Crossing the border from Chile into Argentina involved a spectacular bus ride over the Andes. The road climbed very steeply in a dozens of switchbacks until we were passing ski resorts and the last remnants of snow from last winter. The border post itself is at almost the highest point of the pass and is inside a giant shed to protect it from the winter elements. It was also the slowest border crossing we had experienced so far. Descending into Argentina we headed for the city of Mendoza and got a brief glimpse of Aconcagua, the tallest mountain in the Americas.
Mendoza is the centre of a huge wine growing region and we spent our 4 days in the city making the most of this. We spent 3hrs one afternoon having a 7 course meal with paired wines at the Casarena vineyard in Lujan. Whilst expensive for our travellers budget, we paid a fraction of the price that such a meal would cost back in Europe. Both food and wine were fantastic, along with the views across vineyards and onto the snowcapped mountains. The pastrami with chickpea puree and the fillet steak were particular highlights of the meal. A great way to visit as many vineyards as possible is to hire bikes and cycle between them. We visited 4 different vineyards experiencing a small family run business and a huge commercial operation with a couple in between. The Malbec wines (for which the region is internationally famous) were amazing, but Merlot and sparkling wines were also very good. The highlight of the day was tasting some wine straight from the barrel at a tiny organic wine producers late in the afternoon. That evening our hostel put on an asado (Argentinian BBQ) with more meat than we could handle.
Next up we headed to the city of Cordoba for a few days. We enjoyed a couple of walking tours, reading our books in the huge park and tasting the local delicacy of Choripan. This is a hotdog with a chorizo sausage and endless toppings of onions, pickles, tomatoes and various things I can't name! Cordoba would be a great city to be a student (several of the nations top universities are here) or live, but we found little to occupy the tourist for more than a day. There are many great bars, restaurants, cafes and live music venues in which to while away the days, but on a travellers budget we couldn't afford to do this too often. Whilst in Cordoba we also experienced our first major problem with a hostel. Unfortunately on consecutive days the local authorities decided to switch off first the water and then the gas supply to the entire street. Understandably this made washing and cooking very difficult.
Our next stop was the capital of Buenos Aires. In contrast, our hostel here was very good and had a great breakfast included. At this point it seems sensible to mention Fiona's new favourite food, Dulce de Leche. This is a very sweet caramel concoction of condensed milk and sugar that the Argentinians seem to put on everything. Ben was sceptical at first, finding it too sweet, but came to appreciate a dollop of dulce in the morning's porridge. We had a great time in Buenos Aires and would happily return as there are so many things we didn't do. Our first day was spent on a walking tour of part of the centre and the district of Recoleta. Spending even a short time in this neighbourhood it is clear why the city was known as the Paris of the South. The nobility spent much of the late 19th Century building bigger and bigger homes, churches and palaces in various European styles to compete with each other and show off. There are several boulevards that could easily be dropped into Paris and no-one would notice. Interestingly Argentina was the 5th richest nation in the world at the end of the 19th Century and the future looked bright. However the country has little natural resources and had no manufacturing industry at the time, instead relying on cheap agricultural exports to afford to import anything it needed. After the crash of 1929 the world stopped buying Argentina's goods and the economy has struggled along ever since.
One of the bizarre highlights of the city is a visit to the Recoleta cemetery. This is where the rich and famous of Argentina were buried (and in some few cases still are). It is a city within a city, where each mausoleum has an address and the streets names. Even in death the founding fathers of the nation were determined to show they were better than their neighbours by building bigger and grander tombs. Eva Peron is buried here in her families tomb and her grave is the most visited often with a queue along the street. We also learned about a young girl who urban legend has it was buried alive after suffering 'catalepsy'. A graveyard worker noticed her coffin had moved one day and suspecting robbery opened it to find deep scratches on the inside of the lid and bruises on her hands. Our guide told us that the phrase 'saved by the bell' has it's origins from people who were scared of being buried when not actually dead having bells installed in their coffins so upon waking up they could ring the bell and be rescued. Although it makes a good story and such things did happen we are not sure that is actually where the phrase comes from.
We also visited the colourful streets of Boca, a neighbourhood surrounding the cities docks and home of the famous Boca Juniors football club. Neither of us are big football fans, but football is such an integral part of the culture here that we couldn't resist visiting the giant Bombanero stadium. Whilst in the city Argentina played Colombia in a qualifying match for the next world cup and a significant portion of the city wore there national shirt with the name of Lionel Messi on the back that day. Finally we couldn't leave Buenos Aires without experiencing Tango. We had a short lesson, followed by dinner and then a Tango show at one of the many venues in the city. Although aimed entirely at tourists and a bit cheesy, we had a lot of fun and saw some very impressive dancing.
Leaving Buenos Aires we took our first flight since landing in Bogotá, having travelled entirely by land across the continent until now. We flew down to the town of El Calafate in Patagonia. We would spend about 3 weeks in Patagonia between Argentina and Chile and it was high on the list of places we were looking forward to most. We spent a few days in El Calafate itself visiting an interesting museum about the science of and history of exploration of glaciers and enjoying the Patagonian delicacy of grilled lamb. The main reason for visiting the town, however, was to do a day trip to the Perito Moreno glacier nearby. The scenery on the bus trip there was stunning; grass steppes gave way to evergreen forests and snowcapped mountains and finally to our first glimpse of the glacier itself. Neither of us had ever seen anything like it before, it was amazing. Most glaciers in the world move up to several meters per year, some are almost static, but this one moves up to 2m per day! The noise as it moved along was incredible. Loud creaks and groans followed by a roar like thunder or a huge explosion as huge chunks fell off into the lake. Two hours quickly passed as we walked along the paths on the peninsula nearest the glacier, hardly daring to take our eyes off it lest we miss a 'calving'. This is the term used to describe when a giant chunk of ice breaks free from the glacier. The glacier metaphorically gives birth to an iceberg. Fortunately we did see such an event and it was spectacular.
Next up we headed down to the shore to catch a boat across to the glacier itself. We put on some crampons and followed our guide out onto the ice. We spent an hour and a half going up and down slopes, gazing into clear blue pools and even tasting some glacier water. Again we have run out of superlatives to describe the experience. Needless to say, we had fun and enjoyed ourselves.
Leaving El Calafate we headed north to the small town of El Chaltén to spend a week hiking. The town has a permanent population of just a few hundred but this swells in late spring to a few thousand as it is one of the continents top hiking destinations. There are some multi-day treks and world class rock climbing in the area, but we stuck to day hikes. We enjoyed 3 long day hikes to the base of Mount Fitzroy, Laguna Torre and Loma del Peligue Tumbado. The first of these included a very steep climb up the last kilometre to enjoy a view of the huge towers of rock rising from the lake. The hike to Laguna Torre culminated in another glacier and a view (obscured by cloud) of another famous peak, Cerro Torre. The final of these 3 walks was to a viewpoint overlooking both of the valleys visited in the previous treks and gave great views of the whole area. We were also lucky enough to spot a few condors on this day. The rest of our time in El Chalten was spent relaxing on the days between the big hikes or doing shorter hikes to waterfalls or other viewpoints. The week acted as great preparation for the 5 day trek in Chile we were to begin a few days later......
Mendoza is the centre of a huge wine growing region and we spent our 4 days in the city making the most of this. We spent 3hrs one afternoon having a 7 course meal with paired wines at the Casarena vineyard in Lujan. Whilst expensive for our travellers budget, we paid a fraction of the price that such a meal would cost back in Europe. Both food and wine were fantastic, along with the views across vineyards and onto the snowcapped mountains. The pastrami with chickpea puree and the fillet steak were particular highlights of the meal. A great way to visit as many vineyards as possible is to hire bikes and cycle between them. We visited 4 different vineyards experiencing a small family run business and a huge commercial operation with a couple in between. The Malbec wines (for which the region is internationally famous) were amazing, but Merlot and sparkling wines were also very good. The highlight of the day was tasting some wine straight from the barrel at a tiny organic wine producers late in the afternoon. That evening our hostel put on an asado (Argentinian BBQ) with more meat than we could handle.
Good wine and food in Mendoza
Next up we headed to the city of Cordoba for a few days. We enjoyed a couple of walking tours, reading our books in the huge park and tasting the local delicacy of Choripan. This is a hotdog with a chorizo sausage and endless toppings of onions, pickles, tomatoes and various things I can't name! Cordoba would be a great city to be a student (several of the nations top universities are here) or live, but we found little to occupy the tourist for more than a day. There are many great bars, restaurants, cafes and live music venues in which to while away the days, but on a travellers budget we couldn't afford to do this too often. Whilst in Cordoba we also experienced our first major problem with a hostel. Unfortunately on consecutive days the local authorities decided to switch off first the water and then the gas supply to the entire street. Understandably this made washing and cooking very difficult.
Making a new friend
Our next stop was the capital of Buenos Aires. In contrast, our hostel here was very good and had a great breakfast included. At this point it seems sensible to mention Fiona's new favourite food, Dulce de Leche. This is a very sweet caramel concoction of condensed milk and sugar that the Argentinians seem to put on everything. Ben was sceptical at first, finding it too sweet, but came to appreciate a dollop of dulce in the morning's porridge. We had a great time in Buenos Aires and would happily return as there are so many things we didn't do. Our first day was spent on a walking tour of part of the centre and the district of Recoleta. Spending even a short time in this neighbourhood it is clear why the city was known as the Paris of the South. The nobility spent much of the late 19th Century building bigger and bigger homes, churches and palaces in various European styles to compete with each other and show off. There are several boulevards that could easily be dropped into Paris and no-one would notice. Interestingly Argentina was the 5th richest nation in the world at the end of the 19th Century and the future looked bright. However the country has little natural resources and had no manufacturing industry at the time, instead relying on cheap agricultural exports to afford to import anything it needed. After the crash of 1929 the world stopped buying Argentina's goods and the economy has struggled along ever since.
Walking around Buenos Aires
One of the bizarre highlights of the city is a visit to the Recoleta cemetery. This is where the rich and famous of Argentina were buried (and in some few cases still are). It is a city within a city, where each mausoleum has an address and the streets names. Even in death the founding fathers of the nation were determined to show they were better than their neighbours by building bigger and grander tombs. Eva Peron is buried here in her families tomb and her grave is the most visited often with a queue along the street. We also learned about a young girl who urban legend has it was buried alive after suffering 'catalepsy'. A graveyard worker noticed her coffin had moved one day and suspecting robbery opened it to find deep scratches on the inside of the lid and bruises on her hands. Our guide told us that the phrase 'saved by the bell' has it's origins from people who were scared of being buried when not actually dead having bells installed in their coffins so upon waking up they could ring the bell and be rescued. Although it makes a good story and such things did happen we are not sure that is actually where the phrase comes from.
One of the streets in Recoleta cemetery
We also visited the colourful streets of Boca, a neighbourhood surrounding the cities docks and home of the famous Boca Juniors football club. Neither of us are big football fans, but football is such an integral part of the culture here that we couldn't resist visiting the giant Bombanero stadium. Whilst in the city Argentina played Colombia in a qualifying match for the next world cup and a significant portion of the city wore there national shirt with the name of Lionel Messi on the back that day. Finally we couldn't leave Buenos Aires without experiencing Tango. We had a short lesson, followed by dinner and then a Tango show at one of the many venues in the city. Although aimed entirely at tourists and a bit cheesy, we had a lot of fun and saw some very impressive dancing.
Outside La Bombonera
Colourful streets of Boca
Leaving Buenos Aires we took our first flight since landing in Bogotá, having travelled entirely by land across the continent until now. We flew down to the town of El Calafate in Patagonia. We would spend about 3 weeks in Patagonia between Argentina and Chile and it was high on the list of places we were looking forward to most. We spent a few days in El Calafate itself visiting an interesting museum about the science of and history of exploration of glaciers and enjoying the Patagonian delicacy of grilled lamb. The main reason for visiting the town, however, was to do a day trip to the Perito Moreno glacier nearby. The scenery on the bus trip there was stunning; grass steppes gave way to evergreen forests and snowcapped mountains and finally to our first glimpse of the glacier itself. Neither of us had ever seen anything like it before, it was amazing. Most glaciers in the world move up to several meters per year, some are almost static, but this one moves up to 2m per day! The noise as it moved along was incredible. Loud creaks and groans followed by a roar like thunder or a huge explosion as huge chunks fell off into the lake. Two hours quickly passed as we walked along the paths on the peninsula nearest the glacier, hardly daring to take our eyes off it lest we miss a 'calving'. This is the term used to describe when a giant chunk of ice breaks free from the glacier. The glacier metaphorically gives birth to an iceberg. Fortunately we did see such an event and it was spectacular.
Perito Moreno Glacier
Next up we headed down to the shore to catch a boat across to the glacier itself. We put on some crampons and followed our guide out onto the ice. We spent an hour and a half going up and down slopes, gazing into clear blue pools and even tasting some glacier water. Again we have run out of superlatives to describe the experience. Needless to say, we had fun and enjoyed ourselves.
Ice, ice, baby....
Looking cool...
Leaving El Calafate we headed north to the small town of El Chaltén to spend a week hiking. The town has a permanent population of just a few hundred but this swells in late spring to a few thousand as it is one of the continents top hiking destinations. There are some multi-day treks and world class rock climbing in the area, but we stuck to day hikes. We enjoyed 3 long day hikes to the base of Mount Fitzroy, Laguna Torre and Loma del Peligue Tumbado. The first of these included a very steep climb up the last kilometre to enjoy a view of the huge towers of rock rising from the lake. The hike to Laguna Torre culminated in another glacier and a view (obscured by cloud) of another famous peak, Cerro Torre. The final of these 3 walks was to a viewpoint overlooking both of the valleys visited in the previous treks and gave great views of the whole area. We were also lucky enough to spot a few condors on this day. The rest of our time in El Chalten was spent relaxing on the days between the big hikes or doing shorter hikes to waterfalls or other viewpoints. The week acted as great preparation for the 5 day trek in Chile we were to begin a few days later......
Mount Fitzroy
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