Malos Aires
I'm not sure if the translation is correct, but today... There is no good air in Buenos Aires, my eyes sometimes even start watering sometimes when I'm near especially polluted streets.
Breakfast was rather simple, bread with different types of jam I don't like, so I just ate a lot of bread and set out to find busline 64. I took bus 64 to Caminito, a famous poor neighbourhood in Buenos Aires which is heavily guarded and shown to tourists, but I got there very early (9.30ish) so there were hardly any tourists. Now why did I have to take a bus? Because Caminito is on the other side of "La Boca" a very tough neighbourhood of Buenos Aires where daytime muggings and robberies aren't uncommon, so me being a bit paranoid of my posesions, combined with a 1,5 DKK busticket (20 eurocent roughly) it really was a nobrainer decision. The neighbourhood is very colourful, but very small and there were almost as many police officers as tourists. I caught the bus halfway back to Avenida Paseo Colón and walked my way back, seeing some really beautiful buildings, much in the same style as Santiago, just a bit more dirty (quite a bit actually) and eventually made my way to Plaza de Mayo with a beautiful statue, more grand buildings, walked to the end of the square, headed down the pedestrian street Florida and took a left after 4 blocks, leading me up to Avenida Corrientes, still hunting for a netcafe where I can burn DVD's and because the operator of my floor at the hostel highlighted it on my map, although I have no idea why, it is a big street, but it was very busy, very noisy, very polluted and VERY ugly; there is nothing to see here. And still no netcafe's here allow burning of DVD's, althought one did but they were to incompetent (despite speaking English) to burn a DVD.
I walked back up the main square of the city, walked down another big avenue; and eventually found a netcafe to burn DVD's, although it wouldn't allow me to copy my DVD #2, which is now lost forever (the one my father received doesn't work properly either), but when I get home to Denmark, I will try and save what I can, but it is certainly sad. However all the best pictures are stored on flickr, although the quality has been degraded to make it easier to upload.
Back at the hostel I had agreed to meet with Karen and Ilene, two Australian girls at 21, and we would then go to dinner at La Cabrera, recommended to me by the Danish girl who lives in Buenos Aires that I met in Uruguay two months ago, but by that time a lot of people had been invited along (which was great), and we ended up going 9 peope. Karen (Australia), Ilene (Australia), Jane (Australia), Becky (England), Anne Dorthe (Norway), Jon (Norway), Eric (Wisconsin, USA), Modaku (Japan) and me (Denmark...). When we got there it was absolutely stuffed, but we only had a one and half hour wait befor we got in. In the meantime we went to a bar, sat down and talked.
Once we got into the restaurant, we figured out why it was really expensive, not only did you share an order between two people, the portions were massive, and together with Anne Dorthe we ordered an ojo de bife, which was beyond this world, it was just so juicy and tasty, it almost sent me into orbit. To go with it, I had spanish cut french fries (think slices of potato, fried on a pan) with scrambled eggs poured over it, and it was just so amazing; there really aren't words to describe a culinary experience like that one. We got in at 23:00 but didn't leave till around 01:30, and by the time we were leaving, it wasn't raining, it was pouring... The skies had just opened up and created a waterfall over Buenos Aires (which made me feel sorry for the protesters; the government is trying to heavily increase tax on meat, so the farmers are protesting, and the fact that we could get meat at the restaurant, was incredibly, most of the city has run out), but just like getting there, we caught a cab back to the hostel, and relaxed for a while before the clock struck 02:30 and we all went to bed.
P.s. One of the people I met on Easter Island, Marko Kulju (I didn't mention him as I didn't talk that much to him), has been arrested and is being charged for destruction of national heritage (a moai), and the government is hoping to give him 7 years in jail. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7313878.stm
I think it is fair enough, it's a horrible thing to do, and there really is no excuse for it.
Santiago -> Buenos Aires
24th of March: I got up early and cooked some porage (the local bakery doesn't open until 8.30, so no bread or eggs), and took the metro to the bus terminal. The metro in Santiago is rather unique (as to what I have seen), they took a lot of trains, took the normal wheels off and equipped them with normal bus wheels, so instead of rails they have concrete floors. But they still have rails, which instead are attached to the trains to keep them in the right direction, so they don't fly off somewhere else. The bus terminal was fine, a few shops, orderly information and I easily found my bus and got on it. The border crossing was the slowest yet (2 hours and 40 minutes) and was apparently in a height of 2800 meters (in the Andes). However in Mendoza the story was quite different, so far that is officially the worst bus terminal in the history of bus terminals, 60 super busy terminals (yup, they have the same word, the building they are in, and the individual stops for the buses) with no information what so ever (so a couple hundred people all trying to find their bus in a tiny building. You literally had to force your way through (not easy with a huge backpack), hold onto your wallet (and other valuables) and walk in endless circles trying to find your bus, check for new arrivals and what time they leave and for where, as there was no information in any way what so ever. I found my bus 20 minutes after it was supposed to leave (it was late, it wasn't me who hadn't seen it in time), got on-board, watched the movie (Shooter) and fell asleep. 25th of March: I arrived in Buenos Aires exactly two months and one day since I had last been here, but unlike last time I arrived 2 hours later, at 10:50 instead of 8:50. I made my way to the hostel via the Buenos Aires metro, which is very smelly, very dirty and mentally cheap (roughly 1DKK or 13 eurocent). My hostel is wonderful, clean, airy, nicely temperated and with amazing views from the sixth floor where I am staying. After having showered and eaten, I went out to find a netcafe where I could burn my pictures to a DVD (fifth DVD so far), but after having visited 25 netcafe's or so, I gave up. It may be possible in tiny towns like Futaleufú with 1800 inhabitants, but in a huge city with 13 million inhabitants? Certainly not... Which really is a shame.
Back at the hostel I started reading in my new book (in fact, I had read one chapter already), The Odyssey by Homer, but after having read one chapter, a Norwegian girl started talking to me (yes, a Scandinavian!), her name is Anne Dorte, and check this... She's from Trysil. We started talking and after a little while we were joined by none other than Eddie from Futaleufú and later by another Norwegian (now it's crawling with Scandinavians) Jon, two Australians whose names elude me at the moment as well as some random people here and there. However around 22 o'clock a lot of people left for dinner (I had eaten a huge lunch), and by 23:40 it was just me and Anne Dorte again, so I went to bed (had had a long trip to Buenos Aires), only to find someone else in it, so I had to find another bed, get new linen and then go to bed (that did annoy me endlessly).
The Oregon Girl
I woke up and had the included breakfast, for the first time in Bariloche not having a specific time to get up. It didn't take long before Dave left as his bus was at 12 o'clock, it was a good goodbye, we had traveled together for only a week, but Dave is a thoroughly good guy, and I wish him all the best on the remainder of his travel. Before leaving myself (on a 14 0´clock bus) I said my farewells to Eyal and Rachel.
The bus started at Bariloche, and so loaded on a lot of people, delaying the departure by about 30 minutes, but that didn't matter much, my destination was Valdivia, and it was only a place where I intended to find a bed, sleep and get the earliest bus to Pucon the next day. But the busride had a good factor, I sat next to a girl called Lindsay from Oregon, but who lived half the year in Alaska (not exactly sure if it was a half year) guiding groups around the wilderness, it sounded very exciting. But of all my bus trips, it was by far the best unexpected company I have had. She was only going to Osorno (a couple of stops before Valdivia), so I slept for the last part.
When I arrived in Valdivia I found a cheap hostel (6000 peso is cheap in Valdivia unfortunately), ate a sandwich and went early to bed as I had bought a 6.50 ticket to Pucon for the next day.
7 Lakes + Extra Day
8th of March (pictures on flickr):
Dave and I got up early as we had to meet Eyal and Rachel early for the car. We ate some of the wonderful breakfast the hostel serves and went to the Marco Polo Inn (where Eyal and Rachel stays), where we found out that Rachel was ill and would stay at the hostel, while Eyal, Dave and I drove around the seven lakes. I felt that renting the car was already expensive, and sharing 286 pesos 3 ways is even more expensive than sharing it 4 ways. But off we got, and even though Eyal was used to automatic gears, and Dave to driving in the left side of the road, everything went fine.
When we came to the first village, we stopped and Eyal and Dave had some mate (I tasted it, and found it much too sweet as Eyal had added sugar), and we got to try some Havanna chocolate biscuits, really good.
We continued on and made it to San Martin, which is the end of the line; here Eyal and Dave played 3 games of pool, which ended in a 1-2 score in Eyal's favour. I should mention that on this day there was extraordinarily grey, with the latter part of the day having rain. But the views were absolutely gorgeous, and I can scarcely imagine what it would be like on a very good day. We eventually made it back to Bariloche (around 21 o´clock) after a long beautiful day, and finished the day by eating at a fantastic Mexican restaurant called DÃaz de Zapata (days of shoes) where all of us had fajitas.
Back at the hostel, Dave, Reut, two Israeli girls and I sat down and talked from about midnight till 2 in the morning, it was very nice, but by that time I was absolutely knackered
9th of March:
I really don't like "these days". Especially the weather played tricks on us; yesterday when we drove around the 7 lakes we had bad weather, and for the entire duration of this day, I didn't see one cloud... Not even the tiniest wisp of cloud at the edge of the horizon, it was just blue, blue, blue and blue. But the day wasn't without thrills, for example I spent an hour walking to the bus stop, bought my ticket for the 10th, and walked an hour back!
But both Dave and I had overslept, as we were supposed to be up early to return the car. But Eyal came round and made sure we got up and ate breakfast. We then (all 3 of us for some reason) went to return the car, which to our surprise happened very frictionless (they always try and go for some more money).
After doing a check of my picture DVD #2 (DVD 1-3 made it home to my father by mail, but DVD 2 didn't work) which works, I went back to the hostel and met up with Reut, Dave and the two Israeli girls, and together we went to the chocolate museum in the town. Few people know this, but Bariloche is famous (don't know about worlds famous, but certainly famous) for its chocolate, I don't know why as I don´t really like it (what's with dry marzipan?) but the museum was cool, it was about the history of chocolate from a worldly perspective, and the benefits of chocolate (such as endorphin).
Later in the day, Eyal, Dave and I went for dinner at a fantastic Argentinian steakhouse, it had been recommended by more or less everybody here in Bariloche, and what a treat it was. All of us ordered 500 gram steaks, and while Eyal and Dave are both somewhat bigger than me, they more or less fought to get the last pieces down, whereas I was still hungry afterwards (yup, really). However I didn't eat more, I actually had a chance when we afterwards went to a microbrewery bar, where Dave and Eyal both had 8 small glasses (each) with different beer in every single one of them, I realised that it would just be a waste of money, I had had more then enough food, and it was quite a pricey place for food, so I didn't eat and went to bed when we returned back.
A Day In Bariloche
Eyal and Rachel (of Futaleufú) had told Dave and me, about a plan which involved renting a car and driving around the seven lakes. So after eating the great breakfast at our hostel, Dave and I met up with Eyal and Rachel and tried some car rental agencies, before settling on a cheap Fiat Siena at Budget.
Dave and I then spent most of the day walking around Bariloche and taking in this famous city, it sure isn't a looker, but it has its moments... Such as the puppies of the main square and the nice place where Dave and I have now had lunch two days. There isn't really much to tell about Bariloche, the funniest part of the day was trying to negotiate a lower price with Cesar, operator of one of the car rental agencies.
For dinner I once again cooked chorizo sausage with mashed potatoes (easy and delicious), but besides the potato masher being completely broken, I do believe I will be introducing some variation soon. Generally I spent a long time just wandering about, doing my pictures (lots of new ones: flickr), getting a 13th of April date for my Inca Trail instead of late April or mid May as I had hoped for, which means my time in Paraguay will be limited, and I have to completely skip Bolivia and come back afterwards, rather annoying, but the only possibility.
In the evening after my dinner Patrick (from yesterday) came over and we talked for 3 hours, and were joined by Jimmy (from Holland) and partly by Sean (from Canada). After that I went to bed around midnight, looking forward to the following day, driving around the lakes.