We awoke
early in the morning on the bus from Mendoza
to our first glimpse of the Patagonian landscape. This vast area comprises the
southern section of the Andes Mountains down to the south west towards the Pacific Ocean. It encompasses both Chile
and Argentina
and we were going to try and see as much as possible in little over 3 weeks. The scenery
was beautiful, lots of green and blue lakes surrounded by large pine forests
with snow-capped mountains in the background. The land is sparsely populated so
towns or even houses were few and far between.
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| Scenery we awoke to on the bus |
We arrived in Bariloche in the
early evening, and after checking into our hostel, set off to explore the town. The town
itself is quaint, it reminded me a lot of a French ski resort with lots of log
cabins and buildings made out of irregular bricks.
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| Some of the local architecture |
Bariloche prides itself on
being the capital of chocolate in Argentina and the main street is packed to the brim with lovely chocolate shops selling every kind of chocolate by the kilo. With this in mind we
helped ourselves to the first of many hot chocolates here.
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| Some of the lovely hot chocolate |
In order to
see a bit more of the surrounding area we rented bikes and cycled for a few
hours around the Nahuel Huapi National Park. The going was easy enough as it seemed mostly downhill. We stopped to have lunch along the way at a deserted
lake.
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| Picnic stop |
Next we took a slight detour to visit a nearby Swiss village. The village
itself was a bit of a let down, but the hot chocolate we treated ourselves to
was not! On the return leg of the cycle the views got more expansive and we
could make out the road we had cycled in the distance behind the large lake
strewn with small islands.
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| Cycling in the National Park |
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| The view from the lookout point |
That
evening after the cycle we decided to treat ourselves to our first steaks in Argentina. We
both ordered the “Bife de Chorizo” or sirloin steak and marvelled at the sheer size
of the steak we were presented with. Its size matched only by the taste,
which was also amazing!
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| Steak time! |
From
Bariloche it was a “short” 30 hour bus trip to El Calafate deep in the heart of
Patagonia. The bus started early in the
morning, and with plenty of cheesy movies to entertain us, the journey seemed
swift. We arrived at midday the following day and after checking into our
hostel signed up for the Asado (Argentinian BBQ) that was taking place that night. There was a mountain
of meat prepared by the chef and plenty of wine to keep the spirits high. We headed to bed afterward still tired from the mammoth bus trip that day.
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| The chef helps himself after dinner |
The main
draw in El Calafate is the nearby Perito Moreno glacier so we decided to get a
bus to the national park the following day to see it. The glacier is
considered to be the only sustainable glacier in the world as it’s actually advancing
each day unlike others which are slowly melting away.
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| At the glacier |
The glacier
itself was massive, disappearing far off into the distance. The slightly blue
tinge to it made it seem almost man made. Every now and then we could hear a
huge crash, as some ice would break off and fall into the icy water below. We
took a boat right up to the face of the glacier which gave us the opportunity
to really appreciate the scale of the thing. Truly amazing! There were also some walkways which you could use to walk right along the face of the glacier and see it from all sides. After a few hours at the glacier we boarded the bus back to El Calafate.
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| Perito Moreno Glacier |
The following day it was onto Chile and to Puerto Natalales in
preparation for the W trek!!
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