Bunces in Argentina - Jan - Feb 2011

Final communiqué from your Argentinian correspondent Unfortunately, for once the bus was on time so we were dumped at Corrientes Bus Station at 04.30.   It was warm, quite a lot of people about and half a dozen ticket offices open.  Outside the bus station it was dark, poorly lit and looked like a single storey wasteland.  There are lots of different bus companies and every one has it’s own ticket office.  I would rather have been up the wooden hill in bed land but you can’t have everything.  By 6.00ish, all the ticket offices were open, it was getting busy and  we got some breakfast, coffee, fresh orange juice and mediolunas (half moons) which are croissants.   Early bus to our hotel where we were let in early, showered, unpacked changed and out to catch the delight of Corrientes by 8.30.  We were to pay for this enthusiasm later by collapsing mid afternoon. This place does have some lovely old buildings and a waterfront runn...

We lashed out on a taxi from the Salta bus station and it cost us a whole pound to get to the hotel.   I’ve noticed references to flashpacking, which I guess is travelling around but staying in smarter hotels rather than hostels.  We don’t carry our backpacks a great deal so I’ve decided that we’re slackpacking. At the hotel we met an Argentinian woman who spoke excellent English and was a talker so we heard a lot of stories about a whole variety of things.  She grew up in Rosario (which apparently is wonderful), where she did Highland Dancing as a girl being allowed to wear only Fighting Stewart tartan for her kilt.  The Brits did a lot of work here in Argentina setting up railways, the post system and various other industries and Rosario still has a football club called Newalls Old Boys which just had to become my Argentinian team to support. Salta is an attractive place with a good atmosphere and a relatively compact centre but it’s now the sec...

Got another car to drive out to the mountains and stayed in a dead hole called Uspallata which it seems Charles Darwin went through when ashore from The Beagle in 1830 something.  It was very windy in the open and we were reminded of the advice we were given in Patagonia by a local to always park facing the wind.  Otherwise, he said “Bye, bye doors”. Without really thinking about it we’d both imagined the Andes as being snow capped and verdant.  Well, perhaps on the Chilian side they are but we’d forgotten about the rain shadow.  The Argentinian side has snowy tops but looks like bare, multi-coloured rock.  It’s desert and is really, really bare.  Naturally, close up there’s an interesting desert/alpine flora.  Well, we find it interesting.   This was on our day trip to walk the lower slopes of Aconcagua.  Lower is relative, we started at 10,000 feet and went up from there.  Stunning landscape and views and yes, interesting ...

We’ve reached the half way mark and apart from a 10 minute downpour while we were on a bus, we’ve had no rain at all except late one afternoon when we were already having a restful hotel break.   A couple of mornings have been cloudy til about 9 or 10 but apart from that, sunshine all the time.  I confess we’ve found nothing about the Argentinian towns that appeal at all and the most pleasant so far seemed to be San Martin de los Andes because it was very green with trees and shrubs planted along all the roads.  Bunce luck has held again, no hotel booking for San Martin and my birthday, with the website we’ve used saying only 3 hotels in town with any vacances.  I should point out this really is peak season and there are no other towns for 2-3 hours driving.   So we pitched up at one of the three and it was the best we’ve been in.  Great view, spacious, beautifully designed in wood and stone, big guest sitting areas and obviously decorat...

After the slight concern for our previous flight when I had my knife on me, this time I set the alarm off and had a cursory search.  Everybody went through security and everything was x-rayed, so security was quite tight.  So tight in fact that we flew all the way to Bariloche with the flight deck door open.  Fantastic views of the Andes from our portside front seats.  That helpful booking lady even made sure we had the extra legroom seats, 2 of only 5 on the plane of about 200 passengers. The Argentinians we’ve met are lovely people, helpful, friendly and nothing has been too much trouble.   As a further example to the airline booking story, we rented a car for 4 days here in Bariloche, with pick up 9.00 Sunday morning, delivery back late Wednesday.  We booked it on the Saturday lunchtime.  “You can take it tonight if you like.” Great, saved us bothering in the morning.  “Where are going next. “  “Mendoza by bus on Thursday.”...

Argentinians, men and women always greet one another with a kiss on the cheek, including the bus drivers who kiss each other when changing buses but I doubt this would be popular if Boris suggested it for London Transport.  Cordoba is a big place and our summary is the same as Dr Johnson’s of the Giant’s Causeway “Worth seeing, but not worth going to see”.  Still, it’s always good to see a city that’s not the capital.  Difficult to explain but a non-capital seems somehow more like the country, a bit less cosmopolitan, a bit less international.  We did have a first guided walk, in the National Parque de Condores, where we saw our first Andean Condors which are rather like elegant flying barn doors with their 3m wingspan.  Lovely wild country like the moors but hot.   Our overnight bus back to Buenos Aires was extremely comfortable and we slept most of the way.  The big bus terminals are fantastically lively places, 40 or so stands at Cordoba, ...

Well, we’ve had a few days in Buenos Aires which definitely feels quite like a European city but why it’s called “the Paris of the south” I don’t know. It’s sunny, sticky and Spanish.   Heather found a really good little hotel in the Boedo district which is so discreet it doesn’t even have the name outside and is run by two sisters, one of whom is wildly over the top.  First time I met her I got the arms flung round me and a kiss on the cheek as if we were old friends parted by years. Good subway network here with tickets to anywhere costing about 18p a throw (petrol is 60p a litre).  We ended up doing nothing in particular but wandering the city and organising the first bits of our trip.  Very touristy stuff including someone trying to open Heather’s shoulder bag on a crowded subway.  That said, the city seems very safe and we haven’t felt threatened at all, although several complete strangers have warned us of pickpockets and I’m definitely carryin...