El Bolson 2: Bariloche

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The bus station is a really long way from the town centre in Bariloche. You've been warned. It's still walkable, but I think it took me 45 minutes, with my pack. So figuring out the city bus system would be a good choice. I'm not that smart.

But I made it, and ultimately checked into Achalay, the same hostel that Will and Morgan had two hours before. It was a hostel recommended by the owner of the hostel we had stayed at in El Bolson, and so far it was looking like it would be another good time, with a lot of the same people.

One bonus here is that they give discount cards for Bariloche businesses, from restaurants, to bars, to clothing stores, etc. So after meeting up with Will and Morgan, we just looked at the list of places we got a discount, and headed to a Mexican restaurant for dinner which advertised a “free welcome margarita”.

After standing outside the locked door of the restaurant for quite a while, we eventually determined from the people that were just showing up for work, that it really and truly did not open until 9 pm. You can imagine why this would confuse us, but a late dinner is the norm, I guess.

So we had a couple of hours to kill, and the discount list led us around the corner to a brewpub. The place was called Antares, and I'm going to mention it more than once, because I went there just about every single day that I was in Bariloche.

After some tasty micro brews, Zach showed up, and Zach is a friend of Will and Morgan's that they met earlier in their trip. At 19, he's the youngest traveller I've met on my trip by about five years (the backpacker crowd's average age is probably mid to late twenties around here), but he's mature, so he blends in. We convinced him that Mexican food in Argentina made sense, and after a couple of more micro brews, sharing some ”top five” lists, we headed back to the Mexican restaurant.

It had opened, and it also had a “free welcome margarita” as promised. It also had Mexican food, and played disco music, and is in Argentina. So now, looking back, it doesn't really make sense, but it seemed to at the time. And the food was great, so how could there be any regrets?

After dinner, we went back to Antares for a few more micro brews. It goes without saying at this point, that it turned into another late night.

I didn't get up until 11 the next morning, so my window to accomplish anything was shrinking quickly. I went to the supermarket to get some food, to the bus station to get a bus card (the only way to use the local transit network) and took the bus just out of town to Cerro Campanario.

Cerro Campanario was declared the best view in the world by National Geographic at some point, so it's well known in the area. It offers 360 degree views of the lakes and mountains right around Bariloche, so it ticked a lot of boxes for me. You can either take the chairlift to the top (if you're old or sick, I guess) or hike up for half an hour to the top. It was reasonably steep, so I can understand why there is a chairlift, and I should really cut the people who took it some slack because the view was totally worth it either way.

After taking a bunch of pictures and enjoying an ice cream (I'm still on pace for steak or ice cream every day) I headed down for the second part of my outing. There are a couple of bicycle rental places, and a 30 km loop around a lake (which is almost a lake inside a lake... hard to explain, but pretty pleasing to the eyes) and that's a popular enough excursion to necessitate two bicycle rental places.

So I rented my bike, and made my way around the lake. There's lot's of places to stop and enjoy yourself if you allow time, so it's not hard to make the 30 km for anyone, especially if you plan to stretch it out over a full day. I unfortunately didn't start until around 2 o'clock, so I had to keep one eye on the time. But I still had time to hang out at a secluded beach, and hike out to another small lake (which probably wasn't worth it), and stop at the lookout on the highest point of the loop for a while.

All in all, a great way to spend a day.

I was tempted to hike up Cerro Campanario again with a guy from Ottawa and a girl from Australia I'd met on the circuit, but I headed back to town instead because I had an appointment with Will and Morgan at Antares. We had to have a few more beers (and some cheese this time) before the asado at the hostel. I would have been there sooner if I'd gotten off at the right bus stop, instead of riding most of the way through town and giving myself a twenty minute walk back to the hostel. Buses are hard.

I don't know much about asado other than what I experienced, which was the barbecuing (over open fire) of the largest hunks of meat I've ever seen. Delicious steaks, pork, chorizo sausage... I was in heaven. There were some vegetables too (I guess), and lot's of wine. Pretty much everyone at the hostel was partaking, and we were all sat at one big long table.

It was a lot of fun. And Lorinda (from Vancouver) was there, and a little later on Matti and Bobbi showed up, so it was like an El Boslon reunion! After asado, predictably, we headed out to Antares for some more beers and good times, and equally predictably, it turned into another late night.

The next morning, I booked my flight to Buenos Aires. I'd decided I wasn't going to see Igauzu this trip, or Uruguay, or actually, anywhere else in Argentina past Bariloche. Instead, I'd been talking to Crystal (my Australian roommate) and we had decided to go on a multi-day trek in the area. There are a lot of trails, and it's possible to hike from refugio to refugio (mountain huts), so there was no need to pack a tent. Just a sleeping bag, and Pablo, the hostel owner, was kind enough to lend me one of his. So we were pretty much all set.

We headed down to the alpine club office to get some information and plan our trip, but things were made a little more complicated. We had played to do the Frey-Jacob trek, which is a three day circuit, but this was a popular hike, and it was also late in the season. So the combination of refugios being booked up by big groups and not being open because it was out of season meant that we wouldn't be able to start the circuit until the 11^th, but that wouldn't mean finishing until late afternoon on the 13^th. Since I had to fly back to Canada on the 14^th, this was not an option for me.

Another option was to do the two day Laguna Negra – Lopez trek, but again because it was late in the season and the first refugio wouldn't be open until the 11^th. The second day would also be a long one, but since there was a second refugio near the end, there was the possibility of making it a three day trek. But I'd booked my flight to Buenos Aires for the morning of the 13^th, so that really wouldn't work either.

There was no obvious option, but we really had our minds set on doing a trek, so we were faced with some choices. I could reschedule my flight to Buenos Aires, or we could just do an out and back hike to one of the refugios for an overnight stay. We weren't that excited about our prospects, but still wanted to make it work.

Another girl, Ivi from San Francisco was also in the alpine club office trying to plan her trek. She was also looking for people to go trekking with, so we were now a group of three without a plan. Since we couldn't figure it out, we decided to meet up later at Achalay to make a plan. We'd have the day to mull over the options and figure it out.

Crystal and I decided to go for a walk along the lake shore. We had a good long chat about other non-trekking related things to take our minds off of our frustration. Crystal's an economist who was taking six months off from her job to travel. We had some good discussions, and returned to Achalay, still not knowing what we wanted to do.

But after a nap, and a relatively quiet afternoon, Ivi met up with us and we decided we'd do the Laguna Negra-Lopez trek, and I'd rebook my flight to Buenos Aires to a time later in the afternoon to allow for a three day hike, if required. So it felt good to have a plan, and we were free to enjoy the evening.

Matti suggested we go to a steakhouse where he had recalled having the best steak of his life when he was a kid. No protest from me. So Will, Morgan, Matti, Bobbi, Ivi, and myself set off for some steak, and it didn't disappoint.

Our next move was a bit more challenging. It was Tuesday night, and it seemed like every bar was closed, even Antares, to our shock, was having an early night. We wandered the streets for some time before we found a bar that was actually open. Sweet relief!

Sadly, this was the last night together that the El Bolson crew were going to spend together. Morgan and Will were moving on, and so were Bobbi and Matti. Will had been saying that the one thing we hadn't done together was go dancing, but it was looking pretty unlikely that we were going to be able to do that on this quiet Tuesday evening.

Until I went downstairs to find the bathroom, and found a dance floor. There was no one down there at all, and no music playing, so I went back upstairs to report my findings. Will was excited enough about this find that we had enough momentum to get everyone downstairs onto the empty and silent dance floor.

We found the sound system, and helped ourselves. We hooked up an ipod, figured out how to turn it on, and we had ourselves a private dance party. It lasted as long as the bar stayed open, and once again we closed down another bar.

It was a fitting end to our time together, much like the way it began, and it was tough saying goodbye. Hopefully our paths cross again.

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