Hazel's Travel Blog: Los Antiguos, Patagonia, Argentina

A day by the lake - the water was so clear!

The hostel/fruit farm entrance

We get a late bus from Perito Moreno to Los Antiguos, and arrive there at around 1am. The taxi drops us at the hostel and we knock timidly, both wanting to be let in, but without the disturbance of waking anyone. Eventually, someone hears us and comes to the door. The thing we have discovered thus far into the trip, is that even though you may have booked a room and called in advance to say you're on the way, South Americans are just so relaxed and chilled out that they always seem to have forgotten the plan, always surprised to see you. This of course was one of these cases, and we were relieved to be let in to find we had an 8 bed dorm to ourselves. Sleep, lovely sleep!

A lookout over the town of Los Antiguos

The village itself is small and pretty, and although it is farther off the beaten track than Perito Moreno, it has a much busier atmosphere and a real sense of community to it. There are some gorgeous locally hand made craft and cheese shops, an active town hall and a beautiful clear water lake on its outskirts. We fill up our mate flask, stop by the bakery, and bring our picnic to the lakes edge for the day. Our first chance so far on the trip to lay out on a beach of sorts for the day...and just relax.

Monument overlooking the town

Our lovely handmade Mate cup from the Buenos Aires San Telmo Markets

We return later that evening to the hostel, where there are some Argentinians about our age, whom have a gazillion bucket-loads of cherries, which we then discovered were growing on the property. It turns out we are staying on a fruit farm! They grow cherries, apples, peaches and pears and we wander the property gorging on fruity goodness....oh wow they were so delicious!

Nommm

After cooking dinner & eating cherries until we're ill, we are at a bit of a loose end, so we take a stroll around the nearby land. We are giddy and silly thinking we're hilarious taking these photos. Apologies in advance...they're not the most interesting!

Although there was nothing much of interest on our walk (besides the tractor), there was a stunning sunset!

Ou est le lapin?!

Awh haw haw haw! Foux foux du fah fah...

Drunk on Cherries

We arrive back at our hostel room to find it invaded by a very large and very loud group of Israeli's. One guy makes an effort to chat to us, he seems pretty nice & we decide to head out for a few drinks with them. They drink in the room for a few hours, and by the time they decide to head off, we have decided not to join them as we have to catch a bus early in the morning.

Drifting off to sleep a few hours later, our Israeli friends return, a few drinks all the merrier and I stick on my ipod to block out the chatter. Two hours later the chatter has become loud peals if laughter and shouting and I am a very cranky angry lady. So I wait and I wait, patiently plotting my revenge. I can see Donal on the bunk bed opposite, tossing fitfully, and I know he must also be awake. The din dies down at around 5am when they all finally set to sleep and I get an hours sleep before we have to get up for our bus at 6am.

At 6am I jump out of bed, knowing that what I'm about to do isn't entirely ethical, but I know it will be satisfying, oh the revenge! A bottle of water lies beside my bed, it gets smacked accidentally off the floor, a few times in quick succession. The zipper on my bag will not close and so I open and shut it quickly over and over again. Donal cooks breakfast in the adjoining room and we call and shout loudly across to one another about various irrelevant information. The plastic bags which separate the clothes in my backpack are packed and re-packed until the loud russle sparks an enraged reaction from one of our israeli friends. My work here is done, my revenge satisfied, and we head off, tired, and happy to our early morning bus.