Argentina Adventures & Valdivia, Chile!

Next was our border crossing into Argentina! After driving from Rio Tranquil to Chile Chico, we headed to the border crossing where the Argentinian border guards deported the Canadians... because they wanted us to pay a $90 entrance fee online. But, they would not let us use their internet. So... we went back to the Chilean border patrol to use their internet and pay the entrance fee! They sure made it hard to give them a whole lot of money...
But about 3 hours later, we were on Argentinian land! The weather immediately became warm and sunny when we crossed the border... and the mountains disappeared!

You can see the flag of Argentina at the top of the flag pole here! This was in a little town along the route to our overnight destination (well... kinda "destination"... we knew the general area that we were going to stay overnight).

This flag means that I got another stamp in my passport from Argentina! It excited me to think of all the countries in my passport! Australia, Dominican, Chile, Argentina...

After our first night in Argentina where we found a random little town to sleep in, we headed toward our destination: the city of Bariloche. After visiting a unique artisan centre, we arrived to Bariloche, checked into our hotel then sought out supper. Bartolo informed us that it was very popular in Argentina to eat at a Parilla: a meat bbq of sorts.
This is us a a Parilla restaurant in Bariloche where we ate some kidney, neck, intestines, blood sausage... you know the usual meats ;) < sarcastic winky face. I didn't really like... anything... but I definitely think it was worthwhile to try and I did try everything! The wine was delicious...

 Here's the cooks grilling up all our crazy meats!

After our Parilla experience, we headed back to our hotel where we spent some time in the lobby area having some drinks and playing some cards.
But...
When we asked Bartolo if he had cards he gave these < to us. No spades, no hearts, no diamonds, no clubs??
So we creatively played a game of Asshole making the "King of Lumber" the equivalent to the King of Hearts. We laughed for a very long time at these cards which didn't have Jack/Queen/Jokers... but we still managed out game of Asshole!

The next day was an explore the City of Bariloche day. The 3 couples broke off and traveled independently to get the most out of a shopping day!
This is in the town square. On this day we got some good shopping in: bought some jewelry and gifts from independent kiosks, some new shoes for lex, and a new picture for our home!

There were many amazing chocolate stores in the town centre of Bariloche and we bought these from one of them. They are a very common dessert in Argentina called alfajores: 2 soft cookies with dulce de leche in the centre (like a caramel) and covered in chocolate!! All my favorite things in one dessert! So good!

Before we started our shopping day, all of us went into a cheese, meat and wine store in the morning and made arrangements for them to make us a couple of platters to have as an evening meal. This is us picking up our 2 trays of delcious cheeses, meats, and crakcers.... an amazing evening snack with wine.
When we asked for the staff to take a picture (in beautiful Spanish because by this time we have asked this a million times!), they insisted we open a bottle of wine to toast the picture with... free of charge! So nice!
This was our last night in Argentina then the next day we headed back to Chile.

After crossing the border back to Chile, we headed to Valdivia, which is where Bartolo stayed while doing part of his schooling. So Bartolo knew of this Cerveceria (brewery) and he took us here before we headed to the cabin in the woods where we were staying.

Here's us at the Cerveceria with our flights of beer! We wanted to try everything so the best way is with the flights! Aleksy and I bought a 3 pack of mixed beers and brought it home with us to Canada from this brewery.

One of the beers we brought back is a blueberry flavoured beer and this ice cream below is made of that blueberry flavoured beer!! Mmmmm beer ice cream!

And this little appetizer (above) here is what Warren had for a little snack. Alejandra recommended this popular appetizer: basically toast with some ground beef and some garnishes to go on top. But... we are just not used to eating RAW ground beef! So since it was so different and we were all in awe we all had to try it! It actually was good tasting... I just couldn't get past that whole raw ground beef thing...

After enjoying our beers and raw ground beef, we headed to the cabin in the woods where we were to stay the night in Valdivia. It was the cabin that belonged to Bartolo's adviser for his PhD.
After a struggle to get into the cabin (Bartolo lost the keys) we finally entered around 11pm and then Alejandra made my favourite dinner in the entire world for us!! Chels and I were the sous-chefs in charge of chopping onions and such...
This is shrimp in white wine sauce (made with Olive oil, garlic, white wine), and red wine rice (made with mushrooms, Parmesan cheese and red wine). So amazingly delicious!!

I still need to try to make this at home... I need to prefect it.

On this night,  despite it being so late... and that we were pretty tired at the brewery when we were cooking and enjoying some $4 1.5L of wine, we got a burst of energy that lasted until about 3am!!

And THIS is the amazing cabin where we had an amazing late late night supper, and drank and danced the night away until 3am!

When we woke up we were amazed by the view in the back of this cabin. So serene...

After our rice and shrimp, we continued the party... hammock and all. There was a lot of energy that came out of no where on this night. I think it was the vibe of the cabin...










This was the final night of our roadtrip, then the next day wee headed back toward Conception where Alejandra and Bartolo's flat is located to give us plenty enough time before our plane back to Canada.