The hippy hippy lake

Up a mountain in El Bolson
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It is our last day in Argentina today, and since our last update we´ve spent some time in the Argentine Lake district and wine region.

The first few days in the Lake district area were spent in El Bolson, a pretty little town set in a broad valley and packed with hippies who moved to the area in the 1970s and have stayed ever since. The highlights of our time in this hippy community were the day long walk up one of the mountains to visit a burnt forest that artists had created sculptures (cooling down after with a refreshing swim in the freezing cold river that run alongside our hostel) and a trip out to lago puelo, a huge lake surrounded by forest and snow topped mountains.

Lake in Bariloche
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From El bolson it was then a short bus ride on to the more tourist centred town of Bariloche. Despite being more touristy (the buildings in the town are all very swiss alps style, with every other shop selling chocolates or ice cream) the surrounding scenary was even more beautiful than in El Bolson. For the first four nights and we stayed in a great hostel on the edge of town which had small stone cottages to rent. It was great to have our own space only shared by one other girl, and our own bathroom, lounge, kitchen and garden!

Wine barrels obviously!!
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From there we went on another day long walk around the llao llao national park, a forest surrounded by more lakes and mountains. The views along the trail were spectacular, with the sun beating down on us and shimmering across the lake it must rival anything the Italian lake district can offer .

The next day we had planned to do more walking around the surrounding mountains but our feet protested so instead we took a boat trip to 2 small islands on the lake, one containing a forest of red trunked trees - bit touristy so we left the tourist path and walked down to a beach and saw a white horse drinking from the lake, with no one else around it really was like something out of a fairy tale.  The second island, Isla Victoria, had more forest on it and beautiful deserted beaches, leaving us no choice but to take the plunge again into the crystal blue lake. On our final night in Bariloche  we stayed in the best hostel we´ve found yet (´La Morada´) set 5km outside the town at the top of one of the mountains overlooking the huge blue lake below. With absolutely stunning views we just spent the whole day drinking in the view and reading books.

After a nice day relaxing in the fresh air it was off to Mendoza via Buenos Aires (a 35 hour bus journey of a detour to collect the new visa card we had frauded in Rio). Mendoza itself is a great town, packed with lovely clean parks and plazas and tree lined streets. ´Clean´ however is probably not the word i´d use for our hostel, which after checking in we found out that its closing down in three weeks to be knocked into a new luxury hotel. Unfortunaltely as we´ve arrived right at the start of the wine harvest festivities accomodation is pretty thin on the ground so there is no where else to go.

On the plus side though, we´ve arrived right ´at the start of the wine harvest festivities´! As a result our time in Mendoza has been pretty much wine orientated, including a night of riverdance-esque foot tapping and trapeeze artists- matt they need you out here!- and an amazing wine tour.

We went on the tour yesterday and learnt loads, in total we had 20 glasses of wine each, all premium reserve wines (so we definitely weren´t  going to spit any of that out!) including a couple straight from the barrel. Whilst the 5 course lunch helped soak up some of the alcohol as it was all matched with more wine have got to say I dont think it helped that much! A brilliant day, and think am ready to be a total wine snob when return home now!

Off to another wine festival tonight, before heading off to Santiago bright and early tomorrow

Hope everyone´s well, look forward to hearing from you.

Andy and Char