Through The Nothing, Part II

I know it’s been a while since I last posted in the blog however the last 3 months have been truly mental. Since the blog is about fun and not about real life and I still have a story to tell, let’s forget about real life again and let’s go back to Patagonia :-)

The last post ended in Perito Moreno, the world’s only town in the middle of nowhere without a pub and this is where the next morning found us. I think the last time Perito Moreno saw any construction activity must have been in the early 70s and the town has a special “lost in a time warp” feel that got only more pronounced in the morning. There are fake wood tables with brown paint peeling off, chairs with fake red leather and everything one can associate with a bygone era.

Through The Nothing, Part I

In retrospect I think nothing could have prepared us for the 1385 km long bus journey from Bariloche to El Chaltén that lasted for 2 full days, had countless and seemingly endless sections of dirt road and let us traverse the... big nothing. When people look at the map of South America, Patagonia seems actually quite small. Well it isn’t. It's a bit bigger than a million square kms which is 4x the UK or 2x France but unlike any of these Patagonia is quite narrow and long with a population of two million people which results in lower densities than Scandinavia. And the big nothing.

Before we embarked on the epic bus journey we had quite a fabulous last day in Bariloche. We exchanged all of our remaining dollars at the best possible black market rate (even my 20 dollar notes got a nice quote after some searching around), did a little hike (since we are lazy bums, we took a chairlift and came down 1000 metres in altitude that hurt us more than walking up), had one last great dinner at Alberto’s (this time without ordering ourselves silly amounts of food) and got pretty drunk with our hosts who invited us to their house before we said our final goodbyes to Bariloche.

The Seven Lakes and The Amphitheatre

After the insect escapades of the previous days we were quite happy to wake up to a rather windy but still clear morning in Bariloche. My head was still a bit dizzy from the copious amounts of internal insect repellent aka Malbec consumed the day before but the fresh air, the sunshine and the prospect of a great day trip made me quickly forget about the headache.

We were about to discover the route of the Seven Lakes, drive up to San Martin de los Andes and then back t Bariloche. This road, according to all the guidebooks we read about Argentina is one of the the most beautiful things you will ever see in Argentina and / or Patagonia as a whole. I always give respect where respect is due, the lakes were alright but they could not compare in beauty or adventure with the road we took back to Bariloche. A road that wasn’t mentioned anywhere. A road we found by complete accident. How did we get there?

The Christmas Taliban

Surprised by the title? Well so were we by the little beasts that were set out to suck our precious European blood (in fact ANY blood that came into proximity) in the Andean forests of Patagonia at Christmas. We were vastly outnumbered but we won. Not because we beat them, but because we had a reliable little steel horse (our luxury Chevrolet Corsa) we could jump into and escape.

We were warned. We can’t say we were not. But still. Nothing can prepare you and we were not prepared either. Tabanos are horse flies (the type that like to suck your blood) and when I say horse, I mean it. The size of the beasts is around 1.5 inches (4 centimetres). That is big for an insect. And when they circle around your head and your whole body by the dozen, this is an understatement. Circling would be nice, but they actually want to land and land they do, dear padawans. They also have stingers that go through your clothes. Now I think everyone will understand the title as I decided to call tabanos Los Talibanos. These beasts are relentless terrorists.

Of luxury cars, frozen sheep and the exchange rate mafia

Everyone who visits Argentina, sooner or later will learn that the peso has many exchange rates and the official one is rarely used if ever. The economic situation of the country and the seemingly pointless economic policies of La Presidenta (Cristina Kirchner) have sent the peso down a very slippery road and everyone who can and is able is trying to exchange whatever money they have into dollars. Although in theory there is only a certain amount of dollars any Argentine can buy/exchange in a single year, there is a flourishing black market that is not even the least bit hidden and given the amount of tourists coming to the country, it is not a miracle that payments are often demanded in dollars, not pesos.

We came to know about the ubiquity of this opportunity on our first day on the main street of Bariloche, the capital of the Patagonian Lake District (strangely reminiscent of Switzerland but much better). Many shops post the daily “blue” exchange rate quite visibly next to the entrance, but basically almost every shopkeeper is happy to exchange dollars for tourists. At the time of our visit the official rate was around 6 pesos per dollar, the “blue rate” was 8-10 pesos per dollar, depending on the denomination of your dollar notes. Yes, that counts, and anyone wanting to take advantage of the arbitrage should bring 100 dollar notes and brand new ones at that. Torn notes are refused. Also, forget about 50 and 20 dollar notes, they are worthless or extremely hard to exchange on an agreeable rate. Needless to say, but most of my money was in 20 dollar notes...

¡ Hola Patagonia !

Almost 4 weeks before I started kicked vending machines in Argentinean airports and went on shouting at Brazilian security guards, I happily arrived in Buenos Aires. It was 2 days before Christmas and Geri and I finally embarked on our journey to the southernmost city of the world through the wilderness that is called Patagonia. We put quite a lot of planning into this journey and I will dedicate a separate post to that process because I believe many could profit from it. This post however is about the frantic day of the arrival.

21 December 2013 was just another awful winter Saturday in London (windy, rainy, dark and dreary) but I was smiling the whole day as it was my departure day to Patagonia. I still needed to make some last minute purchases and I had to find out how on earth I would pack all my stuff into a 65-litre backpack for almost a month. After some anger fits, hopeful repacking attempts and the realisation that I will wear the same clothes over and over + I will not shave for a whole month, my stuff fit into the bag nicely. I was on my way to Heathrow at 5pm, sent out some goodbye emails to friends and family and I came to realise that next morning when I wake up, I would be in South America. Yayyyyyyy!!

And so it begins... in Buenos Aires

It all started on a sultry January evening in Buenos Aires’ Ezeiza airport. I was standing in front of a rundown Coke vending machine, trying to extort some mineral water out of it as it was the only thing at the airport that had cold water for an agreeable price. I was anxiously entering torn and less torn 2 peso notes into the machine that rejected the majority of my notes but took some on a completely random basis. You might wonder why I entered torn notes, but anyone who’s ever been to Argentina can tell you that by a still-to-be-solved miracle of modern engineering even new notes in the country are already produced torn. Although most vending machines are torn, too, they still want only new notes. Talk about supply-demand discrepancy. Suddenly, as drips of exasperation started to materialise on my forehead, the resolution struck me like a thunderbolt: I want to write a blog about all this madness and punish the world with reading about my (mis)adventures.

The steely resolution brought a change of mind and I started kicking the machine with amazing gusto but the bastard still wouldn’t give me any mineral water of course. My swearing and kicking (which by the way was nearly not as spectacular in BA as let’s say it would have been in London) amused a whole high school class and some apathetic by-walkers, but nobody was really shocked or moved by it. My insistence on the other hand proved quite surprising and a lazy security guard from a neighbouring store showed up with a bored face that has seen many people kicking the poor machine. When I tried to explain my story in a strange language composed of Spanish, English and other words, all he could say was that “yeah, bad luck amigo, machine’s a bastard”. Since I was left with no other choice, I had to buy mineral water for 21 pesos instead of 12 pesos from a store nearby. At least I got a nice smile from the girl in the store.