Argentina 3

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.”  “Bring the car back Thursday and I’ll drive you to the bus station.  What time is the bus.”  “Well, not til 3.00 in the afternoon.”  “No problem, see you about 2.00.”   It sounds like a far fetched advert for the Argentinian Tourist Board but that’s what happened.  Yes, he did speak English.  No, he didn’t charge us any extra.  Yes, I did give him a tip. 

I don’t think I’ve mentioned food much  but I’ve never seen so much ice cream eaten as here and in Bariloche we found one shop about the size of a small department store that only did ice cream and chocolate.   Meat is of course the big thing, all sorts of bits that would have me gagging, but the steaks are fantastic.   Fortunately Heather does like salad.  One place in Bariloche (apparently famous) we went to specialises in steaks but Lonely Planet warns against ordering a full portion,  I had a ‘half’ of the most delicious, tender steak and only just got through it.  Heather told me that the salad was good too.  Something else that comes in all different ways, ice cream, desserts and additions to coffee amongst others is Dulce de Leche, which as far as we can tell is caramelised condensed milk.  It’s as delicious as it sounds.

This area is known as the Lake District because William Wordsworth used to live here.   We had a short day and stayed overnight in a place called Angostura where I am delighted to be able to report that the wind in the morning was bitter.  

The next day, we took what’s known as the 7 Lakes Scenic drive, which was all on dirt roads for about 80km to San Martin de los Andes.   It was scenic if you liked looking at trees close up most of the time with the occasional lake view.  It may be publicised so much because it’s easier to get a big coach along it than other routes and there are lots of tours from Bariloche along it.  Other roads (tracks) in the area we drove along were much more scenic and rougher with open views of what can only be described as a tortured landscape of weather worn rocks in fantastic shapes.  These bits did seem to be a bit more off the tourist track.  One trip we did from San Martin was to a beautiful snow topped volcano, Volcan Lanin, right on the Chilian border.  This on the day that Heather realised she’d left all our identity papers in the hotel.  I haven’t mentioned it before but there are lots of police road checks, where ‘papers’ are required although we have yet to be stopped.

I’ve always loved Monkey Puzzle trees and this is their native habitat so another reason to drive to the volcano was to see Monkey Puzzle forest.  Amazing sight.  Well spread out, hundreds and hundreds of them.  Enough to perplex whole regiments of monkeys.  The cones which I’d never seen before are almost head sized and weigh about 2 or 3 kilos.  Killer sized if they fall on you, I would guess.  Strange as it may seem, the previous largest group of Monkey Puzzlers I’ve seen in one place was on Hergest Ridge in Shropshire, where about 20 or so grow in splendid isolation right on the top.