Greetings from Argentina!
After a brief overnight in Buenos Aires, we flew down to Bariloche, Argentina´s biggest ski resort. (I´m coming back to B.A. for a few days at the end of this trip into Patagonia). It´s summer time here now so no skiing obviously - maybe I´ll have to come back in winter sometime. The town is all ´swiss-style´i.e. it´s looks like a US ski resort that it supposed to look Swiss. We´ve a Swiss girl in our group who is finding it all very funny particularly the St. Bernard dogs with barrels around their necks. There´s 12 in the group - English, Australian, Swedish, Swiss, and I´m the only Irish for a change. Lots of hand-made chocolate shops too which combined with the amount of steak we are eating is a bit dangerous. Everything you hear about Argentinian steak is so true - really delicious but you get absolutely massive servings. Just as well we´re going to be getting lots of exercise on this trip. Yesterday we hiked up into one of the surrounding ski areas with a great view around and today went out for a bike ride around the lakes - gorgeous views of the snow-capped mountains all around.
The weather here has been absolutely stunning since we arrived. Completely clear and about 25 degrees. From the top of the mountain we could see 360 degrees around and there wasn´t a wisp of cloud anywhere. Not sure how long this will last but enjoying it whilst we can.
The oddest to me is probably the long evenings - there´s still real heat in the sun at 6pm and it is still light at 9pm. We´re going to be going all the way south to the very southern tip at Ushuaia so not sure what time the sun sets down there - if at all.
That´s all for now, we´re off into Chile tomorrow to the Chilean lake district.
