Puerto Madryn, Argentina - 17-19 Nov

We arrived in Puerto Madryn early the next morning and went in search of our hostel, La Tosca. Mario who welcomed us, was pretty much like a tour guide and took as through all the options that were available to us in Puerto Madryn. Armed with this knowledge we headed off to explore the beachfront and to find some lunch. Puerto Madryn is quite pretty and I suppose it’s a bit like Hermanus in that it is centred around the whale season, but it’s really dry and so the vegetation around the coast is very arid, more like the Karoo! And they farm sheep there too! I was feeling at home, haha!

The beachfront before lunch and the wind started

We chose a beachfront restaurant for lunch and settled down and ordered some drinks and a “seafood platter” for 2 just as the wind was picking up to gale force. Well, our “seafood platter” arrived and we were a little surprised to say the least. It was all in small little bowls and 2 larger bowls in the middle. The middle 2 were fried calamari, which was pretty good, and fried anchovies, we didn’t get through too many of these. The remaining bowls comprised of: 4 bowls pickled squid and oysters (not sure about these), 2 of empanada fish and prawns (good), one boiled prawn (not bad) and a few random others. The next problem was that as the wind got stronger the sand started blowing off the beach into our food and made our “seafood platter” all the more tasty, yummm! Tess and I agreed that it was a good experience but not one to be repeated!

The next day we had our tour to Peninsula Valdes and a boat trip to go watch the whales. We got picked up at 8am and picked the rest of our 20 strong tour group and headed for the peninsula an hour and a half away. We arrived at Puerto Piramides to get on the boat for our whale watching, a 50 man rubber dinghy that they launch straight from the beach with massive tractors and trailers. We headed 15 mins into the bay to find the whales, currently there are about 300 in the bay, at the height of whale breeding season there are about 700, so it didn’t take us too long.

When we got there the captain turned off the engines and we pretty much just floated and watched the whales. We saw loads and they come so close to the boat it is amazing. There were obviously many mothers with calves, the calves are pretty inquisitive and some come right up to the boat and go underneath the boat. We were also treated to a tail slapping display that is supposedly a form of communication for the whales and some jumping to top it all off. The hour went by so quickly watching the whales, we wished we could have spent the whole day there. It was so amazing and so surreal to be so close to these creatures that are just massive!

After we got back from the whale watching we headed off in the bus to see a penguin colony and some elephant seals lying on the beach. It’s not quite the season for the seals yet so there were not too many and we didn’t see any very large males (they get up to 4000kgs), but it was good to see. We also saw a few armadillos, cute little buggers and a first for both of us. We’d heard that orcas (killer whales) had been spotted on the coast the previous day but sadly we missed out. After the whale watching it was a pretty long afternoon in the bus and not particularly entertaining.

The next morning before we were due to head off we went for a long walk along the beach, Puerto Madryn has a really wide and long beach and we walked for about 2 hours on the beach before we headed back to our hostel for breakfast and to pack our stuff up for another mammoth bus ride.

The highlight of our time in Puerto Madryn was definitely the amazing boat trip among the whales! But now we were headed to El Calafate in the south of Patagonia to find some glaciers!

A parting shot of the amazing whales at Puerto Madryn

Bariloche, Argentina 13th-16th Nov

Switzerland of Argentina is what we heard this place was going to be like and no word of a lie!

Mountains and more mountains, reflecting in gigantic blue lakes, so ideally picturesque, with the town of Bariloche also offering about 15 different chocolate shops on its main street… pretty close to Switzerland I’d say but maybe even better! Ha-ha!

A very happy purchase at Mamuschka Chocolate shop!

For us this was the true start of Patagonia, as our bus wound its way through the Lake District to the town of Bariloche. After checking into our hostel, we sat down with a very large book on what there was to do in Bariloche – from hiking and river rafting to kayaking, cycling and boat tours – so much to choose from, so little time (only 3 days) and if you thought Derek was going to let me sit around and eat chocolate, you are mistaken.

Our selected piece of steak...

We thought the best way to begin this action filled town was a good Argentine steak and vino – we’d been recommended by most to go to El Boliche de Alberto– an amazing parilla (grill house) where the steaks are so big you can share them and so affordable too! It’s great because the waiter is also the guy who cuts your steak from a huge pile of meat on a table and cooks it to perfection! Well, needless to say we loved this place so much, we came back here again on our last night! Topped off with a Jauja ice-cream of course… too delicious!

The first day we launched into a 20km hike up to the Frey Refuge – all helped by great weather and no ash ( that we heard occasionally blew over from one of the active Chilean volcanoes). The hike was tiring but great.

We got some incredible views of snow covered peaks reflecting into Lago Gutierrez (one of the lakes) – so tranquil!

 We then walked through an amazing forest of really old trees alongside this gushing river that was working its way down to the lake. Finally we headed up a fairly steep section to the refuge  at the base of the glacier – where we managed to trudge through about 20 metres of snow – where we settled into a picnic whilst watching some rock climbers scale one of the faces’. All in all about 6 and a half hours of hiking and when we got back home we were absolutely knackered!

Last bit in snow up to the refuge.

We opted for a slightly less active second day and chose a full day tour on a boat through a couple of the lakes. First impressions were not ideal, as we noticed the average age was about 60 and we were by far the youngest people on the tour. A real “tour group” – the ones Derek and I had successfully avoided up until now! Once the boat got going we soon forgot about it and enjoyed the most incredibly beautiful sights. The water was the most amazing blue colour, the waterfalls streaming off the edges of these snow-capped mountains, all surrounded by incredibly green protected reserve forests – wow, wow, wow!

The pace was generally slow going once we got off at Puerto Blest where some opted for the restaurant option, us another picnic as we waited in the sunshine until the boat got going again.



The size of these tree's are just enormous!

We then stopped off at a part of the reserve that is cleverly decked so that you can walk and admire hundreds of years old trees, an impressive waterfall and a spectacular lake - perhaps the prettiest we’d seen. This last stop was so worthwhile and totally made the day!

Breath-taking and just unreal!

A great view on way home from our boat tour.

After getting off the boat, where the port was, was quite close to the famous 5 star hotel called LLAO LLAO which the Argentinians pronounce “sjhow sjhow”.

LLAO LLAO

We’d heard great reports from Lou and Simo that this is where we needed to make a stop. Together with a little “gift” money Pauline had given us to treat ourselves, we knew we would do well here.  At about 6.30pm that eve, with the sun still beating down, we ordered a very civilized tea, coffee, scones and apple cake, all served on the veranda overlooking the lake. It was so much fun to go somewhere like this for a treat!



Posh interior!

The actual hotel, very well known for receiving politicians and celebs, has an upmarket wooden cabin feel, deerskin covered chairs, huge big fireplaces – I guess something so well suited for winter, when Bariloche becomes Argentina’s prime skiing destination! We came back to reality with a bump when we had to ask the guard at the guardhouse where the local bus stop was and proceeded to wait for the bus back to our hostel!

Our final day we rented bikes and did a 25km circuit – it had some steep hills which made it hard for me, Derek cruised usual style – around a couple of the lakes, with a couple great viewpoints! The map we’d been given had detours off the usual route which although time was tight as we had to catch a bus early that eve, we decided worth doing.





The first detour took us here - beautiful!

First detour was to this beautiful blue lake, fantastic view and almost a mini beach that although warm that day, knowing the water would be ice-cold, couldn’t quite tempt us. Not sure I quite appreciated what we saw as all that kept going through my mind was how was I going to get up the really long hill we’d just come whizzing down!









Derek swimming in the Secret Lake

A little further on, bikes parked, we did a short walk into a forest area and came across the Secret Lake – a bit brown, but were told warmer and warm enough to swim in… This big lake was so quiet and peaceful - almost in the middle of nowhere. Derek did jump in and have a quick swim and in no time we were back on our bikes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cycling trip was a fantastic way to see some of this area, sadly just after halfway we got to experience a little of what the folk here in Bariloche have to deal with, ash! The ash spoilt the view - giving the mountains and lakes a hazy look, but other than that it didn’t really bother us (no face masks required!) 


Absolutely exhausted, over looking a great yet hazy view- with Llao Llao in the background.

I know I’ve repeated myself countless times, but we could just not get over how vast these lakes spread and just how blue they were. These dramatic peaks were just amazing. Perhaps not used to seeing snow... we just couldn’t stop staring at these snow covered mountains that seemed to surround us.

Bariloche is just one of the most beautiful and scenic places I have ever been too. I just couldn’t believe we were seeing what we saw! I think this place would be a hiker’s paradise! There were so many hikes and walks we could have done and more and yet our time here was up and before we knew it, we were packed up and heading for that bus station.

Great memories in a place where every thought recalls an amazing picture in your head! Bariloche, we love you!

Mendoza, Argentina - 8-12 Nov

We arrived in Mendoza from Salta after another long trip and made our way to Hostel Lao. We were staying in a dorm, but the hostel had a great outside area with a pool and a lovely living room good for socialising or relaxing. The staff were really great and we started enjoying our time in Mendoza already.

We spent the afternoon going round the town orientating ourselves and organising the wine tour we wanted to do two days later. Just as the wind was starting to pick up, we got back to the hostel. The wind just grew in strength and eventually was blowing a gale! In the area it is called a Zonda. It did a massive amount of damage, blowing over trees and we actually heard that 2 people had died. Pretty hectic stuff!

In true Argentinian fashion, we headed out that evening to find ourselves a steak and some local wine. We were still getting used to eating dinner at 11pm so we went for a beer beforehand to use up some time. We found a lovely restaurant called La Lucia and we had some good wine to start off our wine tasting in Mendoza.

In the morning we headed off to go do Mr Hugo’s Bicycle Wine Tasting tour. We caught the local bus and when we got there, Mr Hugo told us that the road was closed due to fallen trees and that we would only access a few of the farms in the north end of town. This was not great news to us as Lou and Simo had recommended the wine farm at the end of the road, Carinae. We decided to give it a go anyway and after paying our money Mr Hugo offered us a plastic glass of wine that had a reputation of making vinegar taste good. This was not far from the truth!

So fuelled up on Mr Hugo’s vinegar we headed off to Trapiche only to get told that the next tour didn’t start for the next 2 hours, we headed down the road to see what we could do. We came across a lovely police woman and she told us that we could go down the road until we found a gravel road that we could link up to Ruta 60 and then we could get to Carinae. So we headed off that way not really knowing where we were going or how far this was going to be. After an hour and a half of riding on gravel roads and then back onto the tar we finally made it to Carinae, thinking this wine tasting had better be worth it. It was! It’s a really small estate and the French owner showed us around himself and did our wine tasting so it was a great start! We then visited the oldest winery in Mendoza, Familia Di Tommasso, and finally we headed back to Trapiche, Argentina’s biggest winery, who did a great tour of the winery and we got to taste some great wines as well.

I was starting to get pretty broken at this stage because Tess was not feeling that great so I was “tasting” the rest of her wines. We needed some food so we finished our afternoon off with a beer and a pizza at the Beer Garden and upon return of the bikes to Mr Hugo enjoyed another glass of his vinegar J (it was free after all).

The Asado at Hostel Lao

That evening we decided to cook in and bought ourselves a nice piece of steak, salad and more red wine. Hostel Lao had a braai area and we made good use of it braaing our steaks. (we braaied more than once!) It was a lekker evening and we got a fairly early night so as to be ready for our special wine tasting the next day. We had booked an exclusive wine tasting tour to Valley de Uco.

Wine Tasting at Andeluna

We got picked up very promptly by Charles, our guide for the day, in the Tout and Wine tour bus. There was a Dutch couple and an American couple on honeymoon as our co-tasters for the day. They were both great and Charles had a lot of great information about the area and the wine business in Argentina and Chile which he shared with us on the hour and a half it took us to get to Valley de Uco. Our wine tour started at Andeluna (American owned) which was stunning. The green vineyards with the snow-capped Andes in the  background was just incredible .The vineyard manager’s wife did the tour and we learned a lot about growing grapes and the different wine making processes they use before getting stuck into tasting the good stuff. The wines were great , the whole tasting experience was great and it felt really special to be able do something like this.

On the lawn outside Andeluna, the view just breathtaking!!!

Tasting straight from the barrel at Azul

Next we headed to Azul, the smallest winery either of us had been to, they only bottle 40, 000 bottles a year, but the winemaker took us for the tour (it’s all just in 1 room) and the tasting. The cool thing about the tasting was that we got to taste straight from the stainless steel vats and we also got to taste wine straight from the oak barrels that was half way through its maturation. Azul was great because we got a very different experience than we’d got anywhere else.

Lastly and by certainly no means least, we visited Salentine, which is Dutch owned and is clearly someone who has more money than he knows what to do with. The farm is 72,000 hectares of which only 700 is under vines. We got given another private cellar tour which was really amazing and then settled down to a 4 course lunch paired with different wines. Earlier in the bus Charles had told us that we had to finish the wine and order a 2^nd glass of each and we tried our best to adhere to his “instruction”. The food and the wine were excellent.



One of the most famous pictures in the wine industry in Mendoza, the winery at Salentine

We got back to Mendoza in the evening after one of the best days we had had on our trip so far. It was just such a special day and we were made to feel pretty special everywhere we went that day.

Later we went to go try book our bus trip to Bariloche, but the buses for the next day were booked out so we were going to have to spend another day in Mendoza, which we really didn’t mind.

The lake in the park in Mendoza

On the third day in Mendoza we decided to check out the massive park they have in the town. We were living a couple of kilometres away but decided after all the steak and wine the walk was going to be good for us. We wandered around the park, around the lake and around a couple of other things before deciding to head up the hill to the Cerro de Gloria, a monument to the victory over the Spanish. It was some fair mountain climbing and scrambling to get up the hill. Without having a clue how to catch public transport to get back to the hostel we just walked, but that made it about a 12km walk in the end, a lot more than we had bargained for when we set out on the walk.

Our extra day in Mendoza was very chilled and caught up with loads of mailing and chatting to people on Skype. We did venture out for a short while only to come across a Saturday morning parade in the town. The ladies were not wearing very much at all, seems like the further south we have headed the less clothing the ladies wear in the parades.

When we eventually did leave that evening there was a massive thunderstorm and as it turns out it was a good time to head onto the next place as we heard there were power outages the day after the storm.

Salta, Argentina 3rd - 7th Nov

The minute we crossed the border I just knew Argentina was going to be incredible!

Derek and I had been so looking forward to arriving in Argentina, dedicating a good month to tour this amazing country.

 We arrived in Salta, a city in the North West of Argentina, settled into our lovely hostel and customary with Argentinian late going out and dining tradition, we headed out just before midnight to grab a bite to eat.

San Francisco Church at night

Well, we found a lovely sidewalk café and sat back, relaxed in the warm temperature, opened up a Salta beer and started getting excited about our future days. The city had such a lovely feel about it, so relaxed and easy-going. It just felt so similar to being back home, hell they even had balsamic vinegar and olive oil on the restaurant tables!

Next morning we woke up and although it was about 9am it was already really hot. Baking sun! A great start to that morning....corn flakes as our hostel breakfast!!  Wahoo!

It being so warm, we took the opportunity to keep in doors and plan the next couple days…

One of the things we were keen to do is to visit and stay at an Estancia – an Argentinian farm homestead and ride horses.  We read about an Estancia called Sayta on the net, it had a great write up and last minute decided to head there the following day.

That evening though, we went to a restaurant serving typical local foods  - that night we tried a few things including tamales and empanada’s which are like meat pasties – and a bit different to the other South American versions we’d tried earlier in our trip. We then wandered around the main square and a little before 1am we walked home. Going out for dinner so late is quite something.

The next morning, along with a Scottish guy from our hostel, we got collected and taken about an hour or so out of Salta, to the ranch called Sayta. Although not an actual working farm, it is surrounded by tobacco and wheat fields. The estancia is situated in a valley- where green and lush hills surround the farm – really pretty.

We were immediately welcomed by two volunteers and the owner’s daughter, as well as a couple of the gaucho’s that work at Sayta. Throughout our stay we learnt quite a bit about gaucho’s and gaucho culture. Gaucho’s really are horsemen, having grown up from a very early age riding, they pretty much live their life with their horse i.e. you wouldn’t see a true gaucho in his car on his way to the shop – you’d see his horse tied outside the shop instead.  They have incredible horse skills and usually wear traditional clothing including these riding pants called bambacho’s.

The saddle room on the estancia

 

Shortly after arriving we got seated at this big dining table in an outside area and got stuck into breakfast, which included dulce de leche, which is basically caramel that they use as a spread – I couldn’t quite stop myself from spooning mouthfuls into my mouth instead, all whilst Derek’s skin crawled by how sickly sweet this stuff is! We then got introduced to Diego, our gaucho for the upcoming ride. Got handed some chaps and met our horses. One of the volunteers called Cheska ( English-French) came along for the ride  - mostly just walking, but we explored parts of the farm and were treated to our gaucho showing off  - him standing on his horse whilst walking!

 

After the morning ride, we got ushered to the big table where everyone from the Estancia sits down to enjoy an “asado” – a lovely long braai!! The table was laden with salads, pickles, roasted veggies, chips and loads of chimichuri – which is a delicious spicy paste you add to the meat.

Talking of meat... this is where we learned how Argentinians do it... Starting off sausages and chorizo and then moving on to various cuts of the most delicious steaks… your plate was never short of meat for more than 2 seconds, when Gustav our braaier encouragingly placed more on your plate whether you needed it or not. It was the most delicious steak ever! Now besides the non-stop intake of beef, our glasses were never less than half full - which is a real problem when you know you have to get back onto a horse and not fall off! The easy drinking red, made by monks is in endless supply on the Estancia!

Gustav our chief braaier

 

That afternoon we got back into the saddle and enjoyed the afternoon and also managed to get some cantering and galloping done too, which was great fun! Again, after the ride, we settled into “tea” – lots of tea, bread with spreads, as well as a type of sweet bread butter pudding type desert called budin. Yummy!

 

That evening, after a lovely shower (in an even lovelier cottage on the Estancia) we settled into another glass of red wine with the 2 volunteers Amelie, Cheska and owner’s daughter Laura. The owner Enrique was unfortunately away but we heard hilarious stories – clearly quite a character. After a drink, it was time to eat again! Dinner for the five of us around the kitchen table in the Estancia’s main house.  We were all pretty exhausted and although only starting dinner at about 11, we were not long out of bed!

We slept in and awoke for another spread on the breakfast table. One day in and it felt like we hadn’t stopped eating! That morning a group arrived from the city for a morning of riding. Slightly annoying, obnoxious group of Israeli’s that although never having ridden seemed to test both Pablo and Felix our gauchos as well as Amelie one of the volunteers with their constant spurring the horses, trying to go faster and generally not listening to what the gaucho’s had to say! The other addition to the group was James, an English guy who was to stay for the day and night.

Our ride was a similar route to the first day, but a slightly faster pace which was fun. Derek and I both loved our horses this day – they seemed a little less docile to the previous days’ and they actually seemed to like each other, which made riding alongside each other possible! Again, after our morning ride, we settled into a couple glasses of vino and a HUGE asado! So much, perfectly cooked steak! Yum!

That afternoon only James remained from the new comers and oh my word, what an amazing ride we had. Felix, a lovely guy and really experienced gaucho lead our ride towards the mountains. We walked and trotted through some great scenery. We got fairly high into the mountains, where there was a paddock of cows, instead of lassoing them, Felix practiced his skills trying to lasso us instead. We got a great chance to test out our horses – so much fun!  From there, we honestly made our horses descend through this extremely narrow ravine. This was scary and fun at the same time – at one stage I was leaning as far back as I could as my horse literally nose-dived down this mountain side! Crazy stuff! It was the perfect riding end – we had amazing scenery, great company, amazing horses and opportunities to gallop, canter and trot a lot! Perfect!

Last afternoon riding with our Gaucho Felix (next to me)

 

We only intended on staying one night (budget permitting) but after such an amazing time and the fact that taxi transfers back to the city are difficult on a Sunday, we agreed to spend another night on the Sayta Estancia.

Again the food routine of afternoon tea (served at 7pm) continued. Quick shower and soon the three staff (Cheska, Amelia and Laura) together with James, Derek and I were sitting down to a lovely home cooked dinner in their farmhouse kitchen. We proceeded to continue our little gathering outside with an un-countable number of bottles of wine… The six of us proceeded to drink, laugh and tell stories until late into the next morning. Well Derek and I excused ourselves at about 2am but the rest continued until 6am!!

Nevertheless we were all feeling a little worse for wear the next morning! After a lovely breakfast, we sadly said our goodbyes! It was so lovely to spend time with such great people and it honestly felt like we had stayed at a friend’s house – something so different to the last few weeks of travelling and saying goodbye was not easy! Wow, for us, this was a huge highlight and in hindsight could have definitely stayed a bit longer. A great experience all round!

Felix, Derek, Tess, Amelie, Laura, James

After making our way back to the city of Salta, we managed to buy a last minute bus ticket leaving that afternoon and promptly proceeded to the bus station for a very long bus ride…

San Pedro de Atamcama, Chile - 2nd Nov

We left Bolivia and almost immediately we noticed the difference between the 2 countries, we hit a perfectly good tarred road (something that doesn’t exist in Bolivia) and we cruised down into San Pedro de Atacama clearing customs as we entered the town.

The first priority was to get some cash and so we changed the Bolivianos we had and then couldn’t find an ATM with any cash, so we changed some dollars just so we had enough for some lunch. I was panicking a bit because we had an expensive bus to pay for that was leaving the next day and we couldn’t get any cash, luckily Veronika (who we travelled with in the salt flats) helped us find the one ATM that was working and we loaded up some cash, crisis averted!

Tess was still not feeling that great and needed to be close to a toilet and so I headed off to find a trip to the Valley of the Moon on my own. Along the way we started overlooking 3 sets of mountain ranges, which was pretty amazing considering the diversity of the 3 ranges. We then headed to the Valley of the Dead, so named as nothing grows there at all, it’s pretty incredible. The tour saved the best for last as we headed to the Valley of the Moon, and it really is like that! Well I haven’t been to the moon so can’t say for sure J. The landscape is really strange and nothing like I had seen before. I hope the pictures do it justice.

The aptly named Valley of the Dead



I had planned ahead and bought myself a large beer to enjoy as a sundowner. I think a few people were jealous of me as I sipped my now not so cold lager watching the sunset over the Valley of the Moon and the great sand dune, what an awesome experience.

The Valley of the Moon Great Sand Dune and Plateau

Tess had booked us a star gazing experience for the night that we had heard good things about from friends. We only got picked up at 11pm and it was going to last for 3 hours or so. After waking up at 4am this was going to be a long day! Anyway we headed off in good spirits to the star gazing and were net by a Canadian astrologer. The evening was divided into 3 parts: a small lesson about the history of astronomy and the constellations, a session looking through the 10 telescopes they had on offer and then a question and answer session at the end. The first and thirds part were pretty boring and we were tired, Tess had 40 winks during the Q & A session. But it was cool to look at the moon, the various stars and constellations through the telescopes. We got to bed very late, but we had had a good day, our one and only day in Chile.

The next day we headed off to catch our bus to Argentina. Tess was so excited to be heading for Argentina, this was her dream destination and she was determined to make the most of it. I think just the thought of Argentina made her feel better. This was our first experience of Argentinian buses that we had heard so much about, Andesmar did not disappoint. We also got our first English movies of the trip so we were excited about that! The scenery on the journey was also magnificent, we passed a small salt flat and went over one of the most impressive passes we had seen on the journey thus far. The journey was a very pleasant one.  We were both just very happy to arrive in Salta in Argentina, this was to be the start of a full month in Argentina. Exciting stuff!!!!