Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
We are now in Bariloche and it's been quite a while since we last updated the blog... we'd like to blame it on busyness but we're not so sure how that will fly with everyone sitting at their desks so we'll just admit to being a tad lazy. We spent 2 nights in Trevelin to take in a little fishing. Matt speaking> I went to a lovely little stream that was briming with trout - there was a mayfly hatch and the fish were rising the whole time but I just could not catch the critters blame it on the mochas i.e. flies I was using..... did manage to catch a load of inexperienced tiny trout though that were good fun... Bumped into a few steaks waiting to happen that got a bit of a fright, moo'd loudly and disappeared off into the bush. The highlight was watching a little otter catching a trucha and creeping up on a family of beavers enjoying the lovely day. Back to Cath - we stayed at a lovely little hostel called Casaverde which was small but cute and cottagy. We cooked our own meals and generally just relaxed after El Chalten and El Calafate and the lengthy bus rides. I treated myself to a welsh tea (Trevelin is very Welsh) which ended up costing a small fortune and didn't even include cream for the scone, but it was still worth the experience. We decided to head to El Bolson on the Friday and after a very rushed morning we just made the bus from Trevelin to Esquel and then did another 2 hr bus ride to El Bolson. The views along the way were stunning and we had a good feel about what was to come. Arriving in El Bolson we made our way to a hostel which had been recommended by an Irish couple in Trevelin and were very pleasantly surprised. It was about 3km out of town but was in a stunning setting and we got a lovely little cabana to ourselves. The cherry on top was that there was a river 20m from the front door with enough trout to keep Matt busy for a few months (fortunately for Cath, there were other places to see!). Not wanting to waste time Matt got straight down to business. Matt - on the way to the river - yip the 20m trek one of the local hounds German Shepherd Special befriended me. There was 1 point I had to cross the icy river to fish a nice looking pool - I looked around to see said hound jumping in after me and promptly being swept down the river luckily not too far onto a few rocks downstream... he shook himself off and soon joined me as if nothing out of the norm had happened! By tail, scruff and leg we made it back across later on... Cath we treated ourselves to a dinner out at a restaurant in town which also happened to be the local ice-cream factory... we of course had to have dessert!?
Saturday was a perfect day and Matt headed off to the National Park to fish while I made my way to the local market. It was an experience! There was everything on sale from cakes to woollen hats, organic veges to jewellery, waffles, chocolates and pretty much anything you can think of. It was really great to see all the locals out meeting their friends, drinking mate (the local tea here that everyone shares) and generally just enjoying life. Matt - got into town early to catch the local bus to the national park and would you believe it saw the hound with his mates this time in the town centre - remember 3km from the hostel! They have this awesome game where they chase every car down the road running literally inches from the bumpers - good entertainment waiting for the bus.. Lago Puelo was a stunning crystal clear dam but recorded a nil return and put the day down to experience as by the end of it I had a few bites in the back eddies of the mini delta where the major river in the area Rio Azcul joined the lago.
Cath: Sunday was another beautiful day and I headed to the waterfall that everyone recommended. It was about a 3 hour walk but with beautiful scenery and I so enjoyed it. Matt - this time I was 1 up on the truchas and ended up catching 3 beautiful rainbow truchas of about 1kg each.... unfortunately there are no pics as I did not take my camera but Cath will vouch for me!
Cath - Our time in El Bolson was great - we loved our hostel, run by a great German guy called Marcel, and it was a tough call whether to leave or stay on a bit longer! We'd had an email from our friends, Dave and Amanda, who were already in Bariloche and loving it and they were keen to hire a car with us and tour the 7 lakes region, so we decided to make our way to Bariloche on Monday evening. We arrived in Bariloche at about 7.30pm and got a taxi straight to the hostel that Amanda and Dave were already staying in Hostel 41 which was really nice and had free filter coffee (a big bonus to us travelers!!!) Amanda and Dave had been scouting out the place and had heard of a great steak place so we headed out for dinner and were not disappointed! We even had enough steak left over for sarmies for our road trip the next day! Tuesday dawned with a lot of rain but seeing as we had hired the car we set off at about 8am to see the 7 lakes. Our car was a Fiat Palio which Dave drove really well - there was only one time where we all went, oh my gosh we are driving on the wrong side of the road!!! The drive was really beautiful and even though the clouds didn´t lift we could see how lovely the scenery would be on a clear day. The Autumn colours are all over the show and just amazing - so many different shades of reds, oranges and yellows. We stopped in San Martin for lunch and decided on a restaurant that looked ok, but once we´d all used the bathroom we decided that we´d rather push on and try and make it back to the famous Llao Llao hotel for high tea..so we hot-tailed it out of there a little embarrassed!The Llao Llao hotel is meant to be the best hotel in Argentina and the Lonely planet guide recommends that you ´wear nice duds´ and go there for high tea. On arriving at the security gate of the hotel (in our Fiat Palio, now nicely covered in brown mud) the guard looked at the car and us and promptly told us the restaurant was closed for high tea - clearly our duds weren´t too steamy. We asked whether it would be open the next day, at which point he handed us a card with the hotel number on and said we needed a reservation. Not to be outdone (remember we had driven 3 hours flat to get here) we headed straight down the hill to the nearest pay phone and made a reservation, then drove back to the hotel and smugly told our friend the guard that we had a reservation! The effort was worth it and we had an amazing buffet which we took full advantage of. Ticky prize went to Dave who managed to smuggle out a chocolate biscuit! We spent most of Wednesday seeing Bariloche town centre and sampling the chocolate shop´s wears.we went to a famous chocolate shop called Mamushka´s for cake - chocolate mousse with dulche de leche (caramel treat) and meringue..heaven.?With the chocolate mousse cake guilt fresh on our minds we set off on an overnight trek on Thursday. We were joined by another girl, Belle, who was staying in our hostel. We caught the ski lifts up to the top of the mountain and set off to Refugio Frey, our bed for the night. The walk was more of a climb and involved a lot of scrambling over rocks and a bit of sliding down the mountain too! The views were spectacular though and the trek was so worth it.hopefully the pictures will show this! We got to the Refugio at about 6.30pm and were greeted by a rather wild looking man who ran the place (we named him Mountain Goat after he told us that our 4 hour walk back the next day would take us 2 hours). After cooking some packet pasta and eating some more chocolate we hit the sack, with Matt starting to make up ghost stories of Mountain Man.....We woke up early to snow and so after a quick breakfast we decided to make our way back down...the weather cleared really nicely though and we got back to Catedral to lovely blue skies (although very cold!).
We went on a horseride on Saturday - the views were amazing but our horses were very much on the docile/ comotose side and just walked all the way! We met a lovely couple from Vegas though and hopefully will catch up with them when we´re there in September. Matt went mountain biking on Sunday afternoon while I opted for the easier option of having a massage...!
We started our Spanish course today = an intensive 15 hour course which will be dominating our time for the next few days (Monday to Weds 9am-12 and then 4-5pm and then 9-12 on Thursday). We have a brilliant Spanish teacher called Fatima - she´s scary enough though to make sure we put the hours in for our homework! It´s good to be dusting out the cobwebs upstairs!We plan to get a bus to Mendoza on Thursday night...the wine region so we´ll update you on that once we´ve sampled the local fare!
We are so enjoying our travels...we miss our family and friends so much but everyday is a new adventure, filled with new faces, places and memories - we never forget just how blessed we are to be on this journey
- comments