Cabanas Ruma Andina Villa La Angostura

... rustic hostel about 8km out of town in a residential area. We popped down to the supermarket and got a cooked chook and salad for dinner, and spent the evening chatting with a group of Swedish boys and an American girl, while Patrick played with the resident dog and four cats. Another slow morning the next day, a good breakfast, a bit of lounging around, and making a booking for sea-kayaking on a nearby lake for the afternoon. By noon we were out for a picnic ...

... our room of the lake were gorgeous any time of day! We enjoyed sitting on the balcony, or on the chairs by the window inside our room. Our room was lushly furnished and had a modern bathroom with shower and Jacuzzi - yes, facing the lake! All of the rooms face the lake. Our room, Patagonia 3, had windows that faced both sides of the hotel; this meant that we had the quiet ...

... but its list of sandwiches all have ham. Harvey asks if they can just make cheese, lettuce and tomato - they say yes - and we are good to go! We find the road to the Cascada Inacayal. We think we have it right, but when we see a sign indicating that we are entering a Mapuche community, we are not so sure. We are pretty sure we are in the right place, so we continue on the dirt road. We pass some homes in the forest and two men wave at us ...

... then passes it on to the next person. It tastes slightly like tobacco and initially is quite strong but after a few times of filling it the taste becomes more palatable. I liked it alot but Jon no so much which makes sense as he doesnīt drink tea at all and coffee often, Habe also gave us an good brand name and after a little while may start to buy it myself. Bariloche is a beautiful lakeside resort that is full of tourist activities, it ...

... office to collect my package! How embarrassing when the custom officials open the the box to check the contents and two packets of Primark knickers and socks are staring us all in the face and I have to explain in broken Spanish what they are before they go in for a closer inspection!! But it was all worth it int he end to get new underwear for the first time in one and a half years, to read a Cosmo mag and to give John and Emma their requested tins of Bisto gravy and Thai Green Curry ...

san carlos de barilloche, oder es kommt noch besser :-) Nach einem lustigen fest im studentshouse (an welchem sogar teils lehrer teilnahmen) und einer kurzen nacht in meinem hostel (was fuer ein glueck das der code fuer die haustuere 1122 war und ich mir das gut merken konnte) schleppte ich meinen rucksack etwa 1km weit den Berg hoch (ich und Taxi, wozu auch, hab eine map). Dies war zwar sehr anstrenged, doch je weiter ich ging ...

... week, as a treat, nine of us went to an exclusive restaurant called Butterfly, run by Cork man Ed and his wife Connie and his mate Seb! The restaurant is set on the lake front and has only room for 15 people. We were the only people in the whole place and we were there for the taster menu! We got seven, yes seven, courses and seven different bottles of wine, especially chosen to go with each course! The wine was delicious and complimented each dish ...

Sunday February 17th 2008 After a short bus journey (for a change!) we arrived in the beautiful lake town of Villa la Angostura and really felt like we had stepped off the gringo trail for a while. After finding a doozy of a b&b we unloaded our bags and set off to explore the beautiful town. That evening we settled for a picnic in the park as the weather was lovely and the park had a great view overlooking the town - shame about the swarm ...

... hiking gear was selling what is reputedly the best chocolate in South America, so we set off on a chocolate crawl down the main street. We decided that we would look at everything, question the staff closely, and each buy one chocolate in each shop we encountered (which we almost entirely kept to). In eight hours we got through 11 shops (with a break for lunch), then gave up defeated. Even more humiliating, we didnīt even complete the four blocks we ...

... ended up dancing on the tables with them and we also bumped into Diego and Jenny that night, promising we'd be up on the mountain the next day snowboarding. After 'several' beers we made it home about 4am and didn't make it out of bed til 2pm the next day (hence no snowboarding on Thursday). We snowboarded last friday in the Cerro Bayo resort. The first 'losing the helmet' story happened whilst we were on the bus on the way up to ...