This is, of course, my totally biased rant about that new Superman movie, Man of Steel.

We all know that Christopher Nolan did an amazing job with his Dark Knight trilogy. The story telling and directing were amazing, but at the centre of it all, we have Batman.

Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na

Batman, of course is a total bad ass when it comes to kicking ass and taking names. But the thing that brings his coolness quotient through the roof is his predisposition to skulk in the dark, brooding about the different ways he could make the bad guys eat their teeth for supper.

If you think about it, Bruce Wayne actually has a legitimate reason to mope in the dark. It is probably not a very good idea for him to charge at armies of gun-toting goons in brightly colored costumes and spouting wise crack, seeing that he is a puny, squishy human bean… He is one stray bullet away from a very permanent retirement from his role as the King of Emo Hill.

Also, I suppose seeing his parents killed in front of him…. and then spending years wandering through the wilderness… and then having extended stays in rundown prisons in the shit end of the world… and then living with batshit crazy ninja assassins… just so he could train to become Batman. These things normally do something to a person’s outlook in life.

Now, enter these two douche bags:

They woke up one morning, realizing that they’ve suddenly developed super strength/speed/agility/senses/pouty lips/abs and the screenwriters of The Amazing Spiderman and Man of Steel make them bitch about it for the rest of the movie like whiny teenage girls who’d gotten a bad outbreak of acne.

It does not make any sense!

But then again, perhaps it does…

For the past half decade or so now, Hollywood had been down with a serious case of “AppealToTeenageGirlsandCrazyMumsAtAllCost-ilitis”, or in layman’s terms “The Friggin Twilight Syndrome”.

Even a pop culture idiot like me knows that muscle bound, strong leading men like Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford and Sean Connery are passé. Even metrosexual types like Brad Pitt, Keanu and Johnny Depp are not that “in” now too. The type of guys that have the most appeal now are the hipster emotional type who spend too much time staring gloomily into the distance with a hoodie over their face.

1000 years from now, an archaeological expedition will unearth a collection of films (pirated hard disks?) from our era, pop those babies into uber-cool holographic drives and wonder why their male ancestors were such pussies.

Anyway, my point is… the emo thing fits Batman like a glove because he is THE Batman. Along the same line, Peter Parker is the inspiration for nerds and geeks everywhere and Superman stands for truth, justice and the American (as understood by a British actor) way.

Superman is the Ned Stark of the comic book world. He has a code of ethics so strong it borders on the stupid, but that’s what makes him so appealing. He is the anti-thesis of Batman. He is the embodiment of hope and his innate faith in the goodness of humanity is what makes him Superman.

To crush all that beneath the platform shoes of teenage girls and try to make him more like a certain mopey vampire is wrong on so many different levels.

So please…. give me my heroes back!!

Corny (and slightly loserly, I know) as it sounds, when I was young I had heroes that taught me “with great powers come great responsibility”, that it is not possible to be fearless but it is important to have the power to overcome great fear, that “any dream worth having is a dream worth fighting for” and that there is a universal answer to all questions that you cannot answer (“I’m Batman”). (seriously, try the last one. It is FUN).

I am VERY sure that not all teenage boys need a hero who tells them that “Bella, before you, my life is a moonless night”. (Yes, I Googled the shit out of that and I hated myself immediately after…)

Give me my heroes back!!!

================================================================

Also… SPOILER ALERT… I’ve obtained a secret copy of the entire screenplay of Man of Steel which I shall share below:

<Opening Credits>

CRASH BAM BOOM PEW PEW PEW

Amy Adams making googly eyes

CRASH BAM BOOM PEW PEW PEW

Henry Cavill takes off shirt. (Pew Pew Pew)

CRASH BAM BOOM PEW PEW PEW CHI BA BOOM CRASH BAM BOOM PEW PEW PEW CHI BA BOOM CRASH BAM BOOM PEW PEW PEW CHI BA BOOM CRASH BAM BOOM PEW PEW PEW CHI BA BOOM CRASH BAM BOOM PEW PEW PEW CHI BA BOOM CRASH BAM BOOM PEW PEW PEW CHI BA BOOM CRASH BAM BOOM PEW PEW PEW CHI BA BOOM CRASH BAM BOOM PEW PEW PEW CHI BA BOOM CRASH BAM BOOM PEW PEW PEW CHI BA BOOM CRASH BAM BOOM PEW PEW PEW CHI BA BOOM CRASH BAM BOOM PEW PEW PEW CHI BA BOOM CRASH BAM BOOM PEW PEW PEW CHI BA BOOM CRASH BAM BOOM PEW PEW PEW CHI BA BOOM CRASH BAM BOOM PEW PEW PEW CHI BA BOOM

<Roll Credits>

<THE END>

At Puerto Madryn, we were supposed to be able to go on ocean safaris where we could see Southern Right Whales frolicking off the beaches and walk amongst colonies of penguins, sealions and elephant seals.

So… of course we bought the next bus ticket out to Puerto Madryn.

We found out there was a small problem with this plan…

This “slight” detour is 500 miles long and would see us traversing from the West to the East Coast of Argentina. (In terms of bus hours, it translates to “too much time on our flabby asses”)

So it was a good thing that the buses we’d been travelling on in Argentina were ridiculously comfortable. We’re talking about seats that recline to 150 degrees, four hot meals a day, screenings of the latest blockbusters (WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES!!! I cannot emphasize enough the importance of this), and to our disbelieving delight, free flow of red wine. There was a point where the bus steward started a game of Bingo (it’s a thing) and the winner got to go home with… a bottle of red wine. We gave up on THAT game because we figured winning that bottle would be like winning a sushi roll at a buffet (NOT because we couldn’t keep up with him shouting random numbers in Spanish)

Since we’d learned from our mistakes and very wisely chosen the front row seats of the bus, it was like a road trip for us… a road trip along Argentina’s Ruta 25 that brought us through some truly majestic valleys, past a few crystal clear lakes and over spectacular mountain ranges.

The 11 hour bus journey was over faster than we knew it… and that’s not just because we were passed out from the alcohol.

I think this is the post where some of you will be wondering… what about the ski resort ???

The famous Cerro Catedral (nope, that’s not a typo) is the biggest ski resort in South America and since it is located just 19km from the town centre of Bariloche, it was THE main reason why we were in pricey San Carlos de Bariloche in the first place.

After our awesome experience in Las Leñas and Pucón, we were really looking forward to spending at least a day on the slopes where we could fall not so glamorously on our faces.

So, you can probably imagine how we felt when we reached Cerro Catedral and saw this…

Yes… that is a snow machine… and that is the total amount of snow at the ski resort with the snow machine in full operation mode. The snowfall, even in the middle of winter is bad this year.

At this point, we had basically two choices. We could

a) Pay 300 ARS (about US$65) for a ski pass, take a ski lift to the mountain top and hope that there MIGHT be enough ski-able snow higher up the slopes.

or

b) Laugh this off and just walk around the ski resort.

I know the choice might seem rather obvious now, but on the ground, we were seriously debating whether we should go for Option A since we had made a bit of a detour to reach Bariloche.

In the end, my appeal to Jo’s low tolerance for pain and her reminding me of my cheapskate-ness won out. I imagine it would literally and figuratively hurt having to pay through our noses to crash into dirt.

And that’s how we ended up spending an afternoon wandering AROUND the ski resort, eating waaaaaay overpriced pizzas and laughing at little bundled up puffs of kiddie skiers (who could probably kick our asses ski-ing… good thing there was no snow around)

Walking… walking… just keep on walking…

Easy to imagine how beautiful it must’ve looked…with snow…

Oh yeah…. there was some cam whoring with monster trucks too…

Little Stumbling Balls

And then we headed back to the main town of Bariloche for the NEW main reason why we were in this part of Argentina… Our third trip to Alberto’s in three days in a (futile) attempt to eat up all the cows and drink up all the grapes in this country.

Oh… yay…

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”.

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…