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Published: October 24th 2006
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We arrived in Puerto Montt with the hope of getting straight on a bus to Bariloche but no such luck. The next one was 8.30 am the next morning so we checked into a hostel near the bus station. The hostel was horrendous from my point of view, but Mike thought it was fine and the owner was stood right next to us as we looked at grotty room after grotty room. There were flies circling in each one and our one had dried gob on the walls. It was obviously necessary to get pretty drunk to return to a room like that! A few hours later, after some nice food and some nicer drinks Mike was smashed and I was only slightly tipsy! The plan had gone awry somewhere along the line! Anyway, we survived the night listening to some poor soul ringing the door bell continously and no-one letting them in.
The next morning bright and early we were off to Bariloche. The scenery between Puerto Montt and Bariloche is amazing. Unfortunately a little cloudy on our journey but spectacular all the same. Bariloche is a ski resort when the season is right but also has access to
Bad Weather
View from top of cable car some of the most amazing lakes and therefore walks. The whole town looks like a swiss village or something similar. Our hostel which was recommended to us by a couple of other people on our trip turned out to be amazing. Its called Hostel 1004 and its on the 10th floor of a tower block. On our way up we had to use a service elevator because of our bags and we were getting quite concerned when we arrived on a fairly grotty looking floor with a door at the end saying 1004. The hostel though was beautiful and had amazing views from the balcony, living room and bedrooms. The other great thing about Bariloche (apart from our hostel and the scenery) is the fact they are very keen producers of chocolate and there are so many stores which sell it. I obviously ate my fill while Mike had a few morsels! On our third day there Becky, Tim and I headed off to a cable car which would take us up to Cerro Otto where there was a lovely mirador. The weather unfortunately wasn't brilliant so we were pretty chilly when we got up there! Bizarrely, at the top
they have some replicas of Michel Angelo's work so we were faced by a giant David statue as we explored. After a little while the clouds lifted a little and we got to see some of the magnificent mountains but I think on a clear day it would be amazing. After freezing for a while we decided to call it a day and headed back down to the bottom and back to town.
The following night we met up with Steve (who we had met in Buenos Aires) and his friend Johannes who he's met on the boat from Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt - I think they bonded over severe travel sickness as the seas were quite rough for their trip! Becky and Tim had spotted a bowling alley so we headed there to carouse amongst the youngsters of Bariloche (I mean 10 year olds when I say youngsters). The pin resetter was some poor fellow who stood behind the alleys and set up the pins or cleared them away each time you knocked them down. He was the unfortunate victim of a strong throw of Becky's which smacked him in the shins at one point! After your
go he would push the ball down some rails along the side of the alley back to you. After two rounds where Becky and Steve were score keepers for the second one we had a clear winner in Johannes much to Tim's disgust!
On the Saturday we had booked ourselves in on a boat trip to Puerto Blest which involved a coach and then a catamaran to the port and then another boat for a little tour aroudn Lago Frias. Well, once again the weather wasn't great. In fact it rained or snowed heavily for most of the day and we literally couldn't see anything. Becky and I both took an unreasonable dislike to one of the tour guides (I think because we were so cold and he looked so smug). Mike enjoyed the extreme weather though. We got to feed a seagull from our hands on the boat. The only pics were taken by the boat photographer which we had to pay for so below is a pic of the video screen he was showing them all on - the man in the pic is Mike. The snow was spectacular and towards the end of the day it
Mike Feeding Birds
Picture of a picture of Mike feeding bird. Original taken by official boat photographer. cleared up a little bit but the trip was slightly disappointing. The last activity was a walk up to a big waterfall, we grabbed the opportunity to warm up a little and bounded up as fast as we could. It definitely helped!
Bariloche was a really nice place to spend a few days relaxing and seeing some amazing scenery, when the weather was right. Next we headed off in search of a volcano in Pucon which we were told would be great to climb!
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