Bariloche
Day 13 After the last fews days of tough grind we decided to have some 'us' time in Bariloche. The first day we spent exploring this pretty little Swiss style town, full to the brim of quaint cottage type buildings and huge chocolate shops, chocolate factories and chocolate museums. This place is a must for those with a sweet tooth. Though like us, everyone we spoke to agreed that you just forgot you were in South America.
Having planned and booked our next few days activities (a Boat trip, horse riding on an Estancia (or ranch) and renting a car to drive ourselves around the Circuito Chico) we headed off for a nice dinner and then back to Hostel Nomad.
Day 14 - Isla Victoria and the Arrayan Forests Today was our boat trip day. We set off to visit the beautiful Arrayan Forest island. Arrayan is the name of the trees that grow all over this small island. With very thin (fake tan) orange trunks, from what we could understand of the Spanish information, when a branch drops to the ground it roots itself and a new tree is formed. The beauty of
this forest was somewhat difficult to appreciate when the group of rich, loud Argentinian women followed us around like cackling geese.
Next stop was Isla Victoria - this island had been colonised by a family intent on growing trees from around the world and today it is part of the Nahuel Huapi National Park where rangers stay to maintain the nurseries and mature trees. The island consists mainly of a wide variety of pines, eucalyptus trees and some giant Sequoias (worlds largest tree). It's difficult to capture the feeling of the forest in a photo but needless to say it was pretty amazing, these trees were incredibly tall......We also came across a small cave painting but I remain sceptical on this and must research into it more.
Day 15 - Horse riding on the Estancia Patagonica As we were both suffering a great deal from aching joints (and Thomas´ knees) from the Park of Pain, we thought a pleasant day of horse riding would suit us perfectly. We were picked up from outside our new hostel (the Marco Polo Inn) having moved that morning. The price was twice as much, but both hostels cannot be
compared. The Marco Polo was clean, modern (i.e. heating could actually be switched off, had running water, sheets on beds...), friendly staff, came with free breakfast and dinner and most importantly did not have the loud and ignorant large group of Isrealis who had taken over the Hostel Nomad and kept us up the previous night.
Fortunately the ranch owner who lead us spoke fluent English as his parents were both from England. After having both successfully mounted our horses with no drama we set off for a 2 hour walk that took us over hills and alongside canyons. Thomas soon discovered that his horse was scared of anything that moved on the ground as someones scarf dropped to the ground in front of his horse, it instantly jumped up on to his back legs and turned in the opposite direction, cowboy Thomas was in control though and had his horse calmed and reassured instantly.
Then we took a break for lunch and were treated to a tasty BBQ back in the ranch house. The meat (beef and spicy "corizo" sausage) just kept getting brought out on heaped plates along with the local red wine, Michel Torrini. Drinking
too much was not an option with my inability to control the horse, soberly.
Over lunch we discovered that the man joining our group with his partner was a professional soccer scout from Greece in Argentina on business and in Bariloche for the weekend. Another man in our group happened to be the team doctor for a Division 3 Buenos Aires team and soon they were talking meetings with players, coaches and other scouts.... such an odd coincidence, but extremely interesting to learn about that side of the game.
We set off for the afternoon walk which took us on a 2 1/2hr ride through the forests and over the pampa. I make no claims of my ability as a natural cowgirl but have to hand it to Thomas, cowboy extraordinaire as he took it all in his stride. In fact when my horse went into a canter I was flipped all over the place and when she decided to gallop all I could do was to hold on for dear life while Thomas was yelling to me to pull the reigns in and the rest of our riding group was laughing. Letting go of the saddle with
one hand to control the reigns was the last thing on my mind.
We were lucky enough to see some deer on our ride as this ranch breed Red Deer for hunting so we saw several over our morning and afternoon walks. Despite the absolute agony of saddle sore I experienced for a good 2 days afterwards it was a great day and highly recomended.
That night we headed off to the "Wilkenny" Irish pub in Bariloche (of course the liveliest place in town) to meet the scout and his american partner.
Day 16 - Circuito Chico Our last full day in Bariloche and so we hired a car to drive the Circuito Chico, a 60km scenic route around the peninsula near Bariloche. This drive takes you around several of the 12 famous lakes on the Lake Drive in this area. We stopped off en route around the circuit to take a walk through a forest with a pathway to a lake that was lined by a bambo tree archway. Upon walking through this forest to the lakeside we were happily snapping away with the camera when we both turned to look at each other......there
was a loud snapping and cracking sound near us and a very long drawn out creaking followed by a tremendous thud. We had just heard our first tree that had naturally fallen to the ground. It was so loud it sounded like a thunderstorm on the ground. Very impressive, though we did retreat back to the car pretty swiftly and with eyes darting around watching out for falling trees.
Day 17 We prepared ourselves for another day of bus journeys as we were now Santiago bound, via Orsorno and from there on our first overnight (12 hr) bus journey. Thankfully here the buses were very comfortable.
Argentina's Flag
Map of Argentina