Author: Samwell

After a short but fairly terrifying flight from Chiang Mai in a giant chicken, we ended up having some of the most fun we’ve had in Asia in Mae Hong Son.

Gims Resort must have given us some kind of deal because for the price, this place was amazing to stay in. The town of Mae Hong Son itself is fairly small, with some nice temples and street markets to visit, as well as good food (like pretty much everywhere in Thailand).

We also rented a motorbike from PJ’s motorcycle rental (ask someone in town where it is). PJ was a sound bloke, the bike was in very good condition and cost only £2 p/day (half of what you would pay in other places in town). Then we did a portion of the Mae Hong Son ‘loop’ which I would suggest doing for anyone in the area. The province is renowned for it’s scenery and it takes you well off the beaten path to some breathtaking places and beautiful, authentic small villages. We just did a day trip, but it’s possible to stay in one of the many guest houses in one of the little villages near the border of Myunmar where there is strong Burmese and Chinese influences.

After just over a month in Australia and the UK, Bangkok has been a shock to the system. There’s no mistake that we’re travelling again now and the hustle and bustle of this city has been as difficult for me as it has been exciting.

I have a constant feeling of anxiousness whenever we’re in a taxi because we’re never 100% sure if they’re taking us to the correct place or trying to get us to take a look in one of their sponsors shops for a suit fitting. The intensity of the lifestyle here is as extreme as the temperature which has also taken some getting used to.

There are of course some upsides. Firstly, the food has been amazing and is sold on every street corner. Prices of everything are a fraction of what we have been spending in Australia. The people here also seem generally very friendly.

We’ve had to hit the ground running, but Bangkok has been a good kick up the ass to get us back into the swing of things.

We’re off to Cambodia this evening which we’re both very excited about. A Facebook post from Tul has also lead to a random comment from my old mate Pete Franks and us meeting him for a drink tonight in his bar in Siem Reap!

Since we’ve become a group of six instead of a team of two it’s given us the opportunity to rent cabanas rather than to book hostels. Apart from working out cheaper, it’s a really nice way to live. At our first lakeside cabin in Trufal (near Bariloche), we cooked parilla outside using local wood and kept warm in the evening with the log burner. Its remote location and green forestry was reminiscent of the farm and made me feel as though I could live in a similar surroundings again one day.

(Cabana no 1 in the woods in Villa Trufal)

After scaring the girls at the window whilst getting firewood in the dark, the boys found themselves locked out long enough to smoke a cigar and drunkenly cover topics including the Ottoman empire and possible ways of breaking back into the cabana.

The place we have here in San Martin, although still lakeside, is in a much bigger place. Even so, San Martin is a perfectly kept town which like Barilohe seems to have a very Swiss influence. The cabin itself is the size of a toy house and the entire thing squeaks when we walk upstairs, but it’s fun and is still less expensive than the cheapest hostel we’ve found. Last night we had a homemade empanada bake-off which made for an unforgettable evening as well as some recipes we’ll definitely bring back home with us.

(Cabana no 2 by the lake in San Martin de Los Andes)

Argentinians will happily ask where we’re from and strike up a conversation in shops, cafes or on the street. Here in San Martin if they tell us they are from this part of the world then they’re happy to admit that they’re very lucky. As I’m writing this I’m lying next to Tul on the beach of the lake, watching random dogs play with random beach-goers, listening to a group of locals playing the guitar and singing Spanish songs who are responding well to our claps and cheers. The sun is beating down and it has to be said that today feels as though a standard of living doesn’t get much better than this.

Parillas (Argentina’s equivalent to barbecues) are everywhere here, so tonight the boys will cook while the girls take care of sides and drinks :)

We’ve spent a great amount of time exploring Patagonia. Over the past three weeks we’ve travelled from Mendoza, across to the east coast of Argentina to Puerto Madryn, Ushuaia, El Calafate, El Chalten, Bariloche, Villa Trufal and further up the west to San Martin de Los Andes. Despite the colder climate, both Sam and I have to agree that Patagonia is somewhere we want to return to and somewhere we really love.

Puerto Madryn & Gaiman (the Welsh town)

Puerto Madryn is famous for its sea life. Our few days here we’ve seen penguin colonies (our favourite), southern right whales (which appeared just a few metres from the boat because of their naturally curious personalities), dolphins, sea lions, sea birds and elephant seals. One small regret we have is that we didn’t manage to find time to go sea kayaking with a local sea lion colony which looked like a once on a life time opportunity. A great excuse to revisit though…

One thing which both Sam and I were keen to see was a little welsh town called Gaiman. There was nothing too special about this quiet little town in Patagonia apart from the fact that locals speak in Welsh and Spanish and the schools make it mandatory for children to learn both languages. We wanted to see this with our own eyes, plus I was dying to sample some
of the goodies on offer at one of the abundant tea houses!

We found a little place called Ty Nain (which translates to ‘grandma’s house’) where we not only drank several cups of tea, but also gorged ourselves on a mammoth platter of selected cakes, scones and jams (see pics!). The owner was delighted when Sam surprised her with ‘good afternoon’, ‘thank you’ and ‘where are the toilets please?’ (which he then admitted was the only Welsh he knew!).

Ushuaia

Ushuaia or Fin del mundo (the end of the world), as it’s otherwise known is the southern most town in the world. It sounds like a magical place and it really is. Snow blankets the surrounding Andes mountain ranges which are peppered with fur trees and beautiful forests and lakes. Whilst we didn’t have the luxury of setting sail to explore Antarctica, we still had a wonderful few days enjoying the gorgeous Tierra del Fuego national parks and my birthday.

Along the way to Ushuaia (a 31 hour bus journey weaving in and out of Chile) we befriended a lovely irish couple, Erlend & Nuala who we got on with like a house on fire. On the eve of my birthday all four of us booked to go husky sledding followed by an open fire in the forest with a guitar sing along. It was an amazing night and we feasted on traditional Fuegian food and mulled wine. At the end of the night we walked back through the snow and forest under the moonlight in snow shoes swigging whisky to keep us warm. It was such a memorable night and a great way to see my birthday in. We were in such good spirits we continued our celebrations at our friends hostel with cigars, beer and more wine until 4.30am!

To recover from such an indulgent evening sam and I spent my birthday exploring the national park and enjoying the mesmerising beauty of the lakes and lagoons. That evening we treated ourselves to a delicious mountain of fresh crab and bubbly! I couldn’t have imagined a more special way to spend my birthday other than at the end of the world with our new friends!

El Calafate & El Chalten

From Ushuaia, we decided to fly to our next destination, El Calafate, because of the constant hassle of having to go in and out of Chile and Argentina’s border control.

Erlend & Nuala were also travelling up the same route along the western border of Argentina and so it was in El Calafate that we all decided to travel the remainder of Patagonia together.

Our first excursion was Perito Moreno, one of Patagonia’s famous glaciers. We went on a mini trek on the glacier wearing crampons to walk on the ice followed by a boat trip to get close to the crumbling south face! The walk was surreal and full of ice blue crevices which you had to carefully dodge! As a little treat at the end the guides hacked off some of the ice from the glacier and gave each of us a large glass of whisky to accompany it with. Erlend and Sam were particularly giddy with excitement at the substantial measures and I was mainly just delighted knowing that the ice cubes had been aged far longer than the whisky!

That evening we celebrated Erlend’s birthday (which was the following day) with a home made Parilla (BBQ of various meats) and copious amounts
of wine! It was this evening that we met another American couple travelling our route, Mike an Alicia. 6 people meant more trouble and we ended up staying up until 6am…

Two days later we all travelled further north to the pueblo of El Chalten which is famous for its treks around the Fitzroy range. Despite the misty, miserable and blustery weather with poor visibility we managed a 30km round trip hike but unfortunately none of us got as much as a glimpse of Fitzroy or Cerro Torre which is known to be the most difficult mountain In the world to climb!

The Lake District road-trip

Bariloche is Argentina’s Swiss capital and it was here that Erlend, Nuala, Mike, Alicia, Sam and I decided to hire a car and hit the road to explore the beautiful lakeside villages around Argentina’s famous lake district.

We’d heard that there was a little gem of a village nestled by a gorgeous lake called Lago Trufal which had cabanas (wood cabins) dotted around it which would offer us the tranquility and remoteness that we were all after. That’s where we headed and it was everything we hoped for including dozens of roaming wild horses dancing through the trees.

Buenos Aires is a unique and extremely fun place. Argentina is the 8th largest country in the world and 75% of it’s population live in greater Buenos Aires. Add that to the turbulent political history with governments being overthrown and the country being swung from left to right, plus it’s strong political figures like President Peron (and wife Evita) and strong rebellious heroes like Che, then you end up with an extremely clued up and opinionated group of people. There is apparently always a march of some kind going on in BA and the few days we were there was no exception. There was a ‘middle class protest’ about the government restricting how people spend their money outside of the country and we soon discovered that if you’re not afraid to ask the locals what they think then they’re certainly not afraid to tell you (even if you don’t ask sometimes). This particular topic seemed to split people down the middle and we spoke to people from both sides of the fence. All very open and really fun and interesting to talk to.

Buenos Aires has cemented Argentina as our favourite country so far. Bolivia’s salt flats are probably my highlight, but the people here have made the country stand out for us. On the way home from dinner one night (where we’d had an extensive chat to the restaurant owner about the topic above), we got on the bus to realise you can only use coins and cards (which we didn’t have) so 2 boys in front of us paid for our journey without thinking about it twice. How often would that happen in London and would I have done the same? I certainly would from now on.

The street markets and street food have been amazing (and relatively cheap). Things in general though have been very expensive here compared to the other countries we’ve visited. Our budget means we can now only afford separate beds in dorm rooms, which Tul says “feels like being divorced”. We’ve splurged on some nice romantic dinners to make up for it though, as well as taken a Tango class! Tango is everywhere in this city and one of our best nights was watching a free street tango show with live music from a wine bar (NOT free!) balcony.

Oh, we also had a few nights in a swanky hotel for Tul’s early surprise Birthday present which was also a welcome break from usual dorm rooms :)

Mendoza and wine region next!

Pronounced by locals ‘Caff-a-shatty’. Bigger than Samaipata but still a relatively small town and we both loved it there not least because it’s officially wine country, but the temperature is also scorching hot.

We rented bikes to ride to the different vineyards and bodegas, the best of which was Bodega Nanni where we had our favourite wine and an amazing steak which I can now see why Argentina is famous for. A lot of the wines so far have been fairly disappointing but the white made from the local grape Torrontes Dulce is delicious (and inexpensive).

Also, and this is probably the best part – Tul is really beginning to love dogs! One of the street dogs attached itself to us for two days, lying at our feet during dinner and even waiting outside while I went to the loo. We named it Cusquena (independently of each other) after our favourite dark beer and Tul insisted we buy it an empanada each night.

The few days we had there didn’t seem enough, but we can rest easy knowing that we managed to consume over 50 empanadas during that time (Casa de las Empanadas are some of the best we’ve had) :-|

We’ve now just started a 21hr bus journey to Iguazu falls after already completing the first 6hr leg and a quick stop-over in Tucuman. Let’s hope the falls are worth it…

We’ve been busy in Sucre. In the mornings we volunteer at a nursery which is a short bus ride out of town, in the afternoons we have Spanish lessons and in the evenings we teach conversational English to locals (yeah that’s right, I’VE been teaching English).

The nursery is a tiring but amazing experience. The moment we walked in the door the kids were flinging themselves at us as if they’d known us forever. This nursery is run by a few of the kids mothers. It’s basic (the place itself doesn’t even have an address) and mostly funded by organisations like our language school (The Fox Institute). The kids on the whole are great and some of them are from very difficult backgrounds. Our Spanish is still quite basic and the kids speak a mix of Spanish and Quechua so our verbal communication is extremely simple, although it hasn’t seemed to matter much. They’re physical and boisterous, but friendly and fun.

Lunchtime is hilarious. The portions they give the kids are massive and we have about 30 minutes to feed as many of them as possible before we leave for our Spanish lessons. Starters is a bowl of soup with chips or potatoes in it and their second course is a decent sized plate of meat, rice and chips or potatoes (and this is even for Rosa Maria the one year old). The younger ones then usually begin falling asleep at the table and in their food, in which case they’ll have cold water splashed on their faces and be ready for round two. It sounds quite rough on the kids but apparently a lot of them may not get much to eat at home, so these meal times are very important and you can see how much the nanny’s care about them.

Spanish is more difficult than we thought and I’m certainly struggling with the verbs especially (much more difficult than English). Edith, our teacher is great though and good fun. On Friday, the second half of our lesson was spent in the kitchen with her, cooking a traditional Bolivian dish called Saice which we we’ve made for ourselves since (kind of like a Bolivian bolognese made with sweet chilli instead of tomatoes).

For our English students in the evening, we normally ask questions about Bolivian politics, education, etc and then correct their English as we discuss. Otherwise, if they have questions on gramma, we’ll get to the nearest Internet cafe and download a lesson plan to go through with them the next time we see them. All the students have been great and it’s been interesting for us to find out about life in Bolivia and about the English language!

Sucre as a city has also been really nice and reminded us both of Arequipa in Peru. It’s been hard work for us here but we’ll definitely miss the people, especially the kids.