Attempting to stay dry in the lake district

Hey there. A quick update on what we´ve been up to since we left Buenos Aires and headed down to the lake district.

Agregntina is such a huge country (yes Dad, even bigger than Wales flattened out), a fact clearly brought home by the length of the bus journeys we´ve had to take between places: the trip between BA and Neuquen alone took 17hrs and we´ve now clocked up a total of 44hrs on buses. Thankfully the buses in Argentina are pretty swish, with meals, films, air conditioning etc, and provided some pretty nice views.

After a day kicking around Neuquen we took an overnight bus to Junin de los Andes, a small town within the mountains. Here we stayed within a lovely hotel right on the river, on which we spotted some Ibis´first thing in the morning (get us & our twitching).

We had hoped to visit a nearby national park, however whilst our guidebook had told us that public transport to the parks dies down in the off-season, it seemed it was almost non-existent. So instead we passed the day with a walk along the river and a climb up a nearby mountain/hill/big thing for some views (Caz says Im writing this too formally).

Whilst we both loved the laidback vibe of Junin, the hotel was a bit out of our price range (our limited spanish had us significantly misunderstanding the price of the room) so we headed off to El Bolson, another laid back village within the Andes which ´The Book´ had described as a hippie´s paradise. This hippy did enjoy himself here, but lots of rain combined with pretty much everything being shut due to it being the off- season restricted what we could get up to, but we were still able to enjoy a few walks on the days it wasnt raining.

One of the best things about this place was the hostel we stayed in, which consisted of a little cozy wooden hut where just four of us were staying. After having been living on a stric diet of whatever food was cheapest at supermarkets we enjoyed a (relative) feast here prepared by one of the other guests who was celbrating having made it to El Bolson from Buenos Aires by bicycle (we have no plans to switch from the busses yet).

We´d hoped to go to Bariloche (another city in the lakes) to do some trips out to some of the national parks, however given that the forecast was rain for the next 5 days we decided to cut our losses and get an overnight bus to Puerto Madryn which is where we are now (and where it thankfully isnt raining). Going to stay around this area for the next few days for Caz´s birthday (21st) and are pretty excited as have heard the whales have arrived to these coasts earlier than expected. And things at least seem to be open.

Hope everyone is good back home

Yours formally

Gaz