Denouement Diaries - Week 4

Essentially the ramblings of two adults that probably require adult supervision.

As usual, follow along at:

• @expeditiondenouement
• @lukereynoldsorg
• @casey_palmz

And...here. Anyway let's get into it:

2/3/23 - Day 22: El Calafate + Perito Moreno Glacier

• Snack breakfast in our room
• Outside for minivan pickup at 0900
• Picked up some other people around town
• Then about an hour drive towards the glacier
• Annoying stop for another mandatory national park permit that was not included in the ticket price
• Continued on
• Down to where the boats are docked
• Wet and freezing
• Onto the boat
• Only about 800m along the lake until we come across a megalithic glacier flowing out into the lake
• About 40m high at the shore, 60-70m high at the snout, a couple of km across
• Unbelievable
• Boat back to shore
• We see some radnom couple obviously tasting some 'glacial water at the dock - straight from the lake - but we are at a dock, with multiple boats, that are clearly diesel powered
• They aren't just drinking glacial water
• They be drinking diesel...
• Then bus up to the boardwalks were you can get a different perspective
• Looking down on the glacier
• Seems like its right there
• But its so massive that the perspective is warped
• Wandered around watching chunks of ice calve off into the lake
• Listening to sounds like explosions and gunshots as the ice moves
• Amazing
• We are now glacier people
• Had a couple of coffees
• Bus back to town
• Dinner next door to our hostel - empanadas are never a bad choice
• Documentary on animals in Patagonia
• Sleeps

3/3/23 - Day 23: El Calafate

• Sleep in
• Breakfast at a waffle place across the road
• Bacon and eggs for me, literally ice cream and Oreos for Casey
• Wandered along the main street
• Found a taxi
• Out to the Glaciarium, a glacier museum/educational exhibit that is in the middle of nowhere like a Bond villain hideout
• Was really good
• Glaciers are awesome
• We are glacier people
• More coffee
• Taxi back to town
• Lunch down the street - steak and veggies
• Back to the hostel to chill and digest
• Very relaxed afternoon
• Decided to just have dessert for dinner at the restaurant near us
• Poached fruits, ice cream, cinammon pastries
• V good

4/3/22 - Day 24: Laguna Nimez

• Woke up around 945am
• Had a very funny laugh in our stupidly small children’s beds
• Went all the way (30m) across the road for breakfast waffles - much delish
• Booked the next 3 weeks in good wifi - up to Brazil!
• Then walked to Laguna Nimez - protected part of Lago Del Argentino
• Beautiful 5km loop of birdwatching - saw flamingos which was the highlight!
• Then went to small park - excellent overland truck driven by French family “XTG” parked there
• Walked back to Don Luis pastry shop and got some churros and got drinks - delish
• Walked home and Casey watched animal documentaries and I did some busywork
• Then went and had fantastic dinner at the place from last night
• Casey called her fam and then watched a documentary and packed for 2 x flights

5/3/22 - Day 25: El Clafate - Buenos Aires - Bariloche

• Annoying start when checking out of the hostel and paying
• Paying at the end so that the business loses less in inflation in the interim compared to if you had paid at the start of your stay or when booking
• Booking.com gave us a USD number to pay - which I had
• We are shown some enormous number of pesos to pay
• As if we had Liberia’s deficit worth of pesos in our pocket by chance
• Nope. We pay in USD please
• Eventually we pay
• But we are very sure we underpaid
• A direct result of hostel staff having to do multiple currency conversions between USD, ARS and ARS blue currency street value
• The currency here is rubbish
• But, the taxi driver who we had booked days ago simply by a verbal agreement was there exactly on time on a Sunday morning to take us to the airport
• Argentina, the land of contradictions
• Ok first flight down - another fart tube with people coughing up lungs but fine
• Then transfer in Buenos Aires
• Which took an age to get a boarding pass
• Because the online booking thing sent me two boarding passes for Casey and none for me
• Amazing
• So began another chapter of 'lining up in Argentina'
• It’s just dysfunctional
• Perhaps less adult naps and less constant talking on WhatsApp would result in less lines…
• Hard rock cafe to chill out with good music after the line
• Another line to get on to the plane
• Good grief another round of applause has broken out with a successful landing at Bariloche
• Eventually found a cab at the front of Bariloche airport
• Had what seemed to be Sebastian Vettel drive us to the hostel
• Which was lovely
• Super functional and professional with 24hr front desk staff
• Dumped bags and walked a block down to 'Papagoonia' to grab some chori
• Awesome food while watching a Phil Collins concert playing over the sound system
• Excellent

6/3/22 - Day 26: Bariloche

• Breakfast in the hostel - excellent - included
• Wandered around the Centro area
• Saw the little German town square
• Museum of Patagonian history
• Cafe for chocolates (which this place is a bit famous for) and planning
• Booked a transfer out to some national park for Wednesday
• Planning on some mountain lookouts tomorrow
• Back to the hostel
• Casey got organised for some Pole time
• Walked her about 200m down the road to the pole gym
• Picked up Casey
• Empanadas for dinner
• Watched 'The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent' which was fantastic
• Chilled
• Then Casey had another pole session
• Crazy lady
• Home
• Then helplessly overhearing some couple in the room next door argue about something well towards midnight - put one down in the bingo for 'not gonna make it'
• Sleeps

7/3/22 - Day 27: Bariloche

• Rolled out of bed
• Big breakky
• Strolled into town
• Found a place we could buy a ticket to get us up a chairlift
• Grabbed a maccas coffee - weird and not great
• Casey found a jacket
• Back to ticket booth and on to a bus
• Short ride
• Cable car station
• Argentinian lines
• Into cable car
• Up the hill
• The top was weird - sort of just rundown with all the machinery and maintenance requirements of a mountaintop cable car station/restaurant being in the way of the view
• Casey found a bit of a better view
• We had a look at a weird Italian art gallery thing which was basically just remakes of statues and photos of artworks and Italian streets apes
• Really weird
• Bugger this
• Back down the cable car
• Probably just missed the return bus
• Waited 35 minutes for the next bus
• Some crazy old man busking with an accordion while we waited
• Bus back to town
• Lunch at a place called ‘Friends’ which was great
• Then to a massive ice cream and pastry place with a ice skating rink inside
• Shockingly slick and professional and functional and excellent ice cream and coffees
• Walked back to our hostel
• Chilled because sugar coma
• Into the afternoon read and played some card games
• Then walked Casey to her next (of many) pole dance class
• After which we had dinner again at 'Papagoonia'
• Good food
• Choripan

8/3/22 - Day 28: Bariloche + Nahuel Huapi Nationa Park

• Up a bit earlier to make sure we had breakfast before we were picked up for a transfer to the national park
• It arrived on time
• Into the van
• Usual thing where the van roams around picking people up from other hotels
• The driver is the guide
• And he speaks no english
• And he has not stopped talking
• We measured 11 seconds as the longest silence
• We get to some sort of national park entrance
• Fees that are not included in the transfer booking price - suprise suprise
• We are expected to pay 50% more for national park entry fees because we are foreign
• Nope
• I pay the local rate with my best Argentinian accent
• Bullshit rule
• The transfer turns into something we were not expecting
• We are basically just on a massive drive along a gravel track that stops every half hour or so for a 10 minute photo-op
• And we are not the only van
• There are convoys full of Argentinians
• And Argentinians absolutelty love taking photos of themselves
• They are running to get photos in front of - pebble beach, bridge, lookout, jetty, glacier lookout on side of road
• Eventually stopped at a place to get some lunch
• We are pretty un-thrilled by this boring drive at this point
• Have some lunch
• The drive continues
• Eventually we get to a really cool hanging glacier with a black glacier below it
• It is legitimately spectacular
• We wander around the draining streams and look up at the waterfalls from the melting glaciers falling out of the sky
• Massive mountains
• Unfortunatley, the good stuff was at the end of the road
• So its a long drive back out of the national park
• The thing took all day
• Dropped back a our hostel
• Empanadas for dinner
• Chilled for a bit watching the new Chris Rock comedy
• Then dropped Casey to another pole class
• Picker her up after
• Sleeps

Stay tuned...