Bariloche

We´ve been in Bariloche since Monday, with one night spent out in the hills - more on that in a moment. We´re staying in the Tango Inn Hostel, which is really cool. It´s a little out of town, but has been set up really well and our room has a great view over the lake and the mountains beyond.

From Bariloche

Bariloche is a skiing town in the winter and in the summer caters for all the extreme sports nuts that want to go and play in the mountains...er like me I guess. It´s also famous for chocolate and has some enormous chocolate emporiums where you can promise to take your girlfriend if they agree to you spending a week being extreme (cold, wet, tired, etc).

Speaking of which we have booked ourselves onto a few such excusrions. The day before yesterday we headed off on the "Free Spirit Tour", which meant travelling out of town to a lovely secluded set of bunk houses nestled in the foothills by a lake. We were joined by a South African couple who had been living in London for 6 - 9 years and were on their way to live in Australia.

In the morning we went for a mountain bike ride around the lake, which was scenic and picturesque but not particularly challenging. The fun part was riding through a river ford and getting soaking wet!

From Bariloche

Lunch was (needless to say) a Bar-b-q, or Parilla, with loads of Chorizo sausage, beef steak and blood pudding type thing called Morcilla. Yum. I´m feeling hungry just thinking about it.

In the afternoon it was time to take to the lake with in a rubber dingy and a canoe. This seemed like a good idea but shortly after we got onto the water it started to rain, and without the sun the temperature dropped pretty quickly. Further more we only had our own gear to rely on, which meant light rain jackets and swim shorts. Soon enough everyone was pretty wet and cold (extreme categories 1 and 2) and begining to tire (category 3). When Leah started shivering uncontrolably my EMC training kicked in (those from Atlantic College will know what I´m talking about - otherwise just think Outward Bound) and I realised we needed to get back to the shore and some warmth pretty quickly. She was wearing (soaking) jeans and my lighweight Howies cycling jacket, which were all wet through. I was, or course, having a wail of a time...feel the cold? Me? Never. We stopped momentarily to watch some Aguilitas (small Eagles) who were standing on the lake shore just a few meters away, but the cold soon drove us on. When we reached the shore we found that our legs no longer worked and both struggled to clamber out of the canoe and up the steep bank to the path that lead back to the cabins. We had been promised 1000 litres of hot water, and I think that gave us the determination to scramble and slither up the muddy path and eventually to the relative warmth of the shower block. Thankfully the hot water promise came through and after a while the feeling returned to numb fingers and toes.

We spent the evening playing cards with the owners, drying our clothes over the small wood-burning stove, exchanging stories and drinking wine.

The night was spent in a cold bunk house with about four blankets to keep us warm (and a few spoders to boot). I had a bit of a funny tummy and as I went to bed I enjoyed the irony that the one time I may need to be making night-time excursions to the bathroom it was in another building a cold walk away...thankfully there was no need in the end!

Yesterday we went for a nice walk around a small lagoon surrounded by a lovely forest with dappled sunslight coming through the trees before gathering our stuff together and heading back to Bariloche. Nice.

Calafate and the Porito Moreno glacier

Well the journey down to Calafate wasn´t so bad after all, though it was long. We splashed out on what´s known as a "cama" seat, which basically means bed and is large and comfortable and reclines a long way, though not quite to horizontal. This ticket included food, but this turned out to be a lump of tired meat on a bed of dry mashed potato....yum. Good thing we had packed some fruit and biscuits for the journey!

Calafate was lovely, we stayed in what´s known as a Cabañita, or small cabin, which was situated in a lovely lavendar filled garden area near the centre of town.

From Calafate and ...

Calafate sits on the side of a lake of glacier water surrounded by dramatic hills. In the distance are the snow capped mountains of the Andes. The weekend we were there happened to be the date for the town to celebrate what I understood to be it´s 125th aniversary (might have got that wrong of course), which meant there was a huge stage and live music everynight, as well as food and craft stalls a plenty.

The main atraction is the Porito Moreno glaciar, which is an hour or so out of town by bus. It´s amazing. Awesome. Fantastic. If you can, go and see it! The bus trip gave us about five hours to gape at the vast sea of advancing ice, and gape we did. It seems to be a living thing with incredible echos and booms of the ice cracking and falling filling the still mountain air. We stood and watched as a 50 meter tall block broke off the face and slipped into the lake waters below with an enormous splash.

From Calafate and ...

In truth the three nights we gave to Calafate weren´t really enough as I would have liked to explore the surrounding hills a bit more. The flight we booked dictated that we move on however, so we packed our bags and left the South behind, marking as we did a turning point in our journey; from now on we´re pretty much heading due north!

Puerto Madryn and Peninsula Valdés

Well, it´s been a while since I´ve blogged anything, been lazy I guess. We´ve been in a town called Puerto Madryn for the last six days or so, which has been really nice.

From Puerto Madryn

This place is super famous for Whale watching and also, curiously, for decendents of Welsh settlers. Unfortunately for us the Southern Right Whales are only around between June and December, so we missed them. There are quite a few Sea Lion and Seal Colonies, as well as Penguins. Also, there are Killer Whales that come to feast on the baby seals, but we´re a bit early for that as the babies aren´t yet old enough to get in the sea (and become Whale breakfast). Despite missing out on the Whales, we did go and investigate the Wales connection, which is a town an hour or so away called Gaimen. There you can have some seriously over priced "Welsh Tea" and scones, and there is also a theme park made entirely of rubbish. Actually it was curious for us as only a month before we were having tea and cake in Wales and then there we were surrounded by Welsh memorabilia thousands of miles across the globe. Unfortunately explaining our Welsh conection didn´t result in anything of a discount, nor did the conection with Sri lanka and tea...but then we were the only people in the cafe so someone´s got to pay for their dinner.

Following that excursion we ventured to Peninsula Valdés for a night. This is a world heritage site just north of Puerto Madryn where all the Sea Lions, Penguins and Orcas (Killer Whales) hang out. There is loads of other bird and animal life there too. On arrival we set off on a 5km treck to find the near by sea lion colony (my idea). But missing the sign for the headland I decded to hack off cross country (not entirely to Leah´s liking I have a feeling). The ground was dry scrub land, and the sun was baking hot as it was just after midday. We were both thinking privately about how perfect snake country this was when I glanced in to a hole and saw one all curled up and sleeping. Well, that certainly stops you in your tracks! We made for the road like gazelles and thought better of "short cuts" after that. After an hour or so we made the colony, which was a treat.

From Peninsula Valdes

It lies on flat rock outscrops and there were loads of young seals romping around in rock pools. They´re really noisy, sounding a lot like a heard of sheep actually!

From Peninsula Valdes

We made the walk back to the Puerto Piramides and collapsed on the Hostel bed! It was really windy there and the combination of wind, sun and sand had taken it´s toll.

The following day we decided to pass on the fairly expensive tour round the penisnsula as the Orcas were not yet dining and spending 6 hours bumping around in a tour bus to then gawp at more sea lions with a load of other tourists for 15 minutes didn´t butter our muffins. Instead we retreated Back to Puerto Madryn and to our second Hostel there; Posada del Catalejo.

Our first hostel (Viajeros) was a mistake really, overpriced (105 pesos/night) and under-friendly. Plus the included "breakfast" consisted of a mug of coffee served with some small stones disguised as bread and some butter and jam, a-lo-stingy.

Posado del Catalejo on the other hand has been a real treat, and it will be a shame to leave it behind as we make the mammoth journey this evening to Rio Gallegos and then onto Calafate. We´re going to be on a bus from 6 this evening until 11.30 tomorrow morning, then another bus for 5 hours or so to Calafate. However, this is where the Fitz Roy range of mountains are to the found, and the Perito Moreno glaciar...So we´re leaving the sea behind for the next month or so, which is a shame as it´s lovely, though a bit nippy if you decide to go for a swim.

Necochea - El Medano Blanco

On Monday we went on a trip to see El Medano Blanco, which is an area of sand dunes a little way south of Necochea. The weather wasn´t great and a thick fog decended on the town as we left making the journey there rather less interesting than it would have been could we see more than a few meters. However we did pass some shipwrecks on the beach, one an English vesstle that sunk in1926 and the other a Spanish one that went down some three years later. They had been reduced to mear metal bones by the endless crashing waves of salty sea water.

From Necochea

Thankfully as we neared the dunes the fog began to lift and as it did so the rolling sandscape was revealed. I´ve got photos but this machine would melt down were I to attempt to upload them...It was fun as we drove up and over the tallest dunes, the driver evidently fairly well versed in the art of keeping the 4x4 moving over the ever changing terrain. The wind was fierce when we got down to take in the view, whipping the sand around and making it not such a nice place to be as in the calm interior of the car. After a short while we stopped for a (sandy) bite to eat and had a chat with the driver and the other person on the trip, a woman called Mabel. She turned out to be really friendly by the time we got back to Necochea she had taken us under her wing and was determined to show us the best of traditional Argentina, which in this instance turned out to be a kind of mini-pasty called an "empanada". She bought a load and we went back to her flat to eat them, where we met her family and had a really nice time getting to know them! They have left a lovely memory of Necochea for us.

From Necochea

Yesterday we hired a tandem bike and had a laugh riding around and exploring Necochea. It was pretty windy and dusty again which made for hard going in certain directions, especially as I´m sure Leah was happily letting me do a lot of the leg work....

From Necochea

We had a nice picnic by the river(photos to follow) and managed to sort out our travel plans for the next little while - including a flight from Calafate to Esquel, which is going to save us about two days of terrible road-tripping up Route 40! Lee the Carbon Bandit strikes again, I´m going to have to be seriously emission free after this trip.

Necochea: Las Grutas

Today we packed ourselves a yummy picnic of serrano ham, cheese and fuit and headed for "Las Grutas", which are some 12km south of Necochea. Everything was going well ´till we discovered at 12:30 that we´d missed the 12:00 bus and the next one wouldn´t come along until 4 in the afternoon...We asked in the tourist office and the guy said a Remis or mini-cab would cost about 40 pesos, well out of our budget for that trip. Thankfully he was wrong and came out to where we were trying to decide what to do to say that actually it would only be ten pesos - so off we went.

I have to admit that I was hoping for some good caves, but unfortunately it was only a low cliff area with some hollows created by the big winter seas. However, it was a lot less crowded than necochea so we sat down on the beach and enjoyed our picnic. The only slightly annoying thing was the lunatic father of some kids playing near to us, who was yelling like a banshee every time his kid kicked the football!

From Necochea

After a while the wind picked up and some light cloud cover came over and it kinda got cold to be honest. Being a restless soul I persueded Leah that we should take a walk up the beach to see if it got any more exciting. It didn´t. We ended up walking along a dusty gusty road on our way to find the bus, with our eyes streaming and stinging every time a car went by. By the time we got to the bus stop we were caked in a fine white powder and probably looked pretty dejected!

From Necochea

Upon returning to Necochea we made for a cafe and hat a nice Cafe Late on the street side veranda and sat watching the world go by...

Before the off!

From Buenos Aires

So I´ve managed to upload a few more images! This is us in Heathrow before we got on the plane, which you can just make out in the background! Yup, we were in that tube for 14 hours...

Necochea - beach resort

Ok, so here we are in the beach resort of Necochea, after one pretty lame night in Tandil - read Leah´s blog for more on that. This town is on the Southern Pampas, where the Beunos Aires lot come for their holidays. It´s a bit mental on the beach during the day as EVERYONE comes to roast themsleves under the very hot sun - you can barely move for people, which is interesting the first time and pretty horrible there after. However, they subscribe to the body-beautiful thing here and this summer´s latest bikini style doesn´t leave a whole lot to the imagination...If you´re into people watching it´s a good (read funny) place to be, and I dont just mean for pervs.

The town is buzzing well into the wee wee hours, with clowns and shows in the square, loads of restaurants and plenty of bars. We´re staying in a quaint little hotel called "El Quijote", which is run by an eccentric fella called Rafael. It´s good value though at 66 Pesos/night including breakfast (3 Croissants and a coffee), and our room is cleaned everyday with fresh towels arriving on the newly made bed.

Today we went accross the river to the neighbouring town of Quequen, which is where the surf is to be found. I´m hoping to get into the water tomorrow or monday, though no-one rents boards so it means hiring a lesson (30 Pesos/hour). Probably do me some good though. The waves were big this afternoon, but messy due to the strong wind, and the few surfers that were out there seemed to be struggling a bit. The beach was much nicer than Necochea as it was a lot less busy, and the people seemed younger and a bit more of a surfy crowd. We were also told of a cool sounding Hostel called Jamming (which isnn´t in the Lonely Planet) which would probably be the place to come if you wanted to surf - we´ve payed for our hotel up front so we´re not going to move.

If the wind is up tomorrow we´ll probably pack a picnic and head for a place called Las Grutas, which is a beach further south where there would appear to be caves and stuff. Also sounds quieter and a nice place to hang out for the day. We´re also looking into a 4x4 ride into some impressive sounding sand dunes; up to 110 meters tall!

Hostel Ostinatto, Buenos Aires

For those who are interested, or may be going there, we spent our time in Buenos Aires in a Hostel called Ostinatto. It was recomended by a friend and turned out to be really good. We were paying 72 pesos a night for a double room with breakfast, though the room was a bit of a box with no windows to the outside world, only the internal atrium. This price was slightly discounted (from 80 pesos /night) as we payed upfront and stayed for 5 nights. The place has a large kitchen with a balcony onto the street, which was a great place to hang out and chat with the other guests over breakfast or dinner or whenever! It also has a rooftop terrace with a kind of plunge-pool thing, a bar-b-q and a nice view over the city. They offer free Yoga classes and a free tango class to all guests.

From Buenos Aires

Some photos

From Buenos Aires

OK, I´m struggling to get photos online currently, but I´m working on it. I´ve got 5 up so far, on Google web albums, click the image above to see them. I´ll try and get some more up today!

Sunday in San Telmo

Today we had lovely day cruzing round San Telmo, which is the oldest barrio and also where our hostel is found. We had a look round on our first day but we were pretty out of it from the flight, and today was more interesting as being sunday there were markets and street shows in abundance. We saw our first bit of Tango, but to be honest it didn´t really butter my muffin.

Better than that by far was some street music played on classical guitars, two guys playing a kind of guitar question and answer. There was also a super cool looking old dude who did some tango dancing to there music with some dressed up old-timer type women. If that wasn´t enough they invited some other guys to play, who were a bit older and turned out to be the ´grandfathers of Tango music´according to the old dancing dude who we ended up talking to. He was a right character and was telling me all about the history of the ´conquistadores´, who were showered with boiling oil as they came through the narrow streets. He had an amazing face full of mirth and cheek and was a pleasure to chat to, though I struggled a bit with some of his Spanish.

From Buenos Aires

The market was full of all sorts of antiques and jewellery, and Leah was torn between wanting to buy it all and sticking to our budget. However yesterday we went to another market on the other side of town and Leah bought some cool big-disk earrings, with me being like a sugar daddy and handing her her allowance! I seem to have become wallet man on this trip, with Leah keeping an eye on what we spend.

On our way back to the hostel we found a street with loads of street music; jazz bands and a kind of ten peice classical ensemble complete with piano! The sun was out all day and a cool breeze was blowing - just lovely!

From Buenos Aires

We also went round the BA cemetary and saw Eva Perron´s tomb. The whole place was full of enourmas crypts with the coffins clearly visible through windows and slightly ajar doors. Kind of creepy really!

From Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

woooah, we´re travelling! Finally under way and it´s a stange sensation. So here we are in Buenos Aires, after an arduous and very bumpy 14 hour flight from London. Glad we got out beofre the strikes though! We´re staying in an area called San Telmo, which is an old style barrio with narrow streets and loads of antique shops. You can buy heaps of stuff here, but I keep reminding Leah that we´re supposed to be travelling light! There are lots of shiney rings, broaches etc that keep attracting her attention...We staying in a really nice Hostel called Ostinatto. It has a cool atrium right up the middle with gangways leading to rooms that criss - cross all the way up to where a glass roof lets in the day light (and let´s you know the weather). Our room doesn´t have a window to the outside world, but there´s a roof terrace and a balcony in the kitchen.

Yesterday we went for a big long walk through Buenos Aires, taking in the ´plazas´etc. It really does feel like a european city, such as Madrid or Rome, which is peculiar considering how far away we are. We go caught in a storm and some really heavy rain which went on for ages while we sheltered under a building. In the end we jumped on a bus and the sun came out just as we entered the hotel! Typical. Was a nice day none the less.

The Hostel is full of really friendly people and breakfast is a great time to sit and chat about everyone´s experiences. Today we´re going to do more exploring and also go to the bus station to see about tickets to other exciting places. We´ll probably try and pick up a sim card too so Ill post the number in case you want to text so say how gealous you are!

We´re not seen any tango yet, but we understand the weekend is a good time to catch that sort of thing, whether it be in a bar on on the streets. I´m going to try and get some photos sorted out but the connection here a the hostel is really slow, but free so that´s cool - watch this space.

Walking on the beach

This is Leah walking on a blustery and cold beach in Wales (name is escaping me right now...). The sea was massive, though it's hard to see in the photo, and it was working itself into a foamy mess on the beach!

Snow!

Ahhh, Vicky park in the snow - it's been a while since I've seen that. And shortly we'll be leaving it behind for the (hopefully) warmer climes of South America!

packing

So this evening we've packed our bags, well just about. Leah's one seems as big as her, but I'm sure it will all be fine. May need to hire a coolie to carry it for her though!

We had a really nice evening last night with our friends who came to say cheerio and wish us well. I was bullying all of them to come and visit us, not sure I succeeded though - we shall see.

Tomorrow the adventure begins.

Leah in the Woods

Waaaaaales

We're down in Wales this weekend to say good bye to people here before we head off on our life-trip to South America. Went for a lovely walk into the hills yesterday as there was a power cut so there was little work to be done!

Blasted II

Check out what someone did to the bomb blast site - really awesome piece of artwork. I hope it's message hits home somewhere, although the recent bus-bombs would appear to show that there will be no let up in the violence. Indeed it seems as though things are taking a turn for the worse as civilians had never been the targets up until now.

down with the flu

ok, so it had to happen I guess. Since we arrived there was talk of a nasty flu virus in Colombo, carried by mosquitos and wiping people out for up to four weeks. I tried to avoid it by drowning my skin in horrible 50% DEET repellent, and seemed to be doing ok. Until last weekend that is. It began with Leah's mum, Neela, who came down with symptons over lunch time on the Saturday. That evening was Zarook's birthday party with loads of their close friends coming over specially. I was ok during the party, though my hips and back had been a bit achey, but when I lay down to go to bed suddenly I got the shivers and it all went down hill from there. I cannot attempt to describe how bad the aches and pains have been, but it's like every single mustle has been stretched and pulled and worked to it's limit. Today I'm feeling a lot better, though still very week. Leah's sister Tasha came down with it shortly after me, and then Leah got it too a day or so later. Hopefully we're all coming out the other side now.....

And there I was thinking how great it was spending the winter in the tropical sun and avoiding all those horrible colds that seem inevidable in London...

Happy Birthday Leah!

Yesterday was Leah's birthday so we had a small gathering/party of friends over to celebrate with us at her folks house. It was a really nice day, and we got nicely drunk on Sangria and Pims, which felt very summery indeed. We were surrounded by her really good friends, including Emily who has come over from London for a holiday. I progressed from Sangria to Pims and then beer as we slowly drank the bar dry. After we served everyone loads of fantastic food they one by one flaked and bailed to recover at home - that's the problem with starting early I suppose. Having said that I much prefer to chill with people in this manner rather than standing around in a noisy bar not being able to hear anything. Must be getting old I suppose. At the end only Deshan and Soharni remained and we goofed around in the bar for a while before they had to split and return to their families. After that I watched the Borat film, which I must confess I thought was less crazy than everyone had said - enjoyable none the less in a cringeworthy way.

Happy New Year!

Leah and I went down south to Unawatuna bay for New Year. We passed this beach on the way down and had to stop and take a photo - the sea is an amazing colour! New Year was fun, spent chilling by the sea, swimming in the warm waters and taking it very easy. There are some more photos on my Flickr site.