To beautiful Buenos Aires via Bahia whats-a-tourist? Blanca

...then we caught another comfy 'semi-cama' bus ride from Bariloche, through some pretty 'wow' lakes and canyons sort of terrain then into the night we went, via Neuquen, arriving in the morning in Bahia Blanca. ...sounds nice, right? And it is a major port town. We thought alright! let's get an eye-full of this Atlantic Ocean!! ...But could we even spy it, though we went all the way out to the now empoverished run-down over-industrialized port area? ..well, a very far off sliver of grey, yes. 
We had tried to get the low down on things to do from a tourist information centre, but our first attempt to find the office marked on the main tourist map was in vain.  We enquired into where it was at a hotel, and on the second pass, worked out that it was in an un-signed building.  Pretty much summed up the fact that Bahia Blanca is *not* a major tourist destination! We did very much enjoy it though, for precisely that fact!

We decided to take the overnight train to Buenas Aires, which was a good 14 hour trip (a few hours longer than catching the bus).  Most people thought we were nuts, as the regional trains don't have the best reputation, but we thought we'd have a little adventure.  Which it definately turned out to be... The carriages were at least 50 years old, but the seats were vaguely comfortable and even reclined a fair bit, and there was reasonable heating. However, the tracks weren't in the best condition so it felt like we were on the high seas getting tossed about all night long.  The suspension on the carriages was pretty shot through so each 'wave' ended with a bottom numbing crash.  Still, we did manage to sleep a bit, and did enjoy eating a cooked chicken dinner in the antique and very run down dining carriage. 

Straight onto the train-tracks...

Bariloche, Argentina

We ended up spending 4 nights in Bariloche, which as everyone promised, was a indeed very lovely part of the world.... The 'switzerland of the Andes' or something like that is a pretty luxurious tourist mecca attracting people from everywhere to enjoy skiing, hiking, gazing at beautiful scenery, chocolate indulging and other such things. We were a little subscribed by budget, a two year old and being pregnant from doing more adventurous activities, but managed to get around a bit and thouroughly enjoyed the short stay.

Starting with the view from our hostel room! Three cheers for the hostel as it had great central heating.

A trip up the lifts to one of the lookouts with famed 360 deg views of the area.  Someone mentioned to us that it is right up there with the best panoramic shots in the world according to National Geographic.

Lots of very nice chocolatiers helped appease the other jealous senses...

Delia AKA "Thrills Demon" was very keen to go paragliding, however very sadly due to her being pregnant, was not able to do it.  Dan had to go instead and was quite happy to oblige.

After the 15 minutre long flight we were all able to go back up to the paragliding launch site on Cerro Otto and explore the surrounds and spend the afternoon soaking up the views and delicious food in the rotating restaurant on the summit.  It went round about a dozen times in the 4 or 5 hours we were there.  This is probably up there with most memorable moments of our travels.

The trip wasn't all fun and games though; we had to take poor little munchkin Hero to a local clinic and it turned out she had a urinary infection.  The course of antibiotics knocked her about initially with fevers, so we had to take it easy. She pulled through pretty well, despite also having a throaty cough, and so we decided to keep going with the travels. 

...not before trying out more sweet things...!

Crossing the Andes into Argentina

It seems an eternity ago, but after enduring the end of the winter, our last couple of days in Chile were in fact very warm.  We spent almost a whole day wallowing in the wonderful hotsprings called "Los Pozones" (the pits) about 20km away from Pucon. The bus drive up through the foothills of the Andes, slowly leaving the majestic Volcan Villaricca behind, was pretty, and made all the more enjoyable by the happiest bus driver we have met (including up to the time of writing this blog, and there have been a fair few).  On arrival we walked slowly down the deeply incised valley to the main spring, located along side a vigourous snow melt fed river.  Not knowing at the time that there is a series of pools along the river side, each getting cooler as one heads downstream, we tried to hop into the main spring, which was almost scalding hot - only a few minutes was bearable.  Hero thought it was all quite amusing!  She did love the cooler pools and so we spent a few hours hoping between the various ones, before catching our bus back into town at dusk.  The hostel we stayed at had a very thourough heating system, so our last night in Chile was nice and comfy.  We left before sunrise on a 4 hour trip south to Osorno where we waited in the terminal for a couple of hours before catching the next bus to Bariloche on the other side of the Andes in Argentina.