The Great South American Adventure

Cordoba was pretty cool. It`s the second biggest city in Argentina, after Buenos Aires, and there was a fair bit of stuff to do there. I travelled to Cordoba on bus overnight from Mendoza with an english guy named Ledger who is a friend of Harry, Jasper and Jeremy who met up with us in Mendoza. After trying another hostel which was full, looked crap anyway, we booked into a hostel called Baluch, which was in a renovated big old apartment down town which was cool, highly recomended. First thing we did was not much. We watched a lot of dvds in our first days there, including such classics as Madagascar and fight club. This is how we met Clarisa and Charlie, an unlikely pair of poms (oh yeah, alliteration) travelling together. In an rare moment of motivation, we decided to go out one night to a club called mitre. Not a bad place, questionable music, but that was made acceptable by the abbundace of good looking argentinian women.

One of our other notible excursions was to Villa Carlos Paz, a nice little town on a river about 40min bus ride out of town, which only cost 4.50 pesos. Our objective was to do some karting, but first, we were hungry, so we went to an italianish looking restaurant by the river. Everyone else got lasagna which was questionable in quality (more alliteration, god i`m good) but not as questionable as my order of the menu of the day, a local delicasy that would best be described as fat soup, kind of like a stew with pieces of fat instead of meat and no vegetables. However, the soupy part was pretty nice and I thought I had made a pretty good go at it until the waiter asked me if i didn`t like it, because I left all the pieces fat, assuming you weren`t supposed eat them. However the expression of doubt on waiters the waiters face when I said I did enjoy it would suggest otherwise. Anyway, after lunch we went go-karting which was good fun. There were some passes, powerslides (not actually that good for mainting speed, usually resulting in being passed) and a few good crashes, that i`m sure couldn`t have been avoided, after we were told that they weren`t dodgem cars and bumping is stricly forbidden.

After Charlie and Clarisa left us for Mendoza, me and ledger went to another little town outside of the city on another minibus called Alta Gracia, where a certain Ernesto Guevara spent most of his childhood. We went to one of the houses where he lived when he was a child where there is a museum dedicated to him, displaying photos, letters and other memorabilia, including the same model of motorbike as that which he travelled on around argentina, and got a photo next to it (so gringo). It was interesting to learn about his family and his childhood but it didn`t really explain much about what he did as an activist. I´ll have to wiki it sometime.

By that stage, it was only one day until the Rally of Cordoba, which is part of the world rally championship. So I stayed around for that and we went to a stadium event, which was really cool, and one of the stages out in the countryside. Also very cool. They drive really fast. Check out the photo`s on my flickr site www.flickr.com/photos/12875483@N00/ and check out this video

How cool is that! Anyway, hope you`ve enjoyed the entry and keep up the comments, I love hearing from you, and stay tuned for more TALES OF INTEREST

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.

What up yo? Happy Easter everyone. How are you all going? Things are going pretty well over here. Puerto Madryn was good, saw some sea lions, elephant seals and a shite load of penguins. I met a couple good blokes from Buenos Aires, Hernan and Gaston, at the hostel in Puerto Madryn. Hernan had his car with him and was going to Peninsula Valdez so I took full advantage of that and got a lift with him. We stayed on the Peninsula at Puerto Pirimides for a night, which was good cause it meant we didn´t have to rush around the place trying to see everything in one day. Unfortunately we did not see any killer whales, despite going to the most likely place to see them at the most likely time two days in a row and waiting a total of about 8 hours. Oh well, there´s always documentaries. A couple of days later, after returning to Puerto Madryn, we went down to Punta Tombo, which was awesome. There is a massive Magellan Penguin colony there, and there is a path that goes right through there nesting area and up to the beach where they were always getting in and out of the water and swimming around in the shallows. It was so cool because they were always on the path and you just walked among them. Photos coming soon.

From Puerto Madryn, I took a bus to Esquel, which was pretty nice but I didn´t really do much there, because there wasn´t really much to do. I did walk to a small lake, which was pretty crap cause the walk was along a dusty road, instead of like a beaten track through forrests, and I watched a kids soccer game which was pretty good quality, on my way out of town. I hitchhiked to El Bolson with a father and daughter from Spain. They were pretty nice. The daughter had just moved over to Buenos Aires and the father had come over to do some travelling with her. I found all that out speaking only spanish, how good am I. In El Bolson, I have been working on a WWOOF farm, which is very chilled out and has been very kind on the budget. Work has included collecting rocks and shovelling dirt. I came down to town today, also hitch hiking, to check out the local handi craft market. I stopped to watch a street performer who was mainly juggling and joking with the crowd, and he asked me to come forward to throw flaming clubs to him while he balanced on a board on top of a cylinder on top of a box. I thought why me as he got the crowd to applaud until I got up and explained to him that I was Australian and didn´t really understand his instructions but he just forwarded this information to the crowd and laughed it off. It wasn´t so funny when he didn´t catch the third burning club cause I threw it to the wrong hand. And after the trick, which was the finale, he asked if I wanted to give him money, then made a joke about how little I gave him. Anyway, it´s all good. From here I´m going to go to Bariloche, probably on monday. Until then, stay tuned for more TALES OF INTEREST.

There are more photos at my flickr site

www.flickr.com/photos/12875483@N00/

from Peninsula Valdez, Cueva de Las Manos and my hikes around El Chalten. Hope you like them. Thanks for all the comments, it´s great to hear from you all,

Plummers

So what have I been up to lately. I went to El Chalten and that was pretty nice. I did a bit of bushwalking there. On the first one I thought I was doing pretty good, everyone had said that it was a pretty hard walk, and I thought I was just some naturally tallented hiker, without any training at all. That was until i reached the last couple of hundred meters or so, over which the track rose a couple of hundred meters (about 45 degrees). By the time I got to the top I was absolutely buggard and the Fitz Roy (big granite rock at the top) had just been covered up by clouds and it started to rain.
But enough whinging, I made it and I´ve got the photo to prove it and that´s what matters. I took the next day off to recover and the day after I did another hike which, wheather wise, proved equally disappointing. The wind at my destination was the strongest i have ever experienced. That in itself was pretty cool, but the main attraction was once again covered in cloud. That walk was a lot
easier than the previous one though and in the end was quite pleasant (how boringly lame ). The day after that I got a bus further north toward Perito Moreno, but I decided to stay at
an Estancia (ranch) 75km out of town cause my guide book said it was cheap and I thought it would be cool to gaucho (cowboy) it up for a couple of days. When I arrived there were no other guests there and there was no electricity. The "local" attraction there is La Cueva de Las Manos (Cave of Hands), which the owners of the estancia told me was about a 3 hour walk away, from where I could return by car, I think, because they only spoke spanish and thought that talking faster made it easier to understand. However, I thought that compared to my previous hikes this would be a piece o cake. After about 5 hours walking, following a badly signed track I finally made it and it was pretty cool, 9,000 year old cave paintings mostly of hands, juanacos and hunters. But at the end of the tour when I asked about getting a lift home the guide looked at me blankly and basically said that there were no cars there and he didn´t think
anymore people were going to come that day. It was about 5 o´clock by that stage so I thought I was going to have to walk back and arrive by about 10pm. Luckily another tourist came to see the paintings, did the tour then gave me a lift even though he wasn´t going to go that way. The day after that, which was yesterday, I hitched a ride into Perito Moreno, cause that was the only way into town. I started hitching at about 10am and got a lift at about 12:30pm. In Poreto Moreno I managed to find the bus station after wondering round in circles and asking for directions about 5 times. I caught a bus to Comodoro Rivadavia, which arrived at 10pm and I thought I was going to stay there the night but there was an overnight bus to Puerto Madryn, my intended destinations so I thought I´d kill 2 birds with 1 stone, transport and accomodation. Unfortunately sleeping on the bus wasn´t that comfy, and I awoke this morning with a terrible feeling in my neck to the sound of the driver telling me we´ve arrived after an estimated 2 or 3 hours sleep. Anyway, the plan is to stay here for a while and check out the penguins, seals, dolphins and hopefully an killer whale. Keep up the comments, I know Daino that I´ve written a long winded entry again. Shut up! Peace out, I´m going to sleep.