We left Hostel Mapu Pieke with warm wishes from the owner and departed Cholila southwest, quickly encountering our first ripio … Continue reading 6. Los Alerces National Park

We left El Bolson by 10am on Saturday 18th January, rejoined Ruta 40 and climbed steadily out of town. After … Continue reading 5. El Bolson to Cholila

After a fairly speedy-pack-up, we left Villa Maiten at 10.30am and headed south on Ave Ezequiel Bustillo along the lakeshore, … Continue reading 4. Bariloche to El Bolson: the first leg.

Having previously wanted to see more of the country by road (plus reduce carbon emissions and potential flight damage to … Continue reading 2. Bariloche: bike testing

After the days, weeks (possibly months) of attempting to finish work, rent out our flat, say our goodbyes and plan, in the loosest sense possible, our trip whilst sandwiched between engagement and Christmas celebrations, it was with exhausted relief we squished ourselves (separately, seat choice was a luxury we decided to forego) on our flight to Buenos Aires. Fortunately, we had remembered to bring food with us (including much appreciated homemade mince pies courtesy of Robbie’s Mum!) for the 13 hour journey.

It turned out that I (Hannah) had been allocated the sabbatical area of the plane. Quickly identified before takeoff by single, slightly apprehensive looking, white men in their 20s-30s either cramming Spanish duolingo lessons or looking through large lonely planets. When you are seated with another five English people in their 20s-30s doing roughly the same trip, your adventures aren’t so unique after all. Alex, a 19 year old on his second gap year before uni had the best Spanish out of all of us, assisted by working as a Northampton dishwasher for the five months beforehand, there really wasn’t much to do. Alex had set his sights on a South American bus tour, having survived solo travelling in India as an 18 year old, he seemed pretty clued up. Less so was Darren, a 28 year old who had discovered that his post uni job as an office relocater was not suited to his international relations degree. His Spanish, and his grasp of International Relations, appeared to be the weakest of the group, as he insisted on calling all the places he was intending to visit (including major cities) in a non-decipherable way (either with an English or Spanish accent). Robbie was able to swap seats halfway through the flight to toast the start of our sabbatical with some sparkling wine, and for him less enthusiastically, to watch the Disney remake of the Lion King. He quickly decided that he needed more space to stretch out his legs…

Continue reading “1. Arrival in Argentina”