Blogpost 16 -El Bolson, Bariloche, through Villa La Angostura to San Martin de Los Andes

November 22, 2023

Only 8 days to go until we fly out of Santiago home on the 31st.

We went out to dinner in El Bolson, planning to have one of Argentinas famous streak dinner and and a large beer but miss read the menu and ended up with a type of steak based pizza. It was still good but it was Election Day and the restaurant was not sell alcohol on Election Day so we missed out the beer as well.

The election here was an interesting affair. It was down to voting for one of two president options. The people we spoke to considered neither was any good and they had to chose the least bad one. The chap who won we understand is a Donald Trump, Boris Johnson type of character so I don’t hold out for much improvement here.

There is a lot of corruption and inflation is running rife. When Anna was here 5 years ago, she got 20 pesos for her $US. The official exchange rate now gets you about 350 pesos to the dollar. They have this black market system going on here and you can change US dollars in the street and you get 900 pesos for each dollar. So changing $US200 in the street gives you 180,000 pesos which is 180, 1000 peso notes which is a big pile to carry around but you need lots of pesos to buy anything. A ice cream costs about 2000 pesos. I dont know how the locals can afford to buy things like ice cream. For them it would make an ice cream cost about $US6 or $NZ10.

The inflation must make it really tough for people who retired a few years ago. Their retirement savings have reduced by a factor of 17.5 times over the last 5 years.

We left our nice cabana on Saturday and headed to Bariloche. The mountains had reappeared on the landscape and so we were back into the Patagonia mountains we love. We didn’t stop too often for photos on that drive as we have a heaps of mountain photos already that were grander than we saw.

Bariloche is located on a the edge of a large lake and is surrounded on three sides by quiet high mountains. It has a very Quenstown feeling with lots of nice shops and expensive homes but it’s much larger than Queenstown. It also has a gondola like Queenstown

We checked into a nice cabana for two nights over looking the very cold looking lake. The lake is aligned west to east and the incessant westerly blows down the lake all the time. It’s almost the end of November but I’m sure some of the rain showers had sleet in them.

We headed down into town in the afternoon to change some more money on the black market. You just walk down the street and the traders approach you quietly and you do the deal right there in the street. We spoke at length to one dealer. He was an electrical technician but he had given that up as he made more money trading money. He on-sold our dollars to a bigger player and made his money from the higher rate he got when he on sold them.

Chocolate is a big 5hing here and about half the shops in the main shopping street were selling chocolate. Some of these shops were huge with an enormous selection of chocolates available to buy. They were very busy and full of mostly local tourists.

He said that a lot of the young qualified people are leaving Argentina as there was no real future for them. He was saving to move to Spain. Quite sad really. Most of the problem is caused by corruption which is present at all levels of central and local government.

Next day we headed out on another walk (3 hrs) up high to the peak that the gondaola went up to if it had been running. It was very cold at the top and the whole complex was closed so we found a place in some shelter to eat our lunch. Bread and cheese and tomato. Same every day but easy to make.

On the way down it started to snow which was just beautiful with large flakes floating gently down.

Steak dinner out was on the menus again so we headed out at 8pm which is eventing meal time in Argentina. We chose a mixed barbecue grill with different meats, a big bowl of chips and a big salad. The bowl of chips was enormous. Its was a good that we only ordered one. My stomach must have shrunk whilst we have been away as I just couldn’t finish all the food on my plate. Just not like me to do that.I’m sure the kids will verify that.

It was then on north again up Ruta 40 to Villa Angostura and then on to San Martin de las Andes. The trip took us through what is known as the Lake District along the most beautiful road that passed a whole series of beautiful lakes and Forrest’s with mountain views around every corner.

Angostura was a resort town with lots of big holiday homes and hotels. The style is a bit Swiss but with lots of exposed log beams and the like. See photos.

San Martin de las Andes was a much larger town than we expected and again there are many nice large houses and some very nice shops.

Today we headed out for another walk up to a high point behind the town. The day was fine with a good amount of sun so we ate our standard bread, cheese, tomato and gherkin lunch at the top in a spot sheltered from the wind. Most enjoyable.

They have good ice cream shops here so we had another one today just to make sure that todays one was as good as yesterdays. It was. See photos

Tomorrow we drive back to Angostura for our last night in Argentina