The Dog that Wanted to Eat the Sea

Wouldn’t that make a nice Dr Seuss story?

But it’s actually the story of one of the dogs we met along the bank of Lake Nahuel Huapi.

Although it is called a “Lake”, Nahuel Huapi is HUMONGOUS. You can barely see the shoreline of the opposite side of the bank. More incredibly, the lake was large enough to have its own wave system. This could be partly due to the (at times) insanely strong winds in the region (apparently, that’s the price to pay to be at the edge of flat, barren, beautiful Patagonia). And since it was winter, the average temperature around the lake, with the ridiculous wind chill could go down easily to -15°C DURING THE DAY.

And it was in this special, frozen part of hell that I found out that one of the things WE love most in the world was to go for strolls along the lake. Specifically, strolls along the lake at sunset when the temperature is the coldest and the wind the strongest.

To be fair, the scenery around the lake was something else. The trees that were recently “botak” from winter provided a nice foreground to the impossibly clear lake. Across the water, the snow capped mountains of the Andes was the perfect setting for some truly spectacular sunsets.

At the side of Lake Nahuel Huapi

Also… Jo can do her Rocky pose along the lake

Seriously… the sunsets were ridiculous

Anyway, one day, while we were doing our “usual” sunset walk (where I was NOT bitching about being dragged around in typhoon speed winds), we saw this…

And he/she/it carried on dashed madly/happily up and down the coast trying to eat up the lake for the full 20 minutes we were waiting standing there, waiting for the sun to set (this was right before my nose fell off from the cold).

Before you say anything, I have to mention that the temperature of the lake never goes above 15°C… even during the summer.

So, that is one very determined, or incredibly stupid dog. I am sure that there is a parable about finding the simple joys in life, or a lesson to learn about chasing your dreams fearlessly, but at that moment in time, the only thing I can think of was that Chumbawamba song – right after “extreme brain freeze”.

Switzerland!

Actually… we’re still in Argentina.

But you can’t blame us for thinking otherwise.

To us, Bariloche will always be remembered as the Land of the Godly Meat. (Yup… I am aware that came out slightly wrong). But to many Argentinians, it’s the premier ski resort in the country. The town is situated at the foot of the majestic Andes and surrounded by the HUGE Lake Nahuel Huapi.

The buildings in town are primarily made from stone and wood. Along with the crisp mountain air and the sight of snow capped mountains in the background, we could almost hear yodeling in the distance.

The town hall of San Carlos de Bariloche

Jo in the town square. She’s taking a decent photo for once… only to be photo bombed by Drogo from Game of Thrones

The townfolks certainly did their part to help perpetuate the “Swiss-ness” of the place.

Happy, shiny people walk around the town with snowboards and skis; touts with huge-ass adult and baby Saint Bernards (the dog, not the 11th Century monk) roam the town square; tourist trains ply the narrow alleys, and (very importantly) chocolate boutiques and breweries line both sides of the streets in the main drag of Bariloche (Av San Martin and Av Belgrano… of course)

Tourist Train in Bariloche

What’s better than chocolates? Oodles of Chocolate IN Chocolate Ice Cream

Yup, I think we could stay here for a little while longer…

A Bite of Heaven

This is a bit embarrassing to admit, but upon arriving back in Argentina, we felt the pinch on our wallets… unfortunately, that feeling only lasted for a grand total of one night.

On our second night in Bariloche, we found ourselves heading to one of the more expensive restaurants in the resort town for our dinner.

For Some Reason, after a day in Bariloche, we felt it would be more than a little unfair to ourselves if we spent the rest of our time in Argentina munching on cheap (but good) panchos and oversized (and also good) hamburgers.

The view as we walked out of the hostel. Or as I call it, “Some Reason”. The crisp,and sometime heady mountain air probably didn’t help in our powers of decision-making as well.

Anyway, the restaurant we were headed to – El Boliche de Alberto, was supposed to serve the best steaks in Argentina. And since Argentina is supposed to serve some of the best steaks in the world, theoretically, that would mean that we could have the best steak in the world at this restaurant.

See! Mountain Air Logic.

I’ve never been a big fan of steak, seeing that I… don’t normally eat them. But even I could smell that there was something special cooking in Alberto’s from two blocks down.

We arrived at the restaurant 10 minutes after they were opened. It’s not that we WANTED to be early, but even after all this time, we were not really used to the South American dinner time yet. Anyway, this meant that there wasn’t much of a queue and we were whisked straight to our table.

For (allegedly) the best steak restaurant in South America, the decor in de Alberto is surprisingly low key and down to earth. It conjures up a “family-restaurant-I-have-been-visiting-since-I-was-a-kid” kinda atmosphere and not the “you-are-going-to-give-us-all-your-money-while-we-serve-you-tooth-pick-sized-servings-and-we-will-be-looking-down-our-noses-while-we-are-at-it” snotty vibe.

One of the things that I love about El Boliche de Alberto is its open concept kitchen. Monster sized slabs of meat are barbecued in the Godzilla of ovens behind the counter, and the (rather good looking) chefs slather on the seasoning and slice up the beef in front of our eyes. Great stuff.

Secret shot of el harmosa de beautifique at work… Now I know how those Japanese old men who take upskirt shots feel

So what about the food?

Well… I don’t normally eat beef back in Singapore, so I am not really an expert on the matter (I suddenly came to the realization that for me, steak falls under the same category of “things I don’t normally eat” along with dishes like rotten horse meat and rabbit heads).

I just know that somehow we ended up with a steaming plate of blood and meat in front of us. To be honest, this was the point when I started to panic a little. The smell of the bife de lomo we ordered was AMAZING, but it’s not every day that the meat I am cutting into would ooze/squirt blood in my general direction.

It was all very Dexter-esque for me, but apparently this type of meat is quite common for the rest of the dinner crowd.

We’ve since learnt that beside being totally incapable to take an order for steaks that are cooked beyond “medium”, the scale the Argentinians use to measure how cooked a steak is is one rank off the one that we are normally used to. So if you’ve ordered a “medium rare” steak, expect it to be “rare” by normal standards, and if you ordered your steak “rare”, I wouldn’t be surprised if they just left a live (still moo-ing) cow on your table.

Well… it took some time, but I finally cut a sliver of the bife de lomo and took a tentative bite into it.

The meat was ridiculously tender and every bite of the bife released a literal burst of herbs and blood. The fatty portions of the meat melted in parts of my mouth I never even realized I had.

I think I might have peed myself a little.

All along, I’ve always pooh-pooh-ed at some people when they describe how certain wines have certain characters and how some wines must be paired with particular foods. I’ve always found this to be more than slightly pretentious.

I am a pretentious douche bag.

Impossible as it may seem, the overwhelming experience of eating our dinner was brought to the next level when we accompanied it with a sip of the $12 bottle of Malbec that we bought.

Oh… if only I could find the words…

It was the first time that I think I can understand what people mean when they say that the wine adds a new “dimension” to the food they are eating. Or in my own words, damn friggin delicious, can?

So far, much of our trip had been pretty much unplanned. We would wake up and go wherever we felt like. But right there in that restaurant, I started drawing up a schedule for a meal at de Alberto EVERY DAY we are in Bariloche.

The Steaks of Alberto

We’ve found that Poor-y feeling woaaah that Poor-y feeling

After some time in Chile, we forgot how expensive things were back in Argentina.

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Of course, we were quickly reminded of it the moment we stepped off the bus at San Carlos de Bariloche (or as the locals like to call it: “Bariloche”).

The Bus Station was a good 3km (29837.342928374 miles) (10 Titanics) from town.

We had the options of:

a) Waiting 75 minutes for the next local bus
or
b) Taking one of the many waiting cabs into town for US$35

Even though we’d factored the transport cost into our budget (yes… haha… we have a budget), it still felt just that little bit too extravagant to spend so much on a cab…. (the average cab taking cost in Chile is about US$5).

We decided on the most sensible option available to us…

Walk into town with our 25kg backpacks.

The start of the walk was a bit dreary since we had to trudge through the outskirts of town. Huge trucks kept blowing large amounts of dust into our faces as they passed us while we marched through (what looked to be) an industrial estate. We were dusty and grimy, so I was not exactly the happiest camper around. Somehow, Jo continued merrily skipping down the road. I think the 12 hours of sleep she got on the bus from Puerto Varas might have something to do with the wall-smashingly high levels of chirpiness.

Of course, her backpack ONLY weighs 16kg

Jo told me the last part of the walk into town was actually very pleasant because we had a panoramic view of the Nahuel Huapi Lake.

Lakeside view. Legend has it that Hitler and Eva Braune escaped to a little village on the outskirts of the lake to live out their lives, instead of… you know… committing suicide in a dirty bunker under Berlin. Hitler probably would’ve gotten a huge kick out of watching his minions march down the dirt road. Note: I am in no way comparing Jo to a moustached sadistic Nazi

But I wouldn’t know…I was too busy massaging the blood back into my arms.

But even I realized that there was something “special” about the trees in town…

Yarn Bombed!!!

Bariloche is known for being the ski resort of the rich and the famous. We quickly realized that it really didn’t help our financial outlook to have jumped from Chile into one of the most expensive resort towns in Argentina.

Our accommodation at Hostal Portofino cost twice what we usually paid when we were in Chile, and you can imagine our horror when we realized that the standard items on most menus in Bariloche were easily three times what we paid for kickass fresh eel and organic sandwiches just the day before.

Feeling exceptionally impoverished, we decided we should go for a poor man’s dinner… well… as poor as things can go in Bariloche without resorting to Oscar-the-Grouch-ing in trash cans – a burger/pancho combo at the local fast food joint.

Milk Bottles, Burgers and Panchos. Note: For us, any restaurant that serve their sauces in milk bottles get HUGE props for creativity

At US$15 a pop for our meal, all I can say it that at least they have the decency to dish out huge portions. And yeah… the pancho came with some kickass dressing as well (we were able to choose up to three).

Seeing that we are going to be spending the next month or so in Argentina, I am thinking we should start hitting the supermarkets and cook up some budget meals…

But then there is the problem of eating our own cooking….

I heard the medical expenses in Argentina is pretty hefty too.

The House that Fierro built

That’s Pablo Fierro, people.

Who?

Yeah… that was our reaction when we saw that one of the main attractions on the tourist map of Puerto Varas was the Museum of Pablo Fierro.

Suffice to say, seeing it did not rank very highly on our to-do list while we were there (especially not when there are so many amazing cafes and restaurants we could easily spend our days in). Yet, halfway though our walk back to town from La Gringa, we had to stop in our tracks when we saw this…

My exact thought at that point in time: “??!!”

Yup… CARS IN A FRIGGIN’ HOUSE!

And because we were not looking for it, we’d somehow stumbled upon the Museo de Pablo Fierro… or as we came to find out… it’s more like Casa de Pablo Fierro.

We must have looked kinda ridiculous standing there with our mouths agape because a spindly old man who had been working on the rooftop shouted out to us “Do you want to come in?”

We don’t have a lot of rules when it comes to travelling, but one that we do have is that as far as possible, we try not to follow strangers into cars or dark houses…. Yet, somehow we figured a dark house with embedded cars should be an exception to the rule.

Our decision was cemented when we saw this sign on the door.

Nope… not “Arte de Sonar” (Art of Sound?).  Even after more than a month in South America, our Spanish was still pretty much shit. But one of the first few phrases we learnt was this: “Entrada Liberada” – Free Entry

I don’t want to be overly dramatic, but to me, stepping into the Museum was like falling headfirst into the rabbit hole to Alice’s Wonderland.

Down Down Down… or should it be Up Up Up?

We were guided around the house by the wiry tall man who had been working on the roof. Still covered in sawdust and with fresh splinters poking out of his fingers, Pablo decided to show us around his kingdom himself.

Pablo is an artist – and a damn good one at that.

Some works of Pablo Fierro. He specializes in landscapes and would mount his pieces in old window and door frames

The story goes that about 20 years ago, he saw this town house at the edge of Puerto Varas. He saw great potential within it and took it upon himself to refurbish the crumbling old house. He filled the house with his art pieces and interspersed these art works with antiques and collectibles from all over Chile.

He hasn’t stopped since.

The Museum sort of grew out of control from there. What started as a two-storey town house now has two additional wings, and Pablo is working on another extension to the place. I suppose in a way, the museum is Pablo’s pièce de résistance 20++ years in the making.

Expected final state of the house… for now

Curios and knick-knacks are scattered all over the house. However, instead of looking like the setting for an episode of Hoarders, there is a kind of order to the madness… Nothing really feels out of place and the whole place just looks… strangely fascinating – like cycling through a warped time machine on a unicycle.

Ok… this shot is better for Down Down Down…

Museo de Pablo Fierro is now regarded as a heritage site of Puerto Varas and a must-see attraction here.

As we were walking through the house, Fierro talked to us about many things. Between his English and our (very broken) Spanish, we sort of got the feeling that his life could have taken many paths. He is a relatively successful artist, but he is now the self-appointed curator of the museum.

He spends his time chatting with visitors and teaching art to the local kids. He devotes his energy and finds great joy in constantly expanding and improving the house.

Letters and works from Pablo’s appreciative students

It’s not a conventional life that Pablo has led so far. He might be viewed as eccentric by some, but it cannot be denied that he really poured his heart and soul into producing something that he loves.

I don’t think many of us can say the same.

Perhaps that’s the reason why we love the museum so much. We can literally feel the pride and love radiating from the walls of the place. I think he said it best when at one point during the tour, he thumped his chest and declared, “Estoy feliz. Feliz es muy importante”

Pablo Fierro – The Man Himself

When Life Punches You in the Balls… Eat Brownies.

No… that’s not a drug reference, it’s about how our plan to get on the Navimag ferry from Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales got a hadoken to the gonards.

One of the things that we keep telling ourselves is that the best part about travelling the way we do is that we get to change our plans as and when we want to. We are not exactly bounded by any time frame, we can afford to take things slow and we are free to go wherever our whims take us.

But honestly, that’s something that I tell Jo sometimes so that when I want to change our plans to spend a day in lazing and reading… I don’t get a swift punch to MY balls.

It actually kinda sucked to have to spend three days in dreary Puerto Montt to find out that we have to switch plans totally.

We still wanted to head down south to Fin del Mundo (Ushuaia, Argentina), and since we had a bit of time on our hands, we decided to not take a flight, and instead take the more scenic (cheapo) overland route through Argentina. Our first order of business was to head back North to Puerto Varas to catch a connecting bus on to the Argentinian ski resort town of San Carlos de Bariloche.

View Larger Map

Maybe it’s because of the three days that we just spent in Puerto Montt, but I swear, I think I fell almost instantly in love with Puerto Varas.

In place of the topsy turvy, unplanned sprawl of Puerto Montt, the main drag of Puerto Varas comprises of six very neat and… “compressed” streets of very quaint houses. The air feels fresher, things flow along in a more orderly manner and the people definitely seemed just that little bit friendlier.

Normally, I don’t like to resort to stereotype, but I would like to just take this opportunity to (very casually) mention… Puerto Varas is comprised mainly of second/third generation descendants of German immigrants.

And that’s all I have to say about that….

But one of the best part about Puerto Varas has probably got to be the food. After 3 days of Curantos and stale burgers, we were kinda spoilt by the quality of food served in the numerous cafes and gourmet restaurants available in Puerto Varas. (think piping hot schnitzels, creamy pasta, freshly caught seafood from Lago Llanquihue and exquisite German cakes/pastries).

Since we’d saved a fair bit by not going on a cruise/plane, we decided we could console ourselves by splurging on good food in the next few cities we were visiting. In the case of Puerto Varas, we pampered ourselves with the local specialty – the freshly caught Anguila (eel).

We pampered ourselves A LOT.

Living the good life at the relatively high end Mariolas Puerto Varas. I know… the photos don’t really do justice to how amazingly fresh the fish really is. I don’t want to sound overly dramatic, but it is like biting into a slice of the ocean that has been steamed in a herb garden. Lousy food prose on top of bad food photography.  I blame the good home brewed beer

Even with all the good food in the area, special mention must go to La Gringa, a quaint little cafe that is a good 15 minute walk away from the main part of Puerto Varas.

It’s a rather pleasant walk around the lake, and at the end of the walk, we arrived at a house that looked like it came straight out of Hansel and Gretel… sans evil witch inside. In fact, the only similarity the cafe’s friendly American owner, Naomi (and hence La GRINGA) has with an evil witch is the wicked broth she has brewing in her cauldron.

Quaint German house

Freshly picked flowers with a hand written chalk board menu – simple but so nice

As far as I know, most of the dishes are created from scratch out of organic ingredients purchased daily from the local farmers.This included the bread used for the delicious sandwiches and the juice for the Soda Italiano.

And the best part is that they offer an affordable (US$10) Menu del Dia that includes a soup, a main dish and a drink.

Lentil Soup with Purple potatoes. Really MUCH nicer than it sounds

Sitting in La Gringa, looking over the gorgeous lake with an aromatic mug of coffee in our hands and a fresh-out-of-the-oven brownie on the plate in front of us, I can’t help but feel  that the best part about travelling the way we do is that we get to change our plans as and when we want to.

Sometimes, from the most unpleasant of situations, life throws up the best surprises… and brownies.

A little too late and much too early… also more Puerto Montt!

I don’t want to say that Puerto Montt is a boring place. It’s a nice port city in its own right. I just think that there are better places that I could visit… like the local dental clinic, where they can perform a root canal operation on me, using only a toothpick and a hammer.

I’ve always liked towns by the beach. I don’t really know why, but most places by the beach gives me the sense of tranquillity tempered with the possibility of adventure that might jump out at you around every corner. Probably one too many readings of Enid Blyton when I was growing up. The contingency plan is that when all else fails, you can always go for a walk down the beach.

“Sea” side town

Except in Puerto Montt’s case, I could only use the term “beach” in the loosest sense of the word.

Boat Buddies… at the “beach”!

Of course, it doesn’t help that being situated at the edge of Patagonia, Puerto Montt is “blessed” with the gale force winds and blistering rains that the Patagonian region is notorious for… without the stunning and isolated beauty of Patagonia.

This meant that we didn’t have many chances to go down to the salted sand pit they call a beach anyway.

And then there’s the food… The local delicacy is this dish called Curanto.

In essence, it is a platter stacked with mussels, clams, potatoes, milcao (a kind of potato bread), chapaleles, fish, and mystery meat of the day.

So, how does the Curanto taste like? Is it good? Well.. Curanto is a traditional dish and the Chileans at Puerto Montt has been eating it for thousands of years… I think we managed to grab some leftovers from the first cooking.

Curanto

The only good things we got to look forward to is the brief moments (strong emphasis on “brief”) after the rain.

Ok… this part is kinda awesome

So how the hell did we end up staying three days in Puerto Montt???

Puerto Montt is THE gateway to Chilean Patagonia. It is also the only place that you could take a cruise ride on the Navimag Ferry down the Chilean coastline to Puerto Natales and the famous Torres del Paine.

The 4-days cruise was supposed to take us ”along endless fjords, desolate channels and uninhabited islands that are covered by virgin temperate rainforest and overlooked by the snow-capped peaks of unnamed mountains that stand above the Northern and Southern Patagonian Ice Field”.

At US$400/head for the off season rate, it almost sounded too good to be true.

It was… for us anyway…

Since the ferry is scheduled to sail every Tuesday, we didn’t want to (literally) miss the boat. We arrived in Puerto Montt on a Friday night, hoping to catch the next ferry out. We figured we would get the tickets from the ticketing office first thing the next morning.

Guess what?

We overslept!

By the time we reached the ticketing office (at 2PM) (Not too late what!), it was closed. Since they don’t open for business on Sunday as well, we needed to wait till Monday to get our tickets. So, that’s three days we needed to stay in Puerto Montt.

At that point in time, we could’ve gone to nearby “tourist-friendly” Puerto Varas to while away the time, but we chose to stay in boring (windy and rainy) Puerto Montt. There was a very good reason for that… We were very settled at Casa Perla and cannot be bothered to repack our stuff and move our lazy asses… also, we figured all the hard work we’ve put in would be worth it once we stepped on the ferry.

I know… I can see the irony so clearly now too… we thought that we could take a break from doing THIS by going on a lazy four-day cruise…

We never did find out if that assumption was true.

After waiting for three days to get our ferry tickets, we found out that we were too early for the ship.

The first ferry of the cruising season will only run in a month’s time.