Los Alamos Bungalows Province of Rio Negro

... and air guitar of our favourite ACDC songs at the lights followed. The 22 hour bus ride from Buenos Aireis was realy quite lovely. Got fed very well, had a huge reclining seat, movies to watch and lots of space as the bus was only a third full. Met two cvute kids who were sitting behind me and their parents. I had some very basic spanish conversations with them which highly amused the kids. The scenery was all small towns and cow paddocks until the last couple of hour when things got ...

... it was the side that made us all fall out and I tell you that water was bloody freezing!

Apart from that day out we have just been doing some hiking and are booked in for spanish language classes all next week so we can actually talk to some other people apart from each other (and all the wicked (english speaking) people we have met so far) and occasionally I will talk to myself as I know I am always right!

Anyway update again later. Enjoy! Hope it wasn't too long a blog.

... day began sunny and cloudless and we were assured by the hostel owner that it would be a lovely afternoon. He was of course, lying. After climbing the first of many, many steep hills and marvelling at the view from Mirador Panoramica it began to rain. Cold, wet, driving rain. It didn't stop for the entire 27km route. Painful memories we don't care to recall further.

That aside, we stayed at a lovely hostel with great ...

... sipping cafe next to 100 runnign autos.

So I got on a bus, a very nice Cama Ejectivo double decker bus (1st class) and made my way 1600km from Buenos Aires to San Carlos de Bariloche a beautiful town surrounded by many lakes. Bariloche is famous for itīs skiing in the winter and all other mountain and water activities in the Summer. This is where I ...

... District. It reminded us of Windermere, except that snow capped mountains towered behind the green slopes, and there was no Kendal mint cake on offer. Day 1 was wet wet wet, and i could feel it in my fingers, and my toes. We fortunately had our first taste of the much renowned Argentinian steak, as we lunched in La Alpina on a fatless piece of flesh which melted like butter. The rest of the day was spent planning ...

... and should have taken
us over some rivers, but the water level was too high to cross them
(even with us trying to re-assure the guide that we'd be fine-he was
having none of it!)
We also caught the bus to Campanario hill which we hiked up in about
30 mins and were rewarded with some of the best views I've ever seen.
It was a complete 360 degree panoramic view, each side worthy of a
Bariloche, Argentina willb

... building which allowed the best views of the city from any room. The common area had a Morracan theme with vibrant golds and reds and fantasic tapestries hanging on the wall.

The Manager, Anna, gave us a tour of the hostel and showed us our room. I could not help that every room seemed to have a view of the city. We settled in and decided we would go downstairs and buy a ticket for at boat ride for the next morning. The cost was $200 ...

... refreshing. After falling asleep completely exhausted, the next day we were of to El chalten.... where it was RAINING! The entire time we were there! So no trekking for us. Everybody who tried came back quickly, soaked to the skin, stating that it wasnīt even worth trying as there was nothing to see in the rain. El Chalten is a tiny town in the national parque itself, and had only existed for 20 odd years so there was absolutely nothing to do:P We survived however ...

... us places that road cars were not able to go. She did however have a bit of a thirst problem. We were quite happy for her to drink diesel, but when we lost 18 litres of water on the first day and some wine further down the line, a few hairs were pulled out. But she cannot really be blamed for that...the roads were bumpy. Overall a fantastic experience and I would highly recommend it to anyone. But if planning to do the Carretera Austral, do so soon if you want a big ...

... son who were very kind and informative. The father was crazy for Scotland. The fossils were very varied nothing very big but a really worthwhile hour was spent looking throuight their collection. After we have chips and a drink by the lake where we saw the Argentian Bingo (our dog for those who donīt knoe). In the afternoon we took a nice stroll up to the waterfalls which were quite small but worth a look. I can imagine in spring after the ...