Entering Bolivia

Well, from the falls we travelled across the country to Salta where we stayed for a few days getting our Bolivia Visas and eating at our last parrillas. Ben wasn´t feeling that great when we got to town so we took it easy and he took a Z pack we brought with us. The Bolivian Visa was a bit more involved than we thought! We had to pay $135 each, give a copy of our Argentina Visa, a copy of our hotel reservation (which we didn´t have), and a copy of a credit card! Needless to say it took us a couple days going around town and getting things sorted out for the visa as well as trying to ship some more stuff home. But we got it sorted and took a 24 hour bus to Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

For those of you that are on Facebook, you can probably tell that we were not impressed with Santa Cruz that much - Ben was on the computer pretty much the whole time we were there. We arrived on a Thursday and really wanted to make it to the Noel Kempff National Park which only sees 200 tourists a year. There is a reason!! We went to the Natural History Museum on Thursday to try and get information on the park, but the office was closed until Monday. So we went to another registered park advisor on Friday morning only to be told that they are closed until Monday as well. So we were basically stuck in Santa Cruz over the weekend. We went out one night with some people from our hostel after going to a BBQ, a Biocentre park that boasts the largest butterfly enclosure in the world - not sure if that is true or not but it was fairly big I guess - but other than that we really hung around the hostel and watched movies. It was pretty boring. By the time we got back to the offices, we were told that the park was closed and we couldn´t go there. An overall waste of 5 days! So we checked out of our hostel and went to Samipata which is a 3 hour ride away and has some large Inca ruins called El Fuerte. We stayed the night there and went to visit the ruins the next day. They were impressive, but I would have liked to understand a bit more about what they were - apparently there is still some debate over what they were actually used for by the Incas. We stayed that night at a great organic farm that has some really refreshing tea and food, a nice change from staying right next to the night school with no mosquito net!

From Samipata we traveled back thru Santa Cruz where we had to spend the night before loading onto another bus headed for Salar de Uyuni (the largest salt flat in the world)!

The BIG Falls!

After our bus trip across the country we arrived at Iguazu Falls, on the border of Argentina and Brazil. We were only here for one day, and then were heading back across the country to cross into Bolivia. So for one day, we bussed about 55 hours. The good part is it was well worth it. The falls were amazing, and the viewing areas are really well set up. They have paths going all over the park, but unfortunately the island was closed while we were there because the water level was too high. You can see them from above, below, and right underneath (boat). Along the paths we saw a bunch of butterflies (huge!), a toucan, and a bunch of furry little Coatis that have striped tails and sloth like claws. Apparently they have learned about people feeding them - there was a woman that was actually petting one even though there were signs all over the park saying don't touch them because they can bite and scratch you.

They were by far the biggest falls we have ever seen. We even took the boat that goes under them, and gets you completely soaked, but was really fun.

Good Wine and Fast Food!

After San Martin, we took a quick bus (20 hours) to Mendoza. This is the wine region of Argentina. We arrived on the Saturday of Easter weekend, which in a mainly Catholic country, you can imagine was pretty big. Everything was shut down for the weekend, and we really didn't do anything for the first two days. We ate some fast food, and had some big meals for our Easter dinner. Our lunch consisted of a burger like creation called the super Lomo...very traditional Easter fare that we made even healthier by adding bacon and a fried egg!

We ended up meeting two guys in the hostel from the US, and they told us about a wine tour they were doing the next day, on bikes that they had heard good things about. One of the guys actually was a caddy at Kiawah in Charleston, and knew some of our friends. (Small world). We decided to join them on Monday, and went around to Mr. Hugo's bike rental, and did an all day tour of about 5 vinyards, some olive oil 'vinyards', and a few other places. Most of the wine was great, and it was mainly Malbec wine that they grow in this region. Although, we have fallen in love with a white wine grown in the northern part of Argentina, around Salta, that is called Torrontes. It took us all day to get through only about half the vinyards on the tour. Our friends were leaving the next day to go to Chile and do some surfing, and we gave them our spinning fishing rod that has been with us since Thailand about 5 months ago.

The next day we took it easy in town again, and sent home some stuff through the post office, which was an experience in itself. I was sending home my fly fishing gear, and the shape of the rod case would be hard for anyone to fit in a box. What made it extra hard, was that the two Argentinians who are in charge of packaging were both blind, literally. We have yet to figure out why on earth they were given that job of all the jobs available. It would have been comical watching one of them put a box over the stuff, and then while they were turned around the other one would take it off and throw it aside. Like I said it would have been comical, if it didn't take 2 hours to pack two items in a box. Still not sure who thought of that arrangement, but it doesn't seem very efficient.

The next day we had another short night bus across the country(33 hours), so we had some time to kill before we left. We decided to go back to the vinyards and finish the second half of the vinyards off that we had missed before. It was fun, and very interesting to learn about all the wines....and drink them too!

Last Fishing Trip

From El Bolson we traveled north to Bariloche for a few days. It is a quaint town with some of the best chocolate in Argentina. It is typically known for adventure excursions you can do, but Ben and I did absolutely nothing for the five days we were there - it was great! We just sat around, ate really good steaks, went to a few bars, the local casino, and relaxed. It was our mini vacation while traveling. So after relaxing for a few days we traveled to San Martin. It is a very small town that is supposed to have some of the best fly fishing in the Patagonia. Our first day there was really rainy and crappy but we walked around town and got some options for tackling the river. Originally the plan was to rent a car, but neither one of us are very good at driving a stick shift and wrecking a rental in the mountains was not something we were willing to try. They don't really have any good public transportation to the parks and rivers so we would have to rent a taxi there, and just tell him a time or day to come back and pick us up. In the end we went with a guided fishing trip; it wasn't very cheap.

Our guide picked us up from our hotel at 8 in the morning and it took about an hour to get out to the river we were boating down, after a slight detour of turning around to get our fishing licenses that we forgot to bring. We met our guides father at the river, they run a family business of a fly shop and fishing trips during the summer and ski rental/ instructors during the winter - sounds pretty sweet! After we launched our inflatable boat and started down river, I caught a fish in the first half hour. It was a little surprising because I didn't notice I had one on my line since Ben's fly was caught in my hat which we were trying to get out - but a fish none the less! Normally you are able to see the trout jumping all up and down the river but today we didn't see that many. The first 3 fish we caught were Perch which were not very exciting to catch, they wouldn't fight very hard at all but we were catching fish. Our guide surprised us with a cooler full of beer and even brought himself some whiskey. He was super friendly and spoke English well - he did happen to moon us every time he leaned over for something but that seems to be a common theme here in Argentina which we got a kick out of. The lunch he and his Dad brought was really good: salad, chicken, cheese, chirizo, and wine. After lunch we stopped at a small shoreline where Ben and I cast out a few and caught some trout - yea! I tried casting the fly rod a few times but never caught anything - I don't think my technique is very good but they said I was getting better with each cast (probably more to humor me than anything else). We ended up fishing on the river until 7:30 that night. A full day on the river and about 12 fish between the two of us. Even though it was expensive, it was well worth it.

From here we are leaving fishing land and going to Mendoza to drink wine!

Getting Skunked

El Bolson has another National Park, Los Pueblo, close by - only a 45 minute bus ride from town that is supposed to have decent fishing so we checked it out. It is a very laid back town - a bit hippie - that has great food and even better microbrews. After getting settled and doing some laundry we explored the town and found the best Empanada place we have been to yet. We ate 6 between us and then went immediately back and got 13 more; they were unreal. The next day we ventured to the park and did some fishing. Ben got a couple bites and we saw some people catching some fish on a spin rod, but we never landed anything. But the scenery is nice, we had lunch on the river bank, and picked some wild blackberries before taking the bus back to town. We ate at a place called Jauja that had the best rabbit I have ever had - braised in a stout beer and Ben naturally got a steak. Since ice cream is so big here we decided to get some fresh vanilla to put our blackberries over for desert - a great meal overall.

The next day we went back to fish further up the river. We could see a huge pool of fish feeding but could never get our rods far enough out to them. Ben finally waded out to a small sandbed and tried catching them with both the fly and the spin rod, almost dunking his waders in the process. Still no luck so we moved on. By mid afternoon, Ben had to have another try at that pool and crossed the river to try the other side. Still no luck - the river beat us. So we headed back to town to eat more good food and try more microbrews. Tomorrow we are heading further north to try and actually catch some fish!

National Parks and FISH!!!

After one national park, we decided to head north to another. After a 26 hour bus ride, we arrived in Esquel, a very small town on the edge of the Los Alerces National park. We left some stuff at the hotel, and headed out to the park for 6 days of camping and fishing. We camped the first two days at a campsite that we thought was free, but later turned out to be the pay site. It wasn´t much money, and it was very pretty, and right on the lake. We had a nice campsite right by the lake, with a fire pit, and had access to a shower, so it worked out nicely. We had a good fire, and drank some ¨wonderful¨ boxed wine! We hiked along the river and fished for a day and a half, and caught a couple very little trout. The next day we got back on the bus for an hour and a half, to go up to another part of the park, with bigger rivers...and fish! We ended up getting dropped off at the wrong area, that only had a pay campsite, but it was closed for the season, and we just found a little site towards the back, and camped for free for 4 days. It was pretty funny, as this was the exact campsite that me (Ben) and our friend Harvey stayed at 5 years ago when they were in the park, we didn´t pay that time either. The first day was pretty nasty, and we just hung around the campsite and fished the lake a little, with no luck. The next day was very nice and we hiked along the road to a lookout point, and then tried to find our way down the mountain to the river.

It was awful, as there was no real path, and it was as thick as a jungle, not to mention almost stepping on several huge yellow jacket nests. We finally found the river after about 2 hours of bushwhacking, and started fishing. We had a couple bites, and caught a few right towards the end of the day, but not the big ones we were looking for. We decided there was no way we could go back up the way we came down, and decided we would go around the lake, and swim if we had to. Luckily we found a little path, and with a little wading, and fence jumping, we made it back on a much quicker route. The next day was very rainy, and we got poured on all day, but we were determined to catch some fish anyway, so we went back by the quicker route, and found the second smaller river that Ben remembered from his previous time in the park. The river was full of big trout that you could see everywhere. We caught several large brown and rainbow trout, and even brought one back to cook for dinner. The fishing was great, but difficult, as there were downed trees all along the bank, and once you hooked up with a fish, you had to maneuver them around the trees to land them. We lost a few fish, and a lot of lures, but still caught some great ones. That about did it for that national park, but now that we have got the fishing bug, we are heading to another for some more fishing!

The Fitz Roy

Our bus ride down to El Calafate really wasn´t all that bad; our seats reclined pretty far and we had some Tylenol PM to help us through the 40 hours! After getting some supplies in El Calafate we took another bus ride to El Chalten, about another 3 hours away, to hike around Mt. Fitz Roy. It is in South Argentina close to the Chile border and the Fitz Roy is a little over 10,000 feet. The hiking is not too strenuous and very beautiful. Our first day it was incredibly windy - and naturally we forgot the stakes to our tent! Ben, being the boy scout he is, rigged up some fallen trees and rocks around our tent to protect us from blowing away. Once he was done everyone else at the camp site was jealous of our spot! We spent the first night at Laguna Torre which is a small lake at the base of Glacier Grande and survived the wind without blowing away. The next day we hiked to another camp site that sits closer to Mt. Fitz Roy, dropped our stuff and trekked up to the lookout point which is fairly steep but worth it. It was really incredible and the weather was gorgeous - perfectly clear, sunny, and hardly any wind! Would have been a great night for a camp fire, but unfortunately they are not allowed in the national park - with the wind you can see why. We had some rowdy neighbors that stayed up until 3 am and then we heard them get back up around 5 am to go see sunrise over the mountain. I don´t think it is possible for them to be any louder than they were. Our last day we just hiked around the camp sight to various viewpoints and played some cards before spending another night. Thankfully most of our neighbors had moved on so we got a little more sleep. It was a good way to spend 4 days and get a little more back on budget after being in Buenos Aires for a week. Afterwards we spent a couple days in El Calafate which is a really cute town. It is small but has some good places to eat and all the buildings look like log cabins which you can´t beat in a mountain setting. Our first night back we went to an all you can eat parrilla that Ben actually ate at back in 2005 when he was here with our buddy Harvey Cleveland. We stuffed ourselves silly. From here we are heading north to Esquel to hopefully do some more camping and fishing.