We were hoping to climb the Volcano Varillica while in Pucon but after a few days of bad weather and high winds, we realised we wouldn’t be able to until later in the week. So unfortunately it was time to move on! We jumped on an International Bus on Monday (15th July) and headed up the 199 Highway through some beautiful national park and over the border into Argentina.
Our first stop in Argentina was San Martin de los Andes! We had our hopes high of being in a town that had snow in it but the bad weather and rain from Pucon must have been through here too! No snow, which Matt is extremely sad about and bad conditions on the Chapelco ski hill meaning that only a few lifts are open again.
Take make matters worse, Matt has been reading snow reports on New Zealand where they’ve been having a CRACKER of a season! So he’s quite offended by South America’s snow and weather at the moment.
All is good though! We really like Argentina so far! The meat and wine have definitely met our expectations and the Pizza here is amazing as well! We went to a place called Pizza Cala and the whole place is heated up by the massive Stone Fire place in the middle that they cook all their food in. Great pizza, yummy empanadas and 1 litre bottles of beer (we shared this time)! The South Americans love their sweets too! So there’s chocolate shops everywhere, ice creams shops as well and their coffee isn’t that bad!!!
So all in all Argentina is great. They town is a ghost town between 1pm and 5pm or there abouts. All the shops open in the morning, close in the afternoon and reopen in the evening until about 9pm! And no one eats until after 9pm!!! It’s crazy! But good for us because we actually get a table around 8pm and can eat, everyone else queues for tables and has to wait when they try and eat at 9pm-10pm!
Next stop is Bariloche, we take a bus from here to Bariloche in the morning. It’s about 4hours drive and really beautiful apparently!
Adios Chicos! (Chicos is guys here makes me laugh)
Timeframe: 15-18 July 2013
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