Hanging on the Edge in Bariloche

« Return to Argentina

My fingers were freezing, as one would expect fingers would be when dug into melting snow on the side of a cliff. To my right was a sharp rock, which may or may not have been attached to more sharp rocks, and therefore, may or may not cause an avalanche and my painful earthly exit. To my left, a 40-meter crevice, cut deep into the side of Cerro Lopez. In order to join the Danes, I would have to swing myself across, putting all the weight on the fingertips of my right hand. If they had any feeling, they would probably be petrified. “Count of three then,”says Martin, holding Katrina’s walking stick in case the snow gives and I find myself close enough to grab it in mid-plummet. “One, two…”

Patagonia, I am pleased to report, is more than a brand of clothing found at your local camping shop. It is the southern quarter of Argentina, where the population consists primarily of deep blue fjords, snow-capped mountains with granite spires, forests, glaciers and lost tourists doing their very best to not slide into crevices and never be seen of again. Heavily influenced by Austrian and Swiss immigrants, the towns of Patagonia mimic Austrian and Swiss villages, complete with department store-sized chocolate shops, fondue restaurants, sausage grills and the sound of yodeling echoing in the hills. Add the renowned passion of the Argentines, and Patagonia could be the bastard son of Julie Andrews and Che Guevara. Viva la’ lederhosen! Since I arrived in South America, I have been hearing about the beauty, culture, food and women of Argentina. If I had a peso for every time I heard “Wait until you get to Argentina!” from both travelers and locals, I would spend my fortune immediately before the currency gets devalued. Again. While prices were cheap in Bolivia, it’s what you can buy in Argentina that makes it dethrone Bolivia as the best travel deal in South America. Since the economy collapsed a couple of years ago, the dollar goes a long way, all the way into my gut, to be precise. A fillet mignon (biefe de lomo) steak the size of Mike Tyson’s forearm, a great bottle of wine, fries and salad will punch your lights out at $10. Subsequently, I have eaten the arms of the entire heavyweight boxing division this past week, a savage return to my red meat roots after seven weeks of chicken. Eating meat in Argentina is like drinking Guinness in Ireland - even though it is exported around the world, here it just tastes better.

I had bid farewell to Chile, catching a bus from Pucon to Argentina on a bumpy dirt road. If Chile strives hard to be first world, Argentina’s reputation as a second world country (where nearly 50% of the population are currently living in poverty) was immediately apparent with the rickety old bus, and the mustached border official typing E-S-R-O-O-C-H with two fingers on an ancient typewriter. That typo might come back to haunt me, the way Maradona’s hand haunts English soccer fans. My destination was the holiday town of Bariloche, on the northern tip of Patagonia. Forgetting my own advice about trusting the advice of others, I missed my connecting bus and unexpectedly spent my first night in Argentina in the lovely village of St Martin de Andes. Here I enjoyed my first feast of flesh, perfectly grilled, my satisfaction delighting the four waitresses who could have walked off a ramp in Milan. “I am so happy to be back in Argentina,”says Yaron from Israel,”it is like crossing a line and suddenly all the women are beautiful!” Not that the women of Peru, Bolivia and Chile were slacking in the looks department, but the sheer numbers in Argentina are staggering. Too many beers later, I staggered myself back to an Israeli backpacker apartment, where I concluded that bad late-night cable television is not only a North American phenomenon.

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