Buenos Aires and Bariloche

It´s been a while since I last wrote, I guess we must have been busy! After leaving La Paz we over-nighted in San Antonio De Areco before heading on to Buenos Aires to hand back our hire car and complete our nearly 6000km loop across the north of Argentina.

Our initial accommodation in BA was pretty average and over priced, so after a couple of nights we relocated to a better hostel, and cheaper, on the main road through town – Av 9 de Julio. And it was a decent sort of main road with about 10 lanes, in each direction! Despite its size, 12 million people in Greater BA apparently, it turned out to be a pretty casual city. People don´t dress as flashy as Brazil (where we saw women hiking in high heels – I kid you not) so we only felt partially underdressed in our old, torn zip off pants and dirty boots…

We spent a day walking around the city visiting the plazas and government palaces etc, but most of the fun stuff was in the evening. We attended a tango show, which was really impressive – the dancing was almost as breathtaking as the price of the drinks. We left there thirsty. The next night we went to the soccer, La Bocca Vs Independencia. I´m not really into soccer, but it was definitely worth it for the atmosphere. There was a drumming band which kept cranking it out for the whole match, heaps of massive banners and every time something exciting happened everyone would start jumping so much that the whole stadium started to shake and appeared in real danger of collapsing.

The next night was the big ticket though – we spotted a few posters when we arrived and AC/DC were playing three gigs while we were in BA. 65,000 seats per concert and all sold out months ago. Nicole, however, managed to find some tickets on the web for a good price from some guy with tonsillitis who actually sold them to us for the face value. There were other tickets around, but they were all going for double or triple the original cost. I haven´t been to a concert even approaching that size before and it was awesome. The stage props included a full size (probably oversize) locomotive, at one point ridden by a 20+m high blow-up doll (very tasteful), cannons, fireworks, flame throwers, explosions, massive screens around and behind the stage, incredible light show and of course it was LOUD. All in all a kick-arse concert. Nicole isn´t the biggest AC/DC fan, but I think she might be a convert now…. They will be touring in Australia in a few months so if you can get there I fully recommend it.

Before we hit BA, Harper sent me a text recommending a couple of restaurants, including the La Estancia. Sure enough it was still on the mall, and still going strong, so Nicole I headed in for dinner. They have a big roasting pit out front with whole critters hanging up in front of the fire where you ´have to´pose for a photo – as Harper did 15 years ago when he was there. The steak was also fantastic, of course.

From BA we flew south to Bariloche, where we are now, in the Andean Lake District. Bariloche sits on Lake Nahuel Huapi surrounded by snowy mountains in as picture perfect setting as you will find anywhere. Keen to catch a trout we lined up an afternoons trout fishing with a local guy here and headed out onto the lake. As usual Nicole caught the only fish, which I think is a ¨Steelhead¨, but I´m not sure. Steelhead are apparently a rainbow trout which has been in the ocean for a while, but I don´t think they are supposed to occur in Lake Nahuel Huapi. My other guess was an Atlantic Salmon, but best I can tell they don´t occur here either! Maybe someone with some time on their hands can have a look at the photo and see if they can ID it for me. In any case it was a good fish, 2.5kg and jumped heaps. Also tasted pretty good and made a nice break from eating steak (for Nicole anyway…).

The next day we headed off paragliding. It was a bit windy around Bariloche so we were taken to the town of El Bolson about 120km south where apparently it isn´t so breezy. We chose a nice day for it, with only one hail storm and plenty of passing showers, but eventually managed to both get a flight in. Unfortunately they were only short, 15-20 minutes, as the pilot was worried about the approaching storm fronts. Despite that it was awesome. I am definitely a convert. Gliding amongst the snow capped mountains was just spectacular. Shame we don´t have anywhere in Darwin to take off from, or any cleared areas to land in!

The last 4 days we have had a hire car and drove north along the Seven Lakes Route overnighting in San Martin De Los Andes and Villa Traful, before heading a bit south to visit Mt Tronador. We spent three nights camping in some great spots, mostly right on a lake or river and surrounded by snow capped peaks. Just amazing scenery. Driving around here is like being transported into a postcard rack – every corner reveals another ridiculously spectacular view. Yesterday was a highlight, hiking a few hours in to see the Castano Overo Glacier on Cerro Tronador. It is the first glacier that either of us have had a close look at and was pretty impressive. It ends about 500-600m above the view point and drops off a shear cliff and is surrounded by waterfalls. Whilst we were at the base we saw only a few small pieces of ice fall, but walking in we heard a massive explosion (loud enough for us to stop and wonder if it was safe to continue) which must have been a huge piece of ice dropping the 600m to the rocks below.

Last night was one of the defining moments of my life. I had the best steak I have ever eaten, bar none. I have had some good steaks here, but this was sensational. I am still excited and thinking about going back for lunch just to have another one before we leave…..

At the moment we are waiting for the afternoon flight to El Calafate from where we will visit El Chalten for some more hiking, then head across to Torres Del Paine in Chile before heading down to Ushuaia after Christmas to depart on our Antarctic cruise on 9 January.