Pucon to Santiago

Pucon was a wonderful few days relaxing in the sunshine.  We didn't climb the volcano owing to Bernard's bad back, so we made a day out of visiting the hot springs Los Pozones, which are kept in a natural setting beside the river.  We took the local bus out to the springs.  It was a lovely day with temperatures in their early 20's. Some springs were shaded and comfortably warm, ranging through to those that were unbearably hot.  The river was ice-cold so one spent time hopping from different pools dependent on how one was coping with the heat. 

We ate good food, I particularly adore the raspberry juice concoctions - fantastic.  We upped our salad and vegetable intake by cooking a few evenings at the hostel, and spent our final day reading by the bay. Pucon was incredibly lively with people absolutely packed on the "beach" - small uncomfortable black stones and people frolicing in extremely cold water. People literally would lie on the beach at the water's edge - right up to the water - it was quite a sight for those used to surf beaches.  The food was spicy - a welcome relief from Argentina's lack of it.

We took another night bus to Santiago and arrived in the city at 8am - unsure of whether taking the trip to the bus terminal was the right move - when everyone else except us and another guy got off at some other stop on the east of the city.  In the end it worked out perfectly well - we purchased our tickets to Mendoza and made our way easily to the hostel.  The hostel wouldn't let us check in until 2pm so we dumped our gear and wondered through the streets, trying to keep Bernard awake as best as I could.

After a shower and power nap in the afternoon, Bernard and I set out in earnest, taking the funicula up to the top of San Cristobal to see the statue of Mary, and then we walked down.  After enjoying a local beer, we met up with mates in town for a lovely meal.  We walked back to our hostel that night surprised at how quiet the city was compared with BA.  Santiago is a thoroughly modern city, but even the second time around, a day or two is all one needs.

Arriving in Chile - Valdivia and Pucon

I was excited about returning to Chile, and perhaps a little apprehensive.  The last time I was in the Chilean part of the Lake District it rained for 7 days straight and I didn't really enjoy myself that much.  All I really remember is reading lots of books and eating some pretty amazing soups in Pucon.  So we waited in Bariloche for our bus to Valdivia, which we planned to be an overnight stop on our way to Pucon.  But our plans didn't work out that way.  Our 310km journey should have taken us around 6-7 hours.  Instead, the bus was an hour late (but nobody was told when it would arrive, so we were just hanging around waiting, hoping that we hadn't missed our bus) the Chilean border took an hour longer than anticipated and we arrived at 12.30am, completely exhausted from what was supposed to be a straightforward journey.  Fortunately we called ahead to the hostel so there was someone waiting up for us.

After a good sleep, we went to the bus station to buy our ongoing tickets to Pucon, tickets we couldn't purchase the night before because our bus was so late the offices were closed. During our short walk to the bus station it is clear that Bernard's back isn't that great and he's eager to get to Pucon so he can relax for a few days. But it becomes clear that all the afternoon buses have sold out and the earliest we could leave the town of Valdivia was 5.30pm.  We had the whole day in a place we didn't want to be in. Great. But fortunately the sun was shining and so we head to the river to explore the fish market, try and find a bank to withdraw Chilean pesos (Bank of Chile is the only one that works so far) and go to a lovely cafe recommended by the hostel.  The day went quickly enough and before we know it, we are safely on our way to Pucon.

We arrive in Pucon without a map, and having no idea which way we need to go get to our hostel.  Fortunately Pucon is heaving with tourists in "the season" and it only takes us 15 minutes or so to work it out and another 10 minutes to get there. As well walk to the hostel you can't help but admire the view of Volcan Villarica.  Its beautiful - I didn't get to see it last time - it was covered in clouds.  When we arrive to check-in the lady can't find our names in the book. It takes her a while to work our where we are meant to be. We are taken to the room quite literally above the TV room, and the old nonna checking us in speaks absolutely no English. All I can say is thank goodness we spent 3 weeks doing our Spanish classes. Bernard is frustrated, but after talking to the lady for five minutes, I begin to piece everything together. The owner's mother is checking us in because her son and daughter-in-law are working at the other hostel they own. We email the daughter to check that they have our reservation and that this is the room we are meant to be in (which it is) and we find out that the only other room available in the hostel is an upgrade which we can take if we want. We decide against it.

We head out for dinner at 10.15pm, clearly having adjusted to being in Argentina for 6 weeks. We go past a lovely restaurant (but a little bit expensive) for a cheaper option - get no service at the cheaper place, so return to the first place.  In an instant we are offered a place at the bar, Bernard is ordering a local beer and I'm enjoying a large class of wine.  We are served a delicious meal and walk home at the end of the day contented, stopping for a moment to look at the stars.  I find the Southern cross immediately and smile. 

Bariloche - a 28hr bus ride, a tiny room, and waiting for the weather

We booked a cama (bed) seat for our incredibly long journey from El Calafate to Bariloche.  The seat isn't a bed, but you get a wider seat than normal and quite a bit of room to stretch out - the only problem that the seats recline so much that you almost have someone in your lap!!!  Fine for someone short like me, but not so good for tall people, like Bernard.  Of course flying would have been much easier, but for three times the cost and a further eight months backpacking, we acknowledged that long arduous journeys like these are going to become par for the course over the next few months.  I slept for at least 5-6 hours, but the journey was long, despite the provision of lots of movies.  We arrived at Bariloche tired and ready for a comfortable night's sleep. Bariloche was extremely busy, full of backpackers looking for accommodation. A good thing we booked our hostel in advance. In this instance you get what you paid for.  Our bargain twin room was a bargain for a reason - a bunkbed in a room so narrow that Bernard could stretch his arms and touch (palm's flat) both walls.  Ironically, it was because the room was so narrow that I could easily get up and down the top bunk!!!

But the place was comfortable enough and in a very good location. The next day I spent on the phone to UK banks yet again - in a desperate attempt to get a straight answer as to how I can resolve my situation.  Two hours later, tired and extremely emotional, we give up our plans for going outside Bariloche to explore the mountains because the weather turns bad.  Bad = wet, extremely windy and cold.  Its another one of those places where Bernard has mistakenly said, "You know that beer garden would be great in the summer" only to remember that we ARE visiting in the summer.  Bariloche really is more impressive as a winter resort. 

On our final day in Bariloche the weather is bad.  I feel extremely disappointed and eager to move onto our next destination.  But the weather clears around lunch time  so we decide to hire some mountain bikes and enjoy the outdoors.  We do exactly that, except that this little body of mine detests bikes - after half an hour my butt aching from the seat, my thighs aching from climbing the hills (or pushing the bike up some v long hills) and I'm wanting to enjoy it so much because I know how much Bernard loves bike riding.  I start to feel bad because I'm so slow and my body is starting to fatigue. But then we emerge out over a gorgeous view, make our way to a superb little "swiss-style" village for fantastic hot chocolate, herbal tea and chocolate cake, and we take a short cut back and I realise that I didn't do too badly at riding in the end. Sure I'm very slow up hills, but I'm fairly fearless doing down hills, so we made pretty good time in the end.

The nice part was that our Australian friends were driving past in their hire car just as we were finishing our ride, and we ended up getting a lift back to town with them, and then enjoyed a fantastic meal with them later that night (and a few bottles of vino tinto as well).

Patagonia - El Chalten, the ups and downs

I stopped writing my blog at this point for quite some time.  El Chalten is this heavenly place a few hours north of El Calafate.  The town didn't really exist until 25 years ago and is ultimately there to service the summer trekkers/climbers that flock to see the stunning Mt Fitzroy and its neighbouring mountains.  It was a beautiful small town that is growing rapidly, expensive to be sure, but tranquil, with an abundance of day hikes for all skill levels.  It suited Bernard and I tremendously well.  We met some wonderful Australians there - whose company we enjoyed so much we will continue to rendezvous with them at other places on our travels.  The hiking was great, the views (when the clouds eventually lifted, even for just a few minutes) were just lovely.

The ultimate downside, as many of you know, is that I lost my wallet the first night we arrived there.  Whether I lost it, or whether it was stolen, I can't know for sure.  I had it at 4pm and when I went to pay for dinner at 10pm, it was gone. Simple as that. Bernard and I spent so many pesos calling the UK/States to cancel bankcards, call for emergency replacements etc.  I only lost about 250USD and my cards.  In a way it shouldn't be that big a deal, but in real terms it is. Over the past few weeks I have been entirely reliant upon Bernard - the banks have been extremely difficult at supporting me to access my own money - and if I had not been travelling with Bernard I would be in quite a difficult position and no doubt on my way back to the UK or Australia by now.

My lack of access to ATMs has been extremely stressful as everyone seems to want to be paid in cash, and Bernard is struggling to withdraw enough cash from his card each day (the withdrawal limit on foreign cards is very low) to cover both his and my expenses.  Fingers and toes in a few weeks time I will have my new cards and we can resume travels as normal.  I'm just hoping that this doesn't affect our ability to get into Brazil.  We'll only have to wait and see.

Patagonia - El Calafate

I was very pleased to finally have made it to the Patagonia - a part of Argentina that I was eager to explore. Parts of the trip didn't meet my expectations, whilst other parts exceeded it wholeheartedly. We flew into El Calafate, a 3hr flight from BA, and stayed at perhaps one of the best hostels I've encountered (Amecica del Sur).  Weather was windy, extremely windy, but can change at a moments notice, from bright sunshine to grey and drizzle. Our room was quiet and extremely comfortable. First day we took a day trip to Torres del Paine in Chile.  I'd been wanting to do the W trek, but lacking confidence and ability to book refugios (we weren't organised enough) we opted for the day trip only.  Just lovely weather - we saw the Torres and the entire mountain range really clearly and for that I'm very thankful. But our tour lacked pace and we spent far to much time doing, well nothing to be precise.  I was glad I went, but ultimately disappointed that we were not able to do even a few hours walking in the lovely national park.

The next day did not disappoint. We visited Perito Moreno glacier.  It is more magnificent than you can wrap your head around. One of the few stable glaciers in the world, the size of this thing takes your breathe away.  The weather was extremely good to us - cloudy and miserable in El Calalfate, but when we arrived at the glacier, the sun was shining and we were fortunate enough to see large slabs of the glacier fall into the lake due to the warmth of the summer sun. (Don't worry, the glacier grows a lot every winter).  We had a 1pm ferry from the viewpoint to the other side of the lake so we could walk on the glacier.  Bernard managed to capture the start and finish of a huge slab of ice falling away from the glacier on his camera.  The impact of the wave it caused on the boat afterwards was pretty amazing too.  We walked on the glacier for 1.5 hours and were served Famous Grouse Whiskey, on ice, naturally, from the glacier itself.  It was a wonderful day from start to finish and definitely a highlight of my trip thus far.

Reflections upon leaving Buenos Aires

We did three weeks of Spanish classes – not nearly enough, but enough to understand basic travel requirements and polite but simple conversation with locals. Four weeks of living in an apartment was blissful and it was quite a sad thing, packing up our stuff into our packs once more, handing over our key and resuming into the world of daily compromises that is backpacking. We did a bike tour of the city just before we left which was a great way of taking in the sights. We dined at a few of our favourite haunts and then took our flight to the Patagonia.

The city is wonderful during January – but not perhaps its usual self.  A lot of people are on holiday in the beaches, so the streets and restaurants are less busy.  But that make everything so much easier for us and made BA a very liveable city. But I have assurances from enough people that the density of the people, the trying commutes to work, the pollution (noise and smog) can get to you after a while. I believe them.

Portenos (locals from BA) speak so fast and with their unique accent (different way of saying “ll”, and “y”), they wait patiently in queues that reminds me so much of the English, not Europeans. They are friendly and helpful. Their mannerisms and gestures are clearly influenced by their Italian heritage. Locals are well informed, they read a lot and value their free speech after decades of oppression. They love their sport and are proud of their country.  So many show self-restraint and patience.  They don't overeat, they don't binge drink, and they enjoy taking moments to enjoy life, even having a coffee and a cigarette.  But don't expect prompt service, especially in restaurants. 

Uruguay - Colonia & Montevideo

Prior to travelling to Uruguay for the weekend, I didn't really appreciate how it would feel backpacking through places you have already visited five years ago, as Bernard had done for his first 8 weeks on tour in Africa. It struck me for the first time how dangerous it can be to revisit places that you remember so fondly – places change, people change, you change.  Its hard not to be disappointed when expectations (relatively high ones at that) are not met, fully or even partially. This is how I felt travelling through Uruguay. I was in a strange part of my journey five years ago – I had grown accustomed to doing things on my own but feeling lonely. I interacted with locals as best I could, as often as I could. I was used to food and other items being extremely affordable, and as I hadn't travelled to Europe at that point, I marvelled at the Europeanesque architecture. Therefore the memories I treasured from before were about the kindness of strangers, and that I felt like I was discovering a hint of “Europe”.

This time obviously our experience was against us – we've seen so many beautiful things during our travels that it takes a lot to impress. The weather was against us – it rained for most of the day whilst we were in Colonia which was a real pity because once the rain disappeared we could easily have spent a few hours watching the world go by in a cafe, if only our bus didn't leave in half an hour.  Even the local architecture was against us – a large chunk of a balcony fell and grazed Bernard's shoulder – had it fallen half a second earlier it would have struck Bernard directly on the head. And the time of year was against us (which we knew beforehand) – in January everyone is at the coast enjoying the beaches, so Montevideo was half as vibrant as it may be in other months of the year.  And finally the prices were against us – it used to be so cheap, but now it was more expensive than dining out even more expensive than outstanding quality restaurants in BA.

What a shame. So will hold onto my memories of the place from five years ago.