Argentina

We woke up early 6:30 am... freezing cold in our makeshift hostel, packed our bags and headed outside to where the mini-bus was to pick us up..... feckin Chalten travel!

We´d payed an extra $65 pesos for the side trip to the Cuave de las manyos and in Bariloche the girl had told us that this included entry and then we´d meet up with the original bus ready for the final part of our journey down to El Chalten.

The mini bus arrived and we all boarded minus our backpacks... these (we were assured) would be placed on the larger bus when we reboarded it later in the day...fine!

The mini bus then shot off along the dirt covered roads, winding up through the hills towards the caves.... obviously time was of the essence based on both the speed we were hurtling along the tracks and that we didn´t stop for anything, including three condors, sat in a field by the side of the road.... or the illusive Ruta Nacional 40 sign either ! We did ask.... however..... feckin Chalten travel!

We pulled up at the Caves some three bumpy hours later and were pointed in the direction of a little hut by the edge of the cliff. Here we were politely informed that there was an entry charge !!!!

OK.... the girl in Bariloche was now definately on my "hit" list! However, it turned out to be $15 pesos each (which isn´t too bad after all) and for this we got a guide (who´s broken English was enough to get by on) so I wasn´t that miffed..... feckin Chalten travel!

We walked down the cliff and the wind hit us.... damn this Patagonian Wind is Cold and Strong !!!

The Caves are impressive in that the Hand prints are easily visible and they´re on the exterior of the walls, so we were surpised that they´d managed to survive this long at all.... being that they ranged from 12 thousand to 2 thousand years old!

90% of the hands were Left hands and there were even prints of Nandu feet, South American Emu´s, (they must have asked the Nandu´s very nicely to stand on the wall!) and some hunting scenes and geometrical shapes also!

Pictures were taken and, now thoroughly frozen, we headed back to the minibus. The apparent Cafe, where we could get a coffee and something to eat (none of which any of us had had that day) was in the process of being "rebuilt"... i.e. CLOSED..... feckin Chalten travel!

The minibus rattled along for another hour or two and then pulled up in a small estancia, literally, in the middle of nowhere! Here we got some food.... at the usual extortionate "Exoticos" prices.

An El Chalten bus pulled up and people started to get off.... however... we didn´t recognise many of them..... maybe it was the bus going North we thought.

Nope.... some 20 Israeli´s had (apparently) suddenly arrived in Perito Moreno.... and now would be travelling on our bus? Which begged the questions... where did all these Israeli´s come from and more importantly... how were we getting to El Chalten?

By Minibus.... but of course..... feckin Chalten travel!

We hopped back on the minibus and started down the remainder of the RN40. We stopped off At an estancia (again in the middle of nowhere... which... coincidentally.... we were informed was owned by the family of the bus driver.... and since the minibus arrived last by the time we got to the food counter... nothing was really left ! Steph had an Apple and I, a small sandwich..... feckin Chalten travel!

The final leg of the journey was relatively uneventful... apart from the mini bus driver missing the petrol station and the clutch almost burning out... however... we finally pulled in (ahead of the main bus) in El Chalten.... at the "Luxurious" Rancho Grande..... hmmmmmm

Our driver was in a rush.... so dropped us off.... pointed us in the direction of the desk in the rancho grande and drove off !!! Half an hour later... the main bus (with our backpacks on) pulled up at the hostel!

An Australian couple travelling with us were put in a dorm (when they´d payed extra for a double), four or five others were given tickets for "alternative" hostels where they would be staying.... However, they weren´t given a map of how to find them... etc. etc...

The Usual Chalten "feckin" travel debacle!

I hope you´re getting the jist of how we feel about Chalten Travel by now....

Steph and I, however, had prebooked our accomadation and walked the ten minutes down the road to the Albergue Patagonia Hostel, where we were greeted with a welcome, a big smile and a lovely hostel!

Ahhh....How good we felt to be in a nice warm bed in a gorgeous hostel that night !

Ahhh.... How good we felt to have planned at least this part of the trip in advance !

Ahhh.... How good we felt to no longer be under the control of .....

Feckin Chalten travel !!!!!

So.... where do I start ????

We checked out of our hostel early in the morning, having decided not to bother with the boat trip around the islands in Bariloche the previous day (it was $160 pesos for a three hour trip seeing most of the things we'd already seen), and headed down to the "Chalten Travel" office, which was where the bus was to pick us up.

It arrived on time at 6:30 am (which was surprising!)

We'd read up about the "Ruta Nacional 40" as it is one of the last remaining "off the beaten track" roads still in Argentina and runs down virtually the entire West Side of Argentina from the very North to the Very South and lots of it is still unsealed.... dust tracks!

We went to the Tourist Information people and did some research for a couple of days and basically came to the conclusions that unless we were doing a 4 days+ safari down or had loads of cash to spend there was basically only one way to get to El Chalten from Bariloche. Chalten Travel.

We arrived in the office and the girl was nice and spoke good English. She showed us the route, told us they have a bus leaving to go south every other day and that it would also stop in the "Cuaves De Los Manjos"... The Cave of the Hands (which is a 12,000 year old cave with a multitude of cave paintings on it's walls and specifically one of the only places we both wanted to go on the way down) It sounded great so we asked the price....

No since there was only one company that did this route, I thought it might be expensive, and consequently, I was prepared for a big number......

$495 pesos........ "how much" I asked......

$495 pesos........ "how much" I asked......

$495 pesos........ But you get a room for two nights and this includes the Cuaves de los manyos side trip......

"how much" I asked......

Luckily Steph was there to ask some more searching questions whilst I dwelled on the price for a little bit longer..........

The Cave side trip was $65 pesos.... not that bad.

We'd heard that the hostel they stopped at in El Chalten was a bit crap, so we'd booked our own hostel which meant that they'd drop $30 pesos from the price... which meant that we'd pay

$465 pesos........ "how much" I asked......

$465 pesos........ Including a Dorm bed in Perito Moreno.......

Now, relatively, $465 pesos doesn´t sound a lot, however, when you compare this to normal bus tickets in Argentina..... which is on a Cama Class bus.... with food and drink etc.....It was expensive.

It works out about 80 pounds... which isn´t that much I know... so after some discussions with Steph we decided to book the trip (since they were the only guys that did it after all!)

The bus was a normal bus... (No Cama class here.... but of course!) so we headed off to El Bolson and Esquel, where some other people got on (so you can get the bus from here if you want) and then we headed good a proper through the mountains aloung RN40.

We knew things were starting to get bad... when the bus driver drove straight past the Ruta 40 Sign post (which is the photo stop everyone on the bus wanted)

After about another 4 hours, we stopped in a tiny little town in the middle of the patagonian steppes. We were offered a Pasta meal at the hotel (affiliated with Chalten travel) for $16 pesos each (which we declined and which were were told was crap anyway) and walked the five minutes to the petrol station for 2 jamon Y queso sandwiches (cheese and ham) for $10 and a bottle of water... we're not giving Chalten Travel any more money I ranted!

Some of the other travellers had sandwiches also and after the dusty stop in the hotel in the middle of nowhere we continued down the route.

We all fell asleep and after a while we pulled into a small Estancia... to rip off the gringo's (once again)... a bottle of water was $6 pesos (normally $3) and again it was just the Chalten travel buses at the place.... there's a common link here I thought!

We were then almost killed by (not the bus driver surprisingly... or even the prices in the stop off point) but, one of the guys doing "The Dump from Hell" in the toilet at the back of the bus.... so bad in fact that half of the people in the back of the bus suddenly decided to come a visit us all in the front of the bus for a while... if it'd been a boat... we'd have capsized

We pulled into Perito Moreno at about 8:30 pm.... 14 hours on a non-cama bus.... ouch!

Now to say Perito Moreno (the town... not the Glacier) was quiet is pretty much...... one of the biggest understatements going!

The place was positively "Morte".... DEAD!

We were dropped into our hostel (not the one we thought we were going to be in... the Hotel Belgrano) but another one... where the mortar in the brickwork was still wet and the guy who owned it had to light the gas heater (for the first time ever me thinks!) .. and it was about 12 blocks from the Hotel Belgrano.

We didn't complain as the dorm was nice(ish)... no locks on the doors or anything... but nice (ish)

We were pointed in the direction of a local cafe (which was closed) and local supermarket (which was closed) and the local bread shop (which was closed) and then finally, the local internet place (which was open.....Whayhaeee) but where it took ten minutes to open a single web page..... yep.... kicking and screaming into the 21st century I tell ya!

We all eventually turned up in the same little restaurant some five blocks fom the hostel. It was good as we all chatted over a Quilmes and began to bond as a group.... most of all ..... it was cheap (obviously not affiliated with Chalten feckin travel !

We waddled back to our hostel and hit the sack, the end of an already eventful Day 1 of the Ruta Nacional 40.... hope tomorrow was better!

We pulled up in Bariloche Station the following morning at about 12 having spent 17 hours on the bus from Trelew, via esquel (and unfortunately bypassing Trevelin... the furthest West of the Welsh settlements)

The bus station was nice so rather than pay for a taxi to the hostel we jumped on a bus and headed for the centre of Bariloche. This was easily done and cheap compared to the taxi... $1.20 pesos each.

We got off in the centre, got our bearings and headed for our hostel. We´d checked into the Ruca Hueney hostel and were greeted with a coffee whilst they cleaned the room (a 4 bed dorm) It was nice enough and we dropped our bags and headed in Bariloche proper.

Bariloche sits perched on the hillside overlooking a rather Picturesque lake with the snow capped mountains in the background. It´s very much like little Switzerland... or so they like to think (looked more like Austria to me!) with log cabins and loads of tourists ambling around the streets. Have found out since that (apparently) a few Nazi´s may (or indeed may not) have settled down here in the late 30´s so maybe that´s where the look and the money´s come from.... well... that was what I heard anyway

It´s the peak time of the year and all the tourists were walking around browsing in the shops and eating Ice cream and chocolate... poor Steph was drooling most of the time we passed one of the shops... but to her credit... managed to refrain til the last day

We went to the El Chalten travel office to see about the "Ruta Nacional 40", after yet another not so nice or helpful woman in the tourist office said there was only the one company that did the route, and then popped into the supermarket to buy 2 litres of Quilmes and some food for tea.

Quilmes.....

Local brew and it costs about $3.50 for a litre in the supermarket. If you take an empty bottle with you, you get $1.50 back... so it works out at $2.50 a litre of beer... 35 pence !!!! and surprisingly, alcoholism doesn´t seem to be too much of a problem here!!!!

So... hangover in tow we booked our bus down to El Chalten for three days later and our hostels etc.... after some wrangling and pigeon spanish conversations on the phone (I´ll explain Chalten travel and the Ruta later...... grrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!)

We also arranged to hire a bike each the following day to do the "Chico route" which is a cycling (and subsequently we were to find our car based) journey around the lakes and some beautiful scenery.

We were up bright and early and went to the bike rental shop for 9am as arranged.... we left three quarters of an hour later having been waiting for the guys to firstly arrive at work and then faff about with the bikes (i.e. pumping the tyres up... which was nice of them!) but they were cheap at $30 for the days hire! Manyana... manyana !

We´d arranged to not cycle the entire chico route (60k´s) and had arranged to drop the bikes off in Colonia Suiza later that night which cut off 15 k´s (thank god!)

So we set off... along the main road and headed towards the Chico route....

Now... to say that the roads were narrow in Bariloche, and especially on the chico route.... was an understatement!

Trucks... articulated lorries... buses... all zoomed past us at top speed literally skimming our elbows as we struggled with the roads... until eventually we gave up and decided to ride on the dirt track on the side of the road... which is where, evidentally, cyclists should cycle.... so an apparently easy 45k jaunt on a sealed road turned suddenly into a 45k off road moutain marathon!!!

Having spent two hours (and some 18k´s) trying our hardest not to get squashed we pulled off the main road and onto the Chico curcuit proper. Here the traffic did improve.. however... we still stayed on the dirt hard shoulder for periods.

We stopped off at a charir lift up one of the mountains and having arranged with the guy at the bottom that he´d watch our bikes for us... had our lunch at the top of the mountain... surrounded by fantastic mountains, beautiful lakes and even the odd tourist!

We picked our bikes up at the bottom of the chairlift (surprised that they were still there!) and set off in the direction of the Llao Llao hotel (which is fantastic and ridiculously expensive... $750 US dollars a night!)

This is where the ferries that tour the surrounding lakes set off from and having noted this for another day, we headed off along the remainder of the Route.

Colonia Suiza is like a little hippy town in the middle of the mountains. It´s much smaller than Bariloche and far...far... more relaxed. It looked like a great place to stay also and most of the walking routes start from around here, so highly recommended for a couple of nights stay if we return!

After an hour of bouncing down a dirt track, we pulled into the place. Dropped our bikes off and promptly downed two litres of Quilmes in the hour before the bus back to Bariloche arrived! We got back to the hostel which was nice and quiet, had a quick tea in the kitchen and went to bed.... shattered!

OK.... we´ve had a bike ride in Argentina now..... no more !!!!

So we rocked up into the City sprawl that was Gaiman.... NOT !
It´s a Tiny little place and the home of the Welsh Speakers in Argentina.

We´d booked into "Gwesty Tywi" and here we met Diego and Brenda (our hosts for the next four nights). The hostel was fantastic and Having spent a few minutes getting our stuff our and into wardrobes and drawers and had a shower in our private ensuite bathroom ...Flash or what.... we headed out for a stroll in Gaiman. The room was only $90 per night and was immaculate.

We went to the museum in town which opened at four and met the tour guide.... who spoke Welsh! Wow... how strange it is to speak Welsh with someone from Argentina! Having had a few minutes of general chit chat.. we were introduced to an older lady who was third generation Welsh and her grandfather had been one of the original settlers to Chubut (the province in Patagonia). Her Grandmother was originally from Holyhead and her Welsh was more North-Walian than South which was interesting.

We went back to the hostel and met Brenda´s mother. She was there with a Welsh couple from Caernarvon who also spoke Welsh and so poor Steph was left for a while listening to us all jabbering away.... me doing my utmost to remember to use "Chi" (the polite way of saying you", however, I did slip up when chatting with Brenda´s mum... who was a bit older) by saying "Mae fy´ghymraeg yn ifernol"... "Ifar" being a not to nice word for "bad" and one of the last words you should use when in a formal situation... she clocked it straight away and being a teacher... I got a stern look and the next day I apologised profusely... If I´d been a pupil.... I´d have been sent to the headmasters office for sure!

We spent four days touring around Gaiman. Visited Trelew which was nice. The Tourist Information office wasn´t too helpful, however, the museum was fantastic and we saw a bone belonging to one of the largest dinosaurs in the world... the Argentisaurus Goliathicus... or something like that ! It was huge.... so we took a picture of Steph stood inbetween it´s back legs with her arms spread wide and she still couldn´t touch either leg! Luckily for her the Dinosaur was long dead else she´d have been in serious trouble had it been taken short... "Death by Dino doo doo"

Diego loaned us his and Brendas bikes for one day and we rode the 10km´s to the Dinosaur park, just south of Gaiman. It was a self interpreted walk up the side of the canyon, leading you to the top where you could look across the entire Chubut river valley, from Trelew in the East to Dolavon (another small Welsh village... really nothing there though! not even a tourist info place!) in the West. It was a nice view and having been thrilled with fossils on the way up well worth the ride there and back... although we were a bit worse for ware by the time we got back to the hostel!

The four days was fantastic and although the town of Gaiman was small, there were a few nice restaurants and a few things to do to entertain you for a few days... although by the fourth day, we were both ready for a change!

We booked our tickets on the direct service from Trelew to Bariloche with Patagonia transport for $160 pesos each and the next day got a lift from Brenda´s mum with the couple from Caernarvon to the bus station and boarded our bus....
Cama class.... but of course!

We woke up and I was presented with a little card from Steph to say happy Birthday (with Happy Birthday written in it in Castellano!... bless !)

Being not that bothered about birthdays (especially mine!) The fact that it was the 27th of Jan was quickly dropped and we wondered what we´d do for the rest of the day.

We Met Roy on the Beach and looked after his stuff while he went swimming and then, we decided we´d give it one last chance and sped off to Punta Norte!

The High Tide was later in the day (about 5pm) so we hung around til about 6:30.

Nothing again... boo hooo

well.... I think we´ve learnt that you can´t expect to see something all the time and also, that the next time we come (which we will!)... it´ll be in mid to late Feb !

Anyway, we headed back to Puerto Piramides and headed to the La Estacion restaurant with Roy for a Birthday feed (Which was fantastic!) after a few cheekies we headed back to the hostel and noticed that we could see a bright star in the sky... although this star had a bright tail spilling out from behing it !

Now I´d heard that there was a comet about at this moment... however... I never thought it would be this clear !

It was fantastic and the McNaught comet covered most of the night sky! It´s the brightest comet for 40 years and will dissappear off into space, never to be seen again !

We crashed out and arranged to pick Roy up at 8am the next day as we had to get the hire car back before 10am.

We dropped Roy off, said goodbye and dropped the hire car off... a little bit dustier than we´d received it... which the guy wasn´t overly amused about... and then headed to the bus station to get the bus to Trelew ($6.50) and then jumped in a cab ($25 fixed costs) to Gaiman... the Capital of "Little Wales"... It was time to forget my rubbish Spanish and get back into my rubbish Welsh! Poor Steph just wanted the next four days to be over ASAP I´m sure