The Great South American Adventure

Hola amigos, que esta arriba? Once again sorry about the long wait between entries, I promise you won't be dissappointed. There's new photos on my flickr site, www.flickr.com/photos/12875483@N00/ so check it out.

Bariloche

I tried to hitchhike from El Bolson to Bariloche, and I was very confident because I had hitched around El Bolson a fair bit which was easy cause it's a really chilled out place and there's heaps hippies, not meant in a derogatory way, so I just kept walking out of town expecting someone to pick me up. One guy gave me a lift further out of town but he wasn't going all the way but he reassured me that someone should pick me up. However, after about 2 hours of walking and waiting in strategically chosen places, no one would pick me up until I jokingly put my thumb out for a bus, which I didn't expect to stop after I had so blatantly shunned there services, but it did, and I'm glad cause by that stage I was quite a way out of town and given my success thus far, I wasn't to confident about being able to hitchhike back. Anyway, when I got to Bariloche I checked into a hostel called the Tango Inn, which was recommended to me by Hernan, the great Argentinian guy who gave me a lift around Puerto Madryn. The Tango Inn was a pretty good hostel, a little far out of town, but it had excellent staff and I met some cool people there. The first of which was Leigh, another Melbonite, who had injured his arm in a mountain bike/smoking accident and was confined to the bar in the hostel and in serious need of a drinking buddy, something I was able to help him out with. The wheather was pretty shitty while I was in Bariloche, however we did manage to go on one excursion to one of the local peaks which had great views of the surrounding lakes, check out my flickr page for photos. Also despite the shitty wheather we decided to go swimming in the lake on one of the nicer days. Despite being one of the nicer days it was still very windy, making the lake very rough and wavey, making the potentially ankle breaking river rocks difficult to negotiate. Also, it was bloody cold, but what can you expect when you can see snow capped mountains surrounding the lake you are swimming in, so the dip didn't last that long, but it made the decidedly average wheather seam quite pleasant by comparrison when we got out. We went out a couple of nights, first to Wilkenny, a large Irish Pub kind of like pugs except with more 70s and 80s music. The second time we definately didn't want to go there again but did when we couldn't find anything else. And the third night we went to South bar, a smaller more atmospheric place, with cheaper drinks and better music, highly recommended, although watch out for sleazy argi guys cutting your lunch. Another night we made a bit of a bon fire on the lake shore which was pretty cool, but it would have been cooler if this damn welsh girl didn't smother it so much. I also met some english guys, Harry, Jasper and Jeremy, there and travelled to Mendoza with them.

Mendoza

Despite leaving 3 hours before the english guys from Bariloche, when I walked got to the hostel, there they were already unpacked and lazing about in our new room. That place, Hostel International, was pretty crappy so we only stayed one night then moved to a better one, called Winkas, highly recomended. In Mendoza, we went wine tasting, as it is where the mort reputable argentinian wines come from, and we weren't disappointed. However, I do regret doing the wine tour on bikes, because despite the brosure for the imaginatively named "bikesandwines" bike hire company making it look like all the wineries were just around the corner from each other, I would say there was an average of about 5km between each. And the bikes were not of the highest or comfiest quality, but what can you expect when the place just gives them away for free because you didn't book and pay at your hostel and the guy could be bothered getting you to fill out the froms, so I can't really complain seeing as I didn´t have to pay. However, if I were to do it again or recomend it to anyone, I would definately take the bus. We also went out a couple of nights, all of which were of fairly high standard and sampled some of the fine quisine on offer in many of the city´s restaurants, but apart from that, theres Not that much to report. The english guys I met in Bariloche went to Santiago, Chile, and now I´m in Cordoba living it up ol South America style. Stay in touch, love hearing from you all, Marc/Plummers.