7 Lakes

Hola Everyone...
We are back in Bariloche after a 3 day trip in the ¨7 lakes¨ area. It was a long drive on a dirt road with a manual gear, so to spare Argentinian lives we decided Alon will drive, as the last time i drove a stick was at my drivers test. We had the best SUV you can ask for- a rental & i spent most of the road clinging to my seat & praying we won´t fly off a clift or have a flat tier. i have no idea how that car made it threw... the road itself was beautiful when i opened my eyes to look & stopped screaming at Loni to drive slower.

there are much more lakes in the "7 lakes" route. each one is more beautiful than the other.
if it was in Israel it was probably called the "7 seas" because some of them are much larger then the Kinneret. here are pictures of the lakes we liked the most.


LAKE MELIQUINA


LAKE LACAR


LAKE HERMOSO


LAKE FALKNER


LAKE TRAFUL



LAKE NAHUEL HUAPI


As you can see we had lots of fun there. We are officially "7 Lakes" graduates!!!




At the second night of our short trip we had stopped in a small town called "Villa La Angostura" and gone to a hike in the forest to see some rare trees that grows only on that Island. we have walked 20Km only to discover that the real reason they are so rare is because they are UGLY and nobody wants to plant them (in our opinion anyway).


We are planning to stay here for 2 more days and then take a "short" 13 hours bus ride to "puerto madryn" to see some penguins, sea lions and whales.


Keep in touch and write us how you are all doing.

Dina & Loni

3 days in Bariloche

Hola Everybody....we r still in Bariloche. There is a lot to do here. we mostly took hikes around the town. Our latest adventure started when we got confused & ended up doing the wrong track as usual... instead of an easy short one we found ourselves on the top of a snowy mountain. I am proud to say that yours truly didn´t wine once!!!!! It took us 4 hours instead of two and an old European lady with a mochila passed us by like the wind but who is complaining... as usually the view was AMAZING!!! Why didn´t the Jewish people get this place instead of some yard in the desert?!

Today we went to national park "LLAO-LLAO" it took us a while to learn how to pronounce it but we got there. It was a lot of fun and again beautiful view as usual! We took the bus back to Bariloche which was a horrible experience. The buses outside the city are very very very old, slow and rare (once in an hour). Apparently they are also magical because they can contain an unlimited amount of people. Whenever you think there isn´t enough room for a fly´s fart, another 6 people climb in. It gets so crowded sometimes that people have to sit on the drivers dashboard.

We have been eating a lot of meat here for the past few days. Alon is in paradise! They don´t seem to have the usual denial about what or who they are eating here. the other day we ate in a known restaurant called "Albertos". At the entrance you are welcomed by a huge poster of the owner holding a cow corps in each hand with a crazy grin on his face. The hole place has a design of a butcher´s shop & the menu´s covers are made of cow skin... i couldn´t swallow but Alon couldn´t be happier. He swore me we would go there again before leaving.

Anyhow, this has been a very long post. sorry. We are going to rent a car and do the "7 lakes" rout sleep the night at San Martin and come back to Bariloche the day after tomorrow.

keep in touch.
Dina & Alon

Bariloche, Argentina

Hola everybody... after 2 short bus rides of 4 hours each(belive me it´s considered short here) we arrived at Bariloche, Argentina at 20:30 yesterday, only to discover that we don´t have any Argentinian money & the nearest ATM is at the center of the town about 5 km away. Luckly we found a nice Israeli couple who took us in their cab. it took us a lot of time to find a place to sleep because the hostels were either booked or looked like army dorms with double beds. Finally we find a hotel with real bathroom and even breakfast and roomservice. Today we realized that because it was dark we walked into a different hotel and missanderstood the reseptionist. the hostel we were looking for is next door. i knew it was to good to be true!!!

The way here threw the "Andim" was breathtaking & Bariloche itself has the most beautiful view i have ever seen!!!! it is near a lake which is surrownded by snowy mountains... AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There r a lot of chocolate stores here, some of them r huge supermarkets where u by chocolate by the kilo, & the restraunts r amazing too. so far we love Argentina....

Resting in PUCON

Hello everybody... well aperently when u climb a volcano it´s very important to use sunscream...











The next day after our failing attempt to concure the volcano we decided to take a day of rest.

Alon suggested we take a short & easy walk to a waterfall nearby, unfortunatlly that turned out to be a 25 km hike after which i didn´t think I could ever walk again. Needless to say i´m not listening to Loni "hamaafan" anymore!!!!! The way to the waterfall was very beautiful even more than the waterfall itself.













After that it started to rain all day and we were stuck in a small & cold room without a window for 24 hours. I finished my book!!!! Loni is at chapter 6.... hihihi.....

Anyhow, we decided not to stay at Pucon and took a bus to Bariloche, Argentina.

PUCON

We r now in pucon. it´s a quiet and pastoral villege that´s located near a volcano named "Viarika".We have a small room in a family house called "Ailen" as the woman who runs the hostel. we don´t have a window and for hot water we have to light gas benieth the water pipes.
however the view is amazing and totally worth it!!!























There is a lot to do here. Lucklly for us the weather is really good so we were able to climb the "Viarka" volcano today. The view was amazing. it`s a 8 hours climb in the snow. We only got to the middle because Dinush was about to faint. However the way down was even harder because the snow was very very high... especially for some very short people... so the part when you`re supposed to slide from the mountain on your butt was actually the fun part...















there is a lot to do here so we´re gonna stay few more days and hopefully survive...

loni & dina

Chile, Santiago

Hi
we r now in Santiago... it's a typical European city nice but not amazing...
No one here speaks English and I am using my "remarkable" Spanish to communicate.
Alon is looking up a word in the dictionary and then adds a question mark at the end and a funny gesture with his hand like "lama ma kara?" its very funny.













We have a cheep room in very old mansion... it has a very old wooden floor that squeaks every time you step on it and you need to prey before every step that it wont fall down...
There is only one shower on every floor and when we told the receptionist that all the lamps in our room are burned he just gave us some to replace by ourselves. but the building itself is amazing...

tomorrow night we're gonna go to pucon... a much interesting place... it's a night drive of 9 hours... but we got tickets to a good bus with toilet...

Dina and Loni