the sandwiches we had brought for lunch, we headed back to find this eutopia. 6.5k later we climed on to the big rock at the top of the mountain (hill... who's counting) and looked out at a most magnificent view (see left).

This is why we came to the "Lake District".

We headed back to our log cabin hostel to meet up with the lovely (Canadian/American) couple who were also staying there. We had planned to check out one of the local Cerveceras (beer breweries) with them for our final night in Bariloche. After dinner of home-made pizza, we headed out. The brewery was called Blest and the guys went for the taster and the girls each ordered one of their yummy deserts. We can heartily recommend both.

Tomorrow holds a bus ride to San Martin de los Andes for us and Buenos Aires for our new friends. We were sad to leave, but looking forward to the smaller, less touristy paradise by the lake.

Bariloche

Next stop - Bariloche, which has gotten raving reviews for its scenery and chocolate. It seems a place that can not be missed.

We got off our 16 hour 2 bus trip from Mendoza a bit tired, a long trip during which we were treated to two (thats right not one but two!) games of bingo where we managed to win absolutely none of the bottles of wine offered as prizes. We did make a decent dent in the wine offered with dinner though, and the champagne. Did we mention that we like the Argentinian buses despite their poor selection of movies??

The first day we spent finding our hostel, getting settled, doing the shopping and trying to get a few glimpses of the Olympics. After a long bus ride we figured we needed to charge the batteries in order to get ready for some hiking among the many lakes and peaks around here. The hostel we're staying at is about 15 km outside of the town, which means we have a lot of the trails just around the corner.

For our first hiking day, we decided to tackle the little knoll of Cerra Campanario. There is a skilift that could have taken us to the top but we decided to hike up. And the view at the top was spectacular, even though it was raining and there were loads of low clouds around. At the top there was also a coffee shop with massively overpriced coffee, but in the cold rain it was very welcome and appreciated.




After an extended break at the peak, we ventured down and hopped on a bus that would take us to a paleontological museum, well, we waited for 40 minutes for it to show up first. Thats arguably Bariloches 3rd claim to fame, there are a lot of well preserved dinosaur bones found in the region and some of them are huge. I'm sure paleontologists will claim its bariloches first claim to fame, but after visiting the site, we were not so sure. We got to what we were told was a museum but it turns out it was a theme park - but not just any themepark. This was "the most important themepark in South America". It consisted of a 250-300 meter long trail with scale models of dinosaurs and dinosaur eggs. And when they ran out of dinoraurs they filled the rest with gnomes and witches on broomsticks. No matter if you call it a museum or "The most important themepark in South America", the verdict is still disappointing. So on the 3rd claim to fame, this jury is still out.

Our second day in Bariloche we decided to not challange the rain and went into town instead, where we visited some of the many chocolate stores. And there are many. There are all kinds of varieties, combinations and constructions available. A lot of these shops also double in selling local fruit and beer from micto breweries. At the end of the day when we got back we had gotten some dark chocolate (really good) a lot of pralines (excellent ) and two bottles of beer. The chili beer will have to wait a little while but the chocolate beer has been consumed (a little on the sweet side bit that was kind of expected).

There will be a few days more of hiking to come, and the weather is supposed to take a turn for the better. We're looking forward to getting some nice photos to share...

From white water to red wine

Mendoza is a place most people visit for two reasons, adventure sports and wine. With some White water rafting and a cycle tour through the vineyards we put a tick in both of those boxes.

On Valentines day we jumped into a van early in the morning (well 9.30..) which would take us about an hour or so up into the Andes where there are grade 3 - 6 white water rapids. We can safely mention this now since we got out unharmed and it is unlikely our insurance agents will ever read this. At the basecamp we were kitted out with our wetsuits, life jackets, water resistant sweaters, helmets and anythign else you needed to look absolutely ridiculous but feel a bit more comfortable on/in the river which fed from melted glaciers in the mountains very high up in the Andes. The water up there is cold, very cold we noticed soon after our safety briefing. A briefing that surmounted to three pieces of simple advice

• dont fall out
• if you do, try to get back in the raft quickly
• if the safety kayaks try to save you, try not to flip them over, they will get wet and upset.

Which all sounds very sensible.

So after some exercises to make sure we'll not do something stupid we set out on the river,which seemed a bit calm for white water rafting. And in adition, the water looked very much more chocolatey than white. The water was a bit low and slow, but even so we did hit a few rapids that were quite interesting where we got completely soaked and nearly fell out. We kept in the raft all the way though, and we had loads of fun.





Since this was Valentines day we went out for dinner, traditional Argentinian parrillada, with some nice local wine. Dinner was followed by a nice 'death by chocolate' dessert accompanied by a chocolate Marguarita. All in all a nice way to spend Valentines day.







Next morning, almost as early, we were again picked up by a van - this time to be deposited in wine country, where we picked up our bikes and headed out among the vines. The Maipu Wineries maily focus on red wine and the most popular is Malbec, which is one of our favourite varieties so we had high hopes for this day. Though not as scenic as the Barossa valley or Marlborough, the wines certainly made up for it and some of the vineyards had stunnig views of the Andes and endless fields of grapes and olives. If you get a change to lay your hands on some Tempus Alba or Vina Maria, take it, they had some varieties that were fantastic. And true to our habits, we are now carrying some of Mendozas fines grape produce in our bags.

Cordoba

Cordoba has been great, largely because we managed to do lots of "normal" stuff that we haven't done for a while, but also because we stayed with a friend in Cordoba so experienced a bit of what life is like in Argentina.

Mate
Argentinans are pretty easy to spot when they are on holiday, they pretty much always walk with their thermos, containers of dried leaves and their carved wooden cups with silver straws - everything you need for mate. We had observed this phenomenon throughout Peru and Bolivia and realised that we probably needed a native Argentinian to properly instruct us in this ritual. Which is why when we agreed to stay with Celeste, we thought, here's our chance to have a real Argentine experience.

I liked mate, not with lots of sugar, but without sugar it tastes a bit like Japanease tea. Apparantly there are lots of little meanings and rituals surrounding it but the basic premise was that you drink mate with friends, sharing the same cup and straw. Lovely.

Empanadas
Another great Argentine staple is the empanada. These little half moon shaped snacks come filled with either carne (beef), pollo (chicken) or queso (cheese). These have been a life-saver for us while we were trying to adjust to the Argentine eating schedule. When we have gone out at 7pm in search of dinner and all the restaurants open at 8:30pm, the empanadas that are sold in the local pub which is showing the football has been invaluable. And they are yummy too. The ones that we made here were Celeste's special Arabian empanadas and are made without potatos but with lots of lemon juice and onions... yumm...

University museum
Apparantly Cordoba has one of the earliest universities in the Americas, started up by the Jesuits back in the day and made independent after the Jesuits were kicked out in the 14'00s sometime. They also have beautiful buildings and an impressive collection of very old books. The tour was pretty interesting, there was a tumultous past here, full of intrigue and espionage...

Winos of Cafayate

After we'd gotten off out high horses we took a morning bus to Cafayate, one of Argentina's wine regions and one that is not too well known.. At least we hadn't heard of it beforehand, but that might be because we do not really drink that much white wine and this region specialises in it. The vineyards here doesn't seem to export much either, which might also be a reason to why we hadn't heard about it. The ride to Cafayate from Salta via Quebrada de Cafayate was spectacular in itself, and apparently the route we didn't take there is equally stunning. The village is quite sleepy has a lot of character, nice sights and a nice central square where most of the artisanistas hang out seeking shade during the day. But as you might have guessed we were mainly there for the wine.

Eager to find out more about them we set out to visit as many as possible in the two days we had. Of course the first being a Sunday (and a very hot one, only llamas, cactuses and vines seemed to like the conditions) there were only two open. And after we'd taken our siesta the first one (Bodega Nanni) would not let us sample their wines, since we had missed the last tour of the day. We tried to tell them we could do withou the tour and offered to pay the A$5 for the samples, but to no success. Instead we went across the street to El Transito, where they did let us sample the fruits of their labor, and as a reward we promptly bought a bottle.

We'd also caught word of the local ice cream makers, famed for their wine-sorbets, and thought that after a long hard hot day, this was just the cure for us. So armed with a bucket containing white and red sorbet and of course some chocolate as well (everyone knows red wine and chocolate go well together) we went to the shaded park and indulged for a while. It was awesome, particularly the red, wonder how difficult it would be to make that at home??

The next day we returned , bright and early, to Nanni for a second attempt, but were refused again because at 9:30, we were too early. Sampling wine seems tricky in this country. Instead we wandered further on in the blistering heat and targeted a different cluster of bodegas. The first one, Vasija Secreta let us in to sample and visit their museum, though their wines were a bit average and nothing to write home about. So with our spirits raised a little we headed further on, only to be told that at the next one we'd have to wait about an hour to catch the next tour and then on to the samples. That seems to be the way they operate here. You need to take the guided tour of the vineyard where they tell you (in Spanish) how wonderful their wine is and how special their production method is. Only after that, when you are full of awe for the wine you can be allowed to sample it with the correct level of reverence. Now we are no wine making experts, but we have seen the insides of a fair few wineries on our trip, and since we can't really take in all the guides are saying (the accent in Argentina is particularly strong) we really just want to sample the wines, thankyouverymuch. A fact that seems lost or ignored by most guardians of wineries here.

So with a little resigntion we returned to the centre of town and the shaded park for a few hours waiting for the bus out of Cafayate, with only two wineries under our belts. A little failure. Though we did make up for it a little by returning a third time to Bodega Nanni, and were rewarded with a private tour in English. And it turned out these were the best wines we'd tried and they were a fully organic vineyard who seemed to have slightly unusual production methods, involving egg-whites...

It was now nearing the time where we had to call it a day, so with few bottles under our arms we left, got our bags and got ready for the 15 hour bus ride to Cordoba. There we'll meet up with Celeste again, our friend from Peru and Bolivia, and apparently its even warmer there. But we hear they have cinemas with air-conditioning and movies in English there...