Wednesday 23 January, 2008

It's been a fairly busy time since our last post so we will try to keep it short, sweet but informative.

The last time we wrote was from Mendoza, Argentina - the renowned stepping stone to a host of large Argentinian wineries. With no wine tours running we high-tailed it out and back over the Andes. Via Santiago (narrowly spotting the sly chilean hand on a bag before it was stolen) and through to Chillán. We spent two days in what was a fairly quaint, quiet town. We caught a local bus to the base of Termas de Chillán (a ski resort) and hiked up but otherwise took it fairly easy.

Pucon, Chile - the Lakes region
We had a great time in Pucon hiking through the rain, hail and snow around lakes in the National Park and relaxing in the 30C+ thermal springs. We were going to climb the snow-covered active Volcan Villarica, but bad weather changed that plan.

Across the border via Panguipilli
From Pucon we decided to take a slightly alternate but very scenic route to cross the border from Chile to Argentina. We headed to small town Panguipulli (Chile) where people were lazing on the beach (which was really the lake) with a snow-covered volcanoe in the background - quite bizarre. Here we managed to catch a local chilean band too.

Our path across the Chile/Argentinian border was very interesting.... we caught a bus from Panguipulli to Puerto Fuy and then a car/passenger ferry across a lake, where it was about 7km to the border. We were assured there would be a bus to take us from the ferry to the border, but when we arrived there was no bus or other form of transport! So with our 20kg+ of luggage each, we began to walk the 7km to cross the border. We tried hitching a ride but no luck - until the chilean police pulled over. They motioned for us to get in the back of their ute - and off we went! They dropped us at the Chilean border, but not further. We then had to walk through no-man's land for 4km to the Argentinian border. From this border we waited for about 2 hours, flagged down a tourist bus and managed to get a ride to San Martin de Los Andes, where we had booked accommodation.

On arriving in San Martin at 8:30pm, we found that our hostel booking had been given away and as there was no petrol in San Martin no one could get out, so all the accommodation (in our budget anyway) was gone! We asked a real estate agent if she could help us, but as she knew of the accommodation shortage, she just asked us to come and stay with her and her UK husband! So we accepted their very generous offer and had a lovely local stay in San Martin with Sonia and John (photo of house to the right). San Martin is where all the elite Argentinians spend their summer and winter holidays and is the base of a ski resort - the locals call it the Argentinian Aspen! With Pete's dodgy knee and windy weather, we spent the day kicking back in our hosts' home drinking coffee and reading books.


From San Martin, we caught the bus to Bariloche, where we are now! We love Bariloche and all the lakes region - it is so unbelievably beautiful and there is so much to do around here! In Bariloche we have been up to the vantage point of Cerro Otto
and took a tour to see the black glacier. (photos - view from Cerro Otto over Bariloche and the black glacier)

We have decided to extend our time in the Chilean and Argentinian lakes region by 2 weeks, so we are not going to Rio for Carnival... a tough decision but we love this area so much and would love to see Rio outside of the Carnival madness. We have hired a car (same as a small barina) and bought some camping gear, so will drive, hike and camp around the lakes region before heading down to Patagonia. (photo - Pete in front of Monte Tronador, Bariloche)

That's it from us for now! Love to all, Pete and Soph