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Published: February 16th 2014
Barry-low-chay, not Bar-low-sh, was the perfect destination for the Valentine’s weekend portion of our pre-wedding honeymoon. I’m not sure if I mentioned that this trip is serving as our honeymoon trip even though our wedding is not until August. The weekend started out a little rough when our flight from Salta was delayed making our connection in Buenos Aires next to impossible to catch, I thought for sure we would be stuck making a back-up plan. Our plane landed in Buenos Aires at the exact time our connecting flight was supposed to take off, we were whisked off the plane onto a bus that took us right to the stairs of our next plane, our boarding passes ripped by an attendant upon the bus as Binnson asked whether our bags were going to make it – yes for sure, she lied.
Landing in Bariloche, we gathered around the baggage claim until the very last bag was claimed and the carousel shut down. Damn, no bags. The security guard starts speaking Spanish to us but we have no idea what he is saying, we follow a fellow passenger who’s also lost a bag up to the departure area and file a
report with a man at the counter. He assures us that there is another flight coming in tonight and that our bags will be in our hotel around 10pm. Another man in the departure line up reassures me that the same thing happened to him when he came from France and that his bags arrived just fine.
Bariloche is a lot like Banff only with more chocolate shops and car pollution. Situated by Lake Nahuel Huapi and nestled into the mountains, it offered some really nice scenery. Luckily our hotel was super conveniently located right on the main strip, Mitre, lucky if you are not interested in sleeping at all. That first night we went for a walk down the strip following the tantalizing scent of chocolate everywhere we went. We walked off the main street a little ways in search of a vegetarian restaurant we had read about but unfortunately it was closed. Settling on a 10 minute empanada restaurant, which had damn good gourmet empanadas, we walked back to the main road and decided it was time to check out the chocolate shops. Warning: This blog contains mostly stories that are related to food. After window shopping
all of the chocolate stores, we went to Turista chocolates for delicious cake and coffees. Heading back to our hotel around 11:30pm... still no bags.
The next morning, after breakfast, when our bags still hadn’t arrived we decided to walk down to the Aerolineas main office. The man there took our file number and looked back us, “Case closed. Bags should be on the way to your hotel.” Case closed... I’ll tell you when my case is closed... We walked back to the hotel and decided to stick around for another hour to see if the bags would arrive so we could brush our teeth and change before starting our day, two hours later still no bags... still waiting... Case closed!!! Eventually our bags did make it and all was unicorns and butterflies as we walked back to our empanada store from the day before. We took our lunch to the main square and watched as the beautiful Saint Bernard’s and their puppies were extorted by various people collecting money from tourists to have their picture taken with them. Later that day, I researched for a breeder in Calgary so that I can own one of those beautiful giant
dogs in the future. A couple chocolates from RapaNui (which were actually not that great!), and then a stop at Mamuschka for the motherload chocolate box, sooo good.
Later that night we headed back to El Vegetariano for our Valentine’s dinner. The restaurant is located inside of a house that has been gutted and made into a giant open space crammed full of tables, it had the greatest character with walls filled with photo frames and lamps at the table flickering on and off depending on which side of the table you leaned. The place was packed and people were lining up down the hallway to get a spot, we had giant delicious plates full of vegetarian greatness and were grateful for the long walk home. Tummy’s full but not full enough to avoid ice cream, we pulled back into Turista for a giant tub of ice cream to finish the night.
Borderline pre-diabetic with the start of 17 cavities from the day before, I decided to eat my box of chocolates for breakfast the next day. We went down to the lake and walked by the water, then watched some kids fall down at the indoor skating
El Boliche de Alberto
A ton of food for only $23 USD!facility at the lake before heading for lunch. Binnson REALLY wanted another steak so we did some research on steak places and came up with El Boliche de Alberto Parilla. Looking at the menu, we realized this place was not the least bit vegetarian friendly... Binnson ordered a rib eye and I asked for the salad, fries, and a litre of Stella Artois. We had a great spot close to the grill and were kept entertained by the man cutting giant slabs of meat and stoking the fire below the grill. A few glasses of beer later and I was starting to feel it, the waiter came over with Binnson’s steak and the rest of our food and goes to land a second steak onto my plate. My eyes wide, I say “Uhhh...I don’t think that’s right...” but the waiter no halbo ingles and walked away, Binnson and I looked at each other laughing, so now what?! Did we order 2? Did we bring enough pesos? Who’s going to eat all of this?? After another glass of beer, I proclaimed “Well I guess I really eat meat now!” and dug in, cutting off Binnson ¾’s of my portion.
We
were sooooo full and slightly tipsy when we left, so naturally we tangoed back down to the main street to eat more ice cream from Rapa Nui before heading back to the main square one last time to people watch and give evil glares to the Saint Bernard people.
Case Closed.
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Dancing Dave
David Hooper
You are so lucky
Congrats on your pre nuptial honeymoon...what a destination to enjoy it. True love is good fortune...but to get your luggage so quickly from Aerolineas...from our experience...you are so lucky! Bides well for the rest of your trip.