Aug and Sept update

Well its been a while since I updated this blog, so here goes with a few pics from the past couple of months. Apart from a little more spanish study and following Argentina in the Rugby world cup (and the Wallabies too of course), I've taken a few overnight bus trips to regions in the country that I've never been to before. Firstly we went to Cordoba (9hrs on the bus) which is the geographical centre of Argentina and the 2nd biggest city after Buenos Aires. One night a friend of Marcela's was doing some folklore dancing at a peña (traditional music and dancing event) in a church with a lot of old, tragic and weird people - but all doing some fantastic traditional Argentine dancing. And we were served beers by 10 year old girl guides!!?! What a strange and fun night. Here's a pic:


Another weekend and we went up to Marcela's home town of Corrientes (12 hrs by bus) where I was assured we would escape the rain and cold of Buenos Aires. Unfortunately we were greeted by unseasonal rain and cold and only saw a glimpse of the sun at the end of the weekend. Nice little town by the river, with a lot of history that Marcela's dad was telling me all about while we were driving around town - none of which I can remember.

Speaking of pics (was I?), here's some of an interesting bookstore just a couple of blocks from me in Buenos Aires. It's an old theatre where you can have a coffee on the stage, or read a book in the private booths - pretty cool huh?



I've just got back from a week and a half in Bariloche (mid/southern Argentina - 19hrs by bus!) where I caught up with a best mate from home who has just started his 4 month trip of South America. Was really good to catch up over many cervezas and scotches which helped curb my homesickness a bit. By the way this bus trip was my longest so far but not as bad as it sounds - I paid extra for the luxury seat with hot meals and drinks (wine and scotch even!), and the bad movies even helped me get a little bit of sleep.

Of course my plague of bad weather in Argentina continued to follow me and we had mostly windy, rainy, overcast and cold days in Bariloche, but that just justified our desires to watch the Rugby world cup all day. We did venture up to the mountains for a little bit of snowboarding for a couple of days, but the conditions just never quite worked out right for us. We did get a bit of fresh snow one day though. I'll let the pics and captions tell the rest of the story, as I have to get ready for my quick trip back to Oz for my best friends wedding now.

Brendan on the one morning when we had fresh snow and a hint of sun. That all changed by the time we got up on the mountain though - blizzard/white out conditions with no visibility and cyclone-like winds!

Same morning. Yes the clock says 11:20am, so you could say we were a bit tardy that day, but after struggling out of bed with hangovers, then waiting for and catching a public bus for 45min with hundreds of other skiiers (standing with all our boards and gear while the bus hurtles up a winding mountain road isn't too much fun!), we didn't do too bad. The blizzard conditions are just approaching on top of the mountain in preparation for us to start our snowboarding...

Brendan pretty happy to be in Argentina (and to finally see some sun here).

The Llao Llao Hotel - the most famous hotel in Argentina apparently. It's perched on a magnificent spot surrounded by lakes, forest and mountains. Unfortunately it was about $US390 out of our price range (it was $US400 a night)...

... but that didn't stop us acting like rich and famous travellers for half an hour. Although our clothes and shoes were covered in mud from our mountain biking, and security/concierge had to make us wait for 5 minutes to decide whether we could even enter at all, we got in and carried ourselves with a high air of decorum while the penguin-suited butlers served us our usual bottle of 40 year old Moet champagne (actually it was just orange juice, but at the price of champagne in most other places in Argentina). The decor in this 5 star hotel was amazing - swiss chalet-style architecture rich in timber logs, huge fireplaces, fur covered chairs and deer-antler lamps.

The next few pics were snapped as we mountain-biked through a route known as the Circuito Chico (Small Circuit) - lucky we didnt take the grand circuit as this day really knackered us and we didnt get back to the bike rental place until 7:30 at night. Beautiful scenery full of lakes, mountains and thick forest - and even though it was overcast when we started, the sun poked out for the afternoon which was great.

Nice place over the other side of the lake there - the colour of this lake was unbelievable.

Stop for a breather.

We left the bikes here and took a steep track up to the top of a hill for a bit of a looksy... lets just say the hike looked a whole lot shorter and easier on the map!

But the view was worth it in the end. We were even walking through some snow to get to this lookout point. This is my mountain hiker/rock climber/tv adventure reporter pose.