I felt a slight sense of relief to be leaving Buenos Aires. It is a fascinating city, but I´m not the biggest city fan at the best of times, so to be living amongst 13 million other people was a bit daunting for me at times. And the heat......boy it was so damned hot! There were days when you just felt you couldn´t breathe properly and I would often duck into a shop just to cool off in their air conditioning for a bit!We bought ourselves a bus ticket to Bariloche for a quick look around. The bus service in Argentina was nex
t to none. The buses are massive double decker affairs, with air conditioning, recliner seats and a food and drink service. Liz and I managed to get two seats on the top deck right at the front. Very comfy! We were able to put our feet up and watch everything unfold before us, like a giant tv screen. The journey was to take 22 hours, but it actually went very quickly. We were both very excited to be seeing some of the country on the way down but all we got was a very, very straight road which divided up miles upon miles of pampa grass on the left and.....oh wait, pampas grass on the right too!
But every so often there would be a bend in it which was pretty exciting and I was almost beside myself when we passed another vehicle....!
Hmmmm, I couldn´t help feel a little disappointed with the landscape and I am sure I share my view with the wildlife too as there was none to speak of! Not even any roadkill!!
About an hour away from Bariloche the landscape started to change and the flatness in the distance started to have bumpy bits! About time.......!
Bariloche (or San Carlos de Bariloche for those map viewers) can be easily summed up as a larger scale version of Queenstown, in the South Island of New Zealand. It is very much a mecca for the ski-bunnies in the winter, but during the summer it thrives on the tourism for the surrounding hikes in another National Park called Nahuel Huapi. Almost all of the property tries to gain it´s own view of Lago Nahuel Huapi below and there a beautiful rolling hills with snowy peaks all around you. But as with Queenstown in the peak season, the place didn´t actually do anything for me (may be I´m just getting too old for this party scene)! and apart from one particularly good chocolate shop, Bariloche was only good for picking up more camping supplies so we didn´t stay long enough to find out whom this Nahuel Huapi chap was. May be on the way back through, but for now we were keen to catch the bus to Rio Gallegos in lieu of finding a connection up to Puerto Natales on the Chilean side. Puerto Natales would be the base for our first (and probably our longest) hike in Parque Nacional, Torres del Paine.
Whilst on route to Rio Gallegos we made a few stops to queue for the loo or eat empanadas and then we´d all clamber back on board again to get some shut-eye or watch a movie. On one of these stops I got chatting to Michael whom was travelling with his wife Kaylene and their little boy Jack all the way from Perth. They had been on the road for four months and were a month away from heading home. They were going to try and get a bus from Rio Gallegos up to Calafate.
When we finally reached Rio Gallegos Liz ran into the ticket office to try and find a bus straight back out again to Puerto Natales and I went on the bag mission. It is not uncommon to have your bags nicked from the luggage compartments on these little missions so Liz and I would always make sure we got tickets for our packs and then we´d watch them put them on board. As soon as the bus stopped one of us would rush down to keep guard again in case any one tried any funny business. I actually got the feeling they would be pretty safe in Argentina/Chile but we felt it was good practice for the less ´dodgy´ countries we plan to visit!
Unfortunately Liz came back from the ticket office empty handed. The next bus out to Puerto Natales wasn´t due to leave for another 3 or 4 days so since the Aussies had been kind enough not to mention England´s miserable Ashes attempt we decided to get a bus to El Calafate with them instead. Back on board another bus 20 minutes later for another 4 or 5 hours! Yipee!
Why didn´t we chose to stay in Rio Gallegos you say? Because the only thing it´s good for is some seriously good trout fishing. Rio Gallegos is the haunt of some of the most spectacularly sized, sea-going brown trout anywhere in the world, but I´d forgotten my rod and I haven´t tied a fly since I was 20-something!
