Punta Arenas to Bariloche

This place is pretty far south:


It is the very south tip of mainland South America. To celebrate, they made a copy of Aberdeen, Washington and stuck it there. Except they made it more dreary, dirty, and cold. Punta Arenas is a pretty ugly town. It also was cold. We got there in early March, which is the same as early September in the north. It isn't usually 50 degrees in early September. It was there. To compensate for the cold and general unpleasantness of the town, they entertained themselves by making up local delicacies. (you'll have to click on these and enlarge them to really see)

Like Suck of Seafood:


and Potatoes Sauteed with Butter and Merkin:


They have penguins there, and that is pretty cool:



They are all over out by their nesting grounds.




These are Magellenic Penguins. Their other name is the Jackass Penguin. Check out their noise:

We saw an ad for a pretty nice looking casino on Punta Arenas on the flight down to El Calafate. We figured out where it was and walked across town to it. But when we got there, the place was still under construction.

On February 13, we flew from Punta Arenas to Puerto Montt. On that flight they had the same Punta Arenas casino ad. Upon further inspection, I could see that the picture in the ad was a computer drawing. Thanks a lot bastards.

We were plenty happy to be leaving Punta Arenas and its miserable weather. It was about 43 and pouring down rain on our way to the airport. It is about 2.5 hours flight north of Punta Arenas.


We got to Puerto Montt and checked out their downtown. It was bad weather that day there too, but it was a much much nicer place, and much less cold. They have tons of seafood there and we each had a wonderful huge bowl piled with clams and mussels for about $3.50 at a nice restaurant. Then we headed back to catch our bus. Except they screwed us.

They canceled our bus from Puerto Montt to Osorno (about an hour away) where we had to transfer to Bariloche (about 6 hours from there). Finally, they got us on another bus, but once we got to Osorno, it was too late; the bus had left and there wasn't another one til the next day. I was pretty damn irritated. The bus company paid for us to stay in a hotel, and it was AWESOME. Awesome is Chilean for 'smells like you are in a diesel tank'. It was so strong that it was pretty hard to handle. They clean floors in some places in South America with diesel. They must have cleaned the shit out of this place.
Another bonus about Osorno is that there is nothing to do. It isn't a bad place really, but there's nothing to do. I was debating whether it would be better to be stuck in Osorno or Longview, WA for a night. It has to be Longview. At least in Longview there are types of restaurants other than BBQ and pizza. Plus, there are bowling alleys. Osorno is 3 times the size of Longview, and it has 1 movie theater. We had read that that was a big deal because for several years it had none.

The next day we got out of Osorno and were on our way to Bariloche, Argentina. The ride was mostly nice and through a beautiful landscape. There are nice big lakes with resort towns and a few cool volcanoes once you get a little east of Osorno. The only bad part of the trip was the border crossing. Chile has the stupidest border crossings. They search you going out and make you go through a ton of red tape. Why? You are leaving. Even the US doesn't do that. The border crossing took over an hour and there was no line of cars.

Finally we made it to Bariloche:


It is nice there. Really really nice.


Here's the view from our room at Pudu Hostel in Bariloche:

The next day, we rented some bikes and rode around this local circuit that was recommended. It is pretty spectacular.


Naomi was excited they had roadside blackberries:






Bariloche is in western Argentina right up against the Andes. Also it is on a humongous lake. It is kind of like Chelan but the lake is way way bigger and so is the town (120,000). And it is nicer there (though I do like Chelan). The town is really nice and clean and there are tons of outdoor activities year around.






Living in Bariloche from January to May would be a great setup:







The place we were staying was owned by an Irish couple in their 30s. The next day was St. Patrick's Day.

Movie review
10,000 years B.C. 2
Some ok effects. Dumb, boring storyline. Lots of boring fighting. Bad.


Here's Naomi torturing a giraffe and pissing it off: