January 2012

On Saturday when Caro was off, she took us to La Boca for a nice visit...

We walked in Caminito...

then went to the Sadium of La Boca...

and then sat down for a nice lunch! Zoe danced some tango!!

We went to El Bolson to have some nice ice cream and see a craft fair. This is also where we passed by on the way to Epuyen from Bariloche.
Here are some picture of an interesting sculpture in one of the park..

And these are pictures in Jauja, the best traditional ice cream in Patagonia.

We arrived all in Epuyen and went to find a place to stay… we found a lovely wooden lodge made by hand by its owners and we stayed there for the night… They also have a boat converted into a room and have now a tepee as well…

Once we off loaded the car we went straight to the Peace Garden where Virginia, Caro’s sister lives for now over 3 years…
This is an interesting place to say the least… People there want to detach themselves from the buzz of the new modern life so they have no electricity, no running water, live in wooden huts and all share the tasks required to ensure the survival of the community.
They function around the moons calendar which is basically the calendar any farmer uses anywhere in the world. They have gardens with fresh vegetables and fruits, they eat mostly vegan though as they have no chickens or any other animals apart from cats and dogs and a couple of horses.
They wake up early with the sun and do they praying and meditation and the share the tasks depending on which family you belong to… There are 20 stamps, 13 descripitve and 4 families…
So Frank is an Red Electric (descriptive) Moon (stamp), Hayden is a Red Self existing Night, and both Teo and I are Blue Crystal Monkeys….

One day we went to the lake next to the camping owned by a French woman to hire a canoe to take all the kids out to get a different perspective of the surroundings. As it was windy we had to talk nicely to hire the canoe and then we all took turns in it. I enjoyed been on the water as it is so relaxing. All the kids were good at taking turns. For lunch we got bread, a local goat’s cheese which was very tasty and some cherries freshly picked from the tree. We also bought a cake that was given to Sophie (the French woman I was mentioning above) in exchange of some cherries and it turned out that the cake was all mouldy inside!. A tourist was trying to fly fish by casting his line into the wind but failed miserably. I don’t think he got the fly to land in the water once; the only thing he caught was the pier. He gave up and I hope he was not expecting to bring dinner home !

Another day we went to Epuyen lake with the kids and we all sat in that lovely beach … went for a swim and then tried to unearth a massive log which kept the kids out of mischief for a while but certainly did not get achieved in that short space of time… For lunch we went to the local cultural centre and bought some lovely empanadas with cheese and butternut squash.. some lovely freshly squeezed raspberry juice and some homemade cake and hamburgers… hum all was delicious..

Another day we decided to take a drive to Trevellin and go through Los Alceres National Park… This was an off road following a number of lakes and we decided to stop for lunch at Lago Verde, and stop at a restaurant in the most beautiful building we have seen so far in that part of Patagonia. The building is all in wood and enormous windows, beautifully decorated. Does camping and cabines and check the website http://www.hosteriaselaura.com/. We had lunch and then relaxed by the lake, the kids jumping in from the pier…
After a while we decided to head off to Trevellin to visit some friends of Caro and Vir… so we drove on the park again following some beautiful lakes…

Some extra pictures in Epuyen

We spent a few days with the kids as Caro was working and we took them one day to the children’s museum. This is a nice museum in a big shopping centre in town and there are a lot of different rooms with in each them a theme where the children can learn about real stuff… There is the bank, a Mc Donald, a milk farm, a TV station, a radio station, a newspaper, a water company, a tax office, a court of justice, a haulage company… The kids have interactive games to teach them about each subject. They can even write a paper, speak on TV after dressing up in all sorts of costumes… This is a very good museum and I would highly recommend it to anyone…

We went the second day to try to do a bus tour of the city… but we did not know where to go and we walked to a mall to get money… and we took some photos of the kids on some nice wicker chairs…

As we went round the city on foot and got to the bus stop only to find out that all the tickets had been sold!!!! … hum… kids crying we decided to go bowling and then go for an ice cream.. And let me tell you they deserved it…

Diego said he had a friend that lived one hour from there flat in the country. He plays polo and has a very nice house surrounded by stables and of course a swimming pool. All the kids wanted to get in the pool as soon as we arrived. We had great fun jumping in and playing. I went with Mick and gathered wood to make a bar-be Argentinian style. We lit a fire alongside the bar-be and then they put the hot embers under the grill to cook the food. After lunch Teo and Hayden enjoyed looking after the kittens and playing with all the kids. Every one got on really well and we stayed there till late in the evening before.

We also went to Parque Norte which is a sport complex where you have pools, tennis courts, football courts etc.. The great thing about the pool where we went is that they do a doctor's check before you get in... Checking your heads for head lices and your feet for athlete's foot and verruca. Not bad I thought!! there are slides too but they do not work during the week so we could not have a go... restaurants, bars everything is there too!