Food...

So...
One of the things we love the most here is food.
When we are not eating in restaurants, most of the time (95%), Assaf cooks... and very good.

Argentinas specialty is meats. There tradition "Al Haesh" is called Asado. They take not the most expensive peaces of meat and put it high above the fire for a long time (around 2 hours) and in the end most of the time they put chorisos (pork or cows hot dogs but very good ones).
They do it with so much love and invest so much time in making the asado, its great to see it. and its even greater to taste it! We also made few times asado in camp sites we stayed in.

Once, we slept in a camp site in Bariloche and after few days ain a row that we ate meat, we said - ok, today we are not going to eat meat and we made pasta. But then, 3 Argentinian guys that made Cordero (lamb) and they had too much so they gave us, and then another Argentinian couple made asado and they also had too much so they also gave us. The conclusion from that day was that you can never decide in Argentina "Today i am not going to eat meat"...

And Chile... In chile the meat is not good, but the fish and sea food is great.
When we were in Chiloe (an island in Chile) we picked up shells from the beach (we looked how the "grandmothers" do it, and we did the same. of course we found less than them, but still we had enough) and then Assaf cooked and made sauces and it was cheap and tasty...
In another time we bought crabs meat in 3$ for half kilo (so cheap) and Assaf made a pasta with cream and crubs.

We found out a very interesting thing about fish salmon. In chile it was very good, but in Israel we dont like it so much. we talked with some people and we found out that the salmon in Israel is a white salmon (and not red), but the fish eat something that make them become red so thats the reason its not as good as the original red salmon.

Accept that, everywhere we go and see fruits, we try them. For example, in a bike trip in Pucon we found in the way blueberries. we took a lot of them and made a good desert in the evening and then I made a jam.

In another time while trekking in chiloe, we saw a local guy taking out fruits from a plant (as you can see in the picture), so we did like him. it was very tasty.

We are waiting to see what will be the food like in our next destination...

What can we say after 4.5 months in Patagonia...

Conclusions in the end of this period:

1. Argentinians and Chileans hate each other
2. The meat in Argentina is the best and very cheap!
3. Chile is much more expensive than Argentina
4. Chile is better if you dont want to see many Israelis (conclusion from number 3)
5. Argentinian have their own language (alot of sleng)
6. The houses in Argentina are much more beautiful than in Chile
7. The mayor of Puerto Natales (Chile) is drunk
8. The last thing you need to worry about here is water!
9. Every horse has at least 1 dog that go next to him
10. Dont go to eat in a Tenedor libre "eat as much as you can" restaurant (its very good, but you cant move afterwards)
11. The best desert in Patagonia is called "Copa de Refugio" in one restaurant in Bariloche (ice cream, fruit salad, dulce de leche, cream and more fruits)
12. They never have change (for money), especially in Argentina (it means that maybe you will have to walk 100 streets to the hostel because you dont have change for the bus...)

The top of the top...

OF VOLCAN LANIN... and the top of the top of challenge of all the treks we did so far.

We climbed on volcan lanin. Its the highest mountain in patagonia. It took 2 days. we had a good luck with the weather and we could go up to the summit.
The summit is in 3770m. in the first day we climbed from 1200m (not in snow) and slept in a refugio at around 2600m. The next morning we put our crampones (things you put on the shoes for walking better on the snow), we took the ice axes and started the way up. It wasnt easy at all, it took us 5 hours to get to the summit, but we did it! In the upper part, closer to the summit, it was ice and not snow and the slope is 45 degrees. The views in the way and the sunrise were very beautiful, but from the summit we couldnt see anything because it was windy and under us there were many clouds. we brought ourselfs alfajores to eat in the summit but there was no way to open it because the wind could take them away from us...
Any way, around 25 people went up in that day and i was the only girl (all the rest men...).

Now we are back in san martin, resting because our muscles heart (we are staying in a place where we need to go 2 floors up and everytime i need to take something from the room, i think 10 times before i do it, its so hard...)