Walked 30 km (18 miles) Today

Walked 30 km (18 miles) Today

Saturday, Feb. 18, Villa De Angostura, Lake District, Patagonia, Argentina

I posted yesterday, but I don´t see my post at the website. Something must have gone wrong. Mostly, I wrote about my days in Bariloche and the fact I had taken a bus to here and would be here for two days.

This is a wonderful village--much more fun to be in than Bariloche. I have been out and about a lot during my two days here. One of the main reasons for coming here is to see a national park that has a stand of arrayanes trees (the largest native grove of them in the world)--a reddish, barkless tree that I had seen in the mountains crossing the Andes also. The problem is that the grove of trees is at the end of a penninsula. I had to walk 12 km to get to that point, then I had to walk 12 km back again to get out. There are boats that take you there, but one of the pleasures is to be there alone. And I managed to do that. No boats were there when I was. I didn´t see another person as I walked through the stand of arrayanes. I did pass people on the trail, although at my speed of walking no one passed me! And I met many people going the opposite direction. The trail was interesting with very tall trees, interesting bird calls, pretty blue dragonflies, wild flowers in various colors, etc. It was a bit dangerous at times, however, because of being steep with loose dirt. Several times, my feet slipped. There really should have been more steps to replace such steep inclines, but many people bike the trail. I was a good way to spend the day. It took me 2 hours each way to hike the trail, and I spent about 20 minutes inside the grove of arrayanes.

It was 4:10 when I got back to town. I tried to eat where I did yesterday, but they had just closed until dinner time. I went down the street to a pizza place that was open. It wasn´t very good pizza, but it filled me up.

I walked another 3 km out of town after that to get to an outdoor concert I had seen advertized on posters. It was in a clearing that was the front lawn of the summer house of the governor of this province. A large outdoor stage was set up with professional sound and lighting. There were three performers. The first was a Mexican singer/guitar player who wasn´t named in the program. Then came a latin group--Roberto y Cuti Carabajal. That was followed by a female tango singer named Adriana Varela. The latin group was great, although their leader talked too much between songs. The tango singer had a smokey-throated sound and was okay, but it was getting cold and I didn´t care that much for her. I left and walked back into town to the cyber cafe. It was interesting watching the crowd there. It was much like a crowd in Texas for an outdoor concert except that many people had their matte cups with them. That´s a drink that is popular here--a leaf that is placed in a cup with hot water poured over it. When finished, one pours more hot water and drinks again. Therefore, everyone carries both a cup with a metal straw and a flask of hot water for refilling the cup.

Tomorrow, I will take a bus to the next town up the (unpaved) road here in the Lake District--San Martin de Andes. I plan to be there two nights, also.

Spending Update for Chile: I spent $856.32 over 22 days for a daily average of $38.92--not bad, but more expensive than any of the other countries I have visited on this trip except for South Korea.