Personal

Lovely little tourist town. We got in, found our lovely hostel and booked some ice trekking on Moreno Glacier. Got out there early next morning to find I'll left my camera on overnight and thus flat battery. I was devastated. Luckily Katherine had bought her camera along, so we were still able to get some great pictures. And I had my iPhone with GPS to track our trek and take some photos. The trek was pretty tame, but great experience as this is the only way you can get up close to the glacier, and try to fathom it's enormity.

OK, now below is a GPS google maps thing.  The photos being displayed are tagged with GPS coordinates that are shown on the google map.  Zoom out, so you can get a better sense of where we are.

I'd visited Moreno Glacier on my previous trip, totaly love it. We got to see some spectacular avalanches, one in particular, in which an entire section of the face peeled off and came thundering into the lake.

Ruta 40 is this legendary highway that runs the entire length of Argentina, 4900 kms worth. We'd already had come down it from Mendoza to Bariloche. But now we were going to spend 34hrs non-stop busing down it. It's closed over the winter, and now I know why. Most of it is just gravel road, working it's way through the bleak Patagonia country, hardly a highway.

Purely amazing. Giving us a small glimpse at the solitude of Patagonia.

Driving for hours seeing nothing, then you'll come across a gaucho riding his horse in the middle of the scrub. No-one else around.

The remotest farm houses, built next to an Andean fed river and cultivated into a contrasting green oasis amongst the baron landscape.

Mount Fitz Roy

More beautiful than I remember it. We only had a short time, but made the most of it with a chair lift up Cerro Campanario, for an absolutely stunning view the area. Then onto some mountain bikes to ride around the grand, tranquil lakes. Again, perfect weather, maybe a little warm for Katie considering the ride was a little bit hilly. But was amended with some more fantastic Argentinean ice-cream.

K9 friends

Now the dogs in this town are literally barking mad. Never seen anything like it. All the local stray dogs pair up and cruise around, guiding tourists and harassing the local traffic. One particular duo, who hang around the hostel we were staying at, took car chasing to the extreme sport level. Instead of running along the side of a passing car barking (the more traditional approach), they would run out in front of it and bark at the radiator grill. While the car continued to drive forward at speed! So they'd sort of be barking over their shoulder as they raced ahead of the car. Controlling their speed as to stay as close as to the car as possible for greater effect.

On a walk into town, some of the other pairs of dogs saw the good work our guys were doing and decided to join in. At one stage there were 8 dogs, surrounding passing cars and going mental. Painful to watch, as there were too many close calls, and we didn't want to see one of our friends hit. But at the same one couldn't not laugh at the crazy antics of the mad, friendly dogs.

Despite her fear of heights, Katie was keen to spend 40 minutes skidding up a very dodgy gravel track in a old truck, cliffs either side, into the Andes to put a man with a oversized kite on her back, and jump off a cliff.

Very cool experience, floating up to 1000 metres above the Andes, looking down on the green oasis of Medoza in the middle of the desert.

Kate strapping in

Kate trying to catch me

Kate flying below

Me flying above Kate

Kate coming into land

My previous wine tour of Mendoza wasn't a great success, so I was determined to get it right. I formulated the following recipe and it turned out fantastic:

Ingredients:
One Jozz and Kate
One Shuano and Maria
One newly acquainted couple (Paul and Lucy)
6 bikes from Mr Hugo
1 map of the wine region
1000 pesos (for tastings, bottles and drunken purchases of special reserve bottles)

Directions:

Combine all the ingredients above and place in the beautiful Mendoza wine region at 36 degrees Celsius for 4 hours.

Then let simmer at one of the many fine restaurants, throwing in a few steaks and couple more bottles of Malbec to complete the dish.

Delicious, simple recipe, guaranteed to work every time.

Rose for red drinkers

Getting merrier

After we returned from a well deserved dinner after our days' adventure, we were happy to find that Shuano (who could easily be mistaken for French rugby player Chabal) and Maria were waiting for us at our hostel. They had just arrived after a mammoth 4 day bus mission from Bolivia. They were very tired, but beers were poured and tales told of their last 2 months traveling down from Mexico.

Katie and I headed out to the base of the Andes to ride some wild rapids. Being quite late in the season, it meant that there wasn't too much melt off from the mountains, so the rapids weren't so rapid, but still a very pleasant day was had paddling along in the (seemingly constant) beautiful Mendoza weather.

Waterstock ready to go

Now in sunny Mendoza (360 days a year of sunshine). Ferry back across from Montevideo and 12hr overnight bus. Booked into a lovely little hostel. After a quick dip in the pool it was time to hit the town for our first proper Argentinean steak.

Yummmyyyyyyyy

And a little amaretto

Ferry from Colonia

With no time to lose, we were up and equipped with two shiny red bikes to cruise the Montevideo boulevard.

We had a nice peddle in lovely sunny weather, reading the pro Jesus graffiti on the seats. Pity they put a six lane road next to the boulevard.

Stopped in for a bit of a sun bath and swim.

Katie with the ocean to herself (the small white dot to the right)

Followed by delicious seafood lunch.

It was always going to be a long one. London → Madrid → Buenos Aires → Montevideo in one hit was quite ambitious. But sitting down with a beer at 3pm in San Telmo, after a leasury walk through the Sunday market in Plaza Dorrego with only a short ferry to Montevideo to go, we thought we were all over it. It's then I made the fatal mistake of commenting on how easy things were going. Sure I knocked on wood as soon as I said it, but no good. A few minor mishaps stringed together resulted in us arriving at the ferry port, sweating profusely, to watch our ferry pull out of the dock without us. Due to our tight schedule, this meant we might not get to go Uruguay at all.

But not all was lost. We were able to catch a later ferry, to a different city, and bus it from there, arriving only 4hrs late. Thus, after dropping our bags in to the hostel, the only bars open for a drink were down by the port, with the ladies of the night. All in all, quite a fair days' travel.

Relaxing in San Telmo

As stated in my earlier twitter post, it was just fantastic to be back in Buenos Aires (just for the afternoon). Absolutely beautiful late summers Sunday afternoon, wandering through the antiques market in my favourite barrio, San Telmo. It was like I had never left. Tango dancers in the street, people relaxing outside the cafes, music in the air, scented with the smell of the Parrillas (those famous Argentinean steak houses). Sunday afternoon is by far the best time, as the streets are closed to traffic for all the market stalls, lowering the decibel level by about 1000%. For the rest of the week clapped out buses with no mufflers fly down the cobble stone streets, creating quite a racket.