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Published: April 11th 2010
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Day two in Bariloche was just Lucy and I again, as Stella had headed off to Ushuaia, the ends of the earth! We'll meet up with her again on Tuesday in Buenos Aires. The day started off with a heavy mist over the lake and the town in the morning, so we decided to devote ourselves to chocolate tasting research in town, before heading off to Cerro Campanario.
We got slightly distracted on our chocolate tasting mission by a gorgeous handbag shop called
Prune , and each ended up with two new Argentinian handbags. Nice work! We then made our way to the famous
Mamuschka for morning tea, chocolate purchasing and some tasting. By the time we finished the mist was clearing, so plenty of time to explore the town in the sunshine. It made for a very happy morning.
In the afternoon we got a bus to Cerro Campanario, a peak with spectacular views over the mountains and lakes. Given we had all our shopping with us, rather embarrassingly, we didn't make the hike up but instead took the chairlift to the top. The views, as promised, were stunning.
We decided to hired a car to our next
Cathedral in Bariloche
The Cathedral in Bariloche was built in the 1940s and has these beautiful carvings throughout. destination, the picturesque village of Villa La Angostura. We were given a Chevrolet which I was quite excited about, but was disappointed to discover it's a regular old Sedan style car. Villa La Angostura however is not disappointing at all, it's very touristy, but in a good way, and again, another stunning location and views to die for. It is on a road known as the "Seven Lakes Route" and is famous for its beauty - not hard to see why.
We found the information centre where I had a long chat in Spanish with the girl working there - my first Spanish conversation for a while. Heaven only knows what I was really saying but we seemed to understand one another. Thanks to her recommendation we ended up in the cutest little B&B, called
Caza Mayor , which is perched on the side of a hill just out of town. We are very happy to have our own transport, because it's gotten much colder and in the early evening we had our first lot of rain. Not ideal for the walk into town for dinner.
The afternoon's excursion took us to a forest called El Bosque de Arrayanes. It's
a forest of rare, orange coloured trees that only grow on a local island (and one in Japan). We took a boat to the island, although you can trek out there, but it takes three hours each way and we had left our run a little late in the day. We were on some kind of guided tour, but unfortunately all in Spanish, so basically all I got was "on your left is a spanish spanish spanish spanish house made out of stone spanish spanish Bariloche spanish spanish trees....forest.....something years old ......spanish spanish". It's a beautiful cruise though so no complaints. There's a little walk you do through the forest, then, much like Hansel and Gretel, you come across the cutest little house, which in our case was a tea shop. All very scenic.
I'm not convinced that the blokes in Bariloche are the hottest in the country, but rest assured, the quest for the best looking guys in Argentina is continuing. We met some Argentinian guys (Fabrizio and Juan Antonio) from somewhere south of Buenos Aires on the trip in the forest. I then had my second Spanish conversation of the day, and although I knew I was
Cathedral in Bariloche
More stained glass windows... making lots of mistakes, we could certainly understand one another. They were big fans of NZ, the All Blacks, and the scenic locations for our movies and were a little disappointed to hear that we were staying in Villa La Angostura and not back in Bariloche. I had probably used up all my brainpower though, so not necessarily a bad thing. But we did both get kisses goodbye, very Argentinian!
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