First peak

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On sunday I climbed my first hill in Bariloche. I thought the views from the hostel (10th floor with balcony overlooking the lake), were good before this... The views from the top were spectacular. Cerro Otto is just out of town and easily reachable on foot, a 5 hour hike took me to the top, with great views over the main lake and Bariloche town. However a panoramic/rotating restaurant hogs the best views and a cable car brings lots of people up so I moved on to another viewing point for... more amazing views. There were even condors soaring above and below, cruising around on the thermals.

Holly, a friend from sailing, arrived and we went for the (now traditional) HUGE steak as a welcome to the country. Planning the next week, the only difficulty was deciding which of the activities we´d have time to do!

I finally started spanish lessons, long overdue and desperately needed. These left the afternoons free, so we made best use: walking up Cerro Campanario - and then faredodging the chairlift for a ride back down; walking to the remote Playa Muñoz with our spanish group after having lessons sitting on a tree -trunk in the national park, if only school had been more like this; and kayaking on the same lake the next day.

A full week, nevertheless by friday we were really looking forward to the three-day hike we´d planned across some of the higher mountains...

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