Having a whale of a time!
Trip Start
Dec 03, 2005
1
29
44
Trip End
Jul 19, 2007
Puerto Madryn,
Argentina
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Tigre was an unanticipated short stop as I had arrived a 17:15 and all information and hostal kiosks had shut shop for the day at five on the dot it would seem. Not being able to find anywhere for less than USD$50 a night I had no choice but to head for the bustling capital, Buenos Aires, the largest of the continent with a population of seventeen million in the Greater Buenos Aires area. Having just spent six weeks in Montevideo, Uruguay (one of the smaller capitals of the continent) this place was rather a shock to the system. What a contrast! The main road had ten lanes going each way and there was traffic on all roads at all hours of the day and night.
They say you can't go to Buenos Aires and not see a football match. Well, I broke the rules on that one! Instead I took a wander around town and suburbs, even getting to see Evitas grave. One thing that fascinated me was the number of McDonald's outlets around the capital. On the main road there was a large one on the corner and then only 3 buildings further down there was another one! Can you believe it?
After having just spent six weeks relaxing I was all ready to hit the road again but my unexpected early arrival in Buenos Aires meant I had to wait a week there until Yin Hai arrived. It would seem she liked the look of the pool I had been swimming in for the last eleven months and after a few jumps into the paddling pool she finally took the plunge and bought her ticket to South America. What else could I do to keep me busy but sample the famous Malbec wine of Argentina and what better name to start with than "Dalton"!!!
Argentina reminded me in a way of Brazil, a large country with long travelling distances from one place to the next. Northern Argentina isn't great for the amount of trekking and outdoor things that you can do until you get to Mendoza (the infamous Aconcagua) or south to Bariloche so we did a Zorro down the country going from Buenos Aires to Mendoza to Puerto Madryn and then Bariloche, visiting some places in between but mostly just visiting museums, wildlife, eating Welsh teas and doing lots of wine tasting along the way!
We finally arrived in Bariloche but unfortunately too early as most of the walks in the area were still closed due to too much snow. Yin Hai had signed up for a Spanish course and so I headed off to see the famous "Ruta de los Siete Lagos". I would have definitely preferred to do this on bike to enjoy the true beauty of the place without the tourists but this was not to be. I rented a bike for a day to do the "Circuito Chico" and found that after six hours cycling my knee had given up the ghost and refused to go any further, so I whimpered back like a push-along-Cassidy on the bike. This only left me to do the standard gringo tour and how embarrassed did I feel to be on one of those things again!
Typically I find three ladies wanting to rent a car to visit the route the next day when I have already seen it and am packed up and ready to head off in search of some tree hugging in Villa La Angostura. But some heavenly being must have heard my cries of pain during the tour as I found myself doing it for a second time except this time in a rented car. None of the ladies had their licence with them so I came to the rescue and provided a gold star quality chauffeur service for them.
And so what seemed like a very brief, whirlwind tour of northern Argentina I left for Puerto Montt with the idea of heading south on the Carretera Austral to Patagonia finishing with another one of the highlights of my trip, the Torres del Paine circuit.
