Biking Bingo

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The audience is rapt in their seats, pencils ready on paper, ears attuned to every number shouted in Spanish and duly translated to English by a very enthusiastic Argentinean man in the aisle.

I’m sitting on the bus playing bingo.

Yes you heard me correctly, the boula bus never runs out of surprises,after our first in drive movie, The Hangover, the bus crew pull this little surprise, bingo on the bus who would have thought?

I know, it’s not exactly team doubles in Halo Reach but seeing as I’m confined to a reclining chair until 8 o clock the next morning I have embraced the game with the enthusiasm of a baboon with a packet of crayons.

I had 4 numbers ticked before Niamh had her first one come up but im on a bit of a drought of luck and her royal blondeness is hot on my heels.

Some bloke in the front of the bus beats us to it. Hopefully there will be a rematch before we hit Mendoza, the wine growing centre of Argentina. I’ll tell you about it when we get there.

After our poor attempt at horse riding in Bariloche we agreed to meet the Dutch again for lunch, I of course choose an Irish run pub that was showing Ireland vs. Italy in the six nations. I had buttered them both up explaining that they should expect to see a high scoring and dramatic game of rugby. I was grossly mistaken. Hopefully the lads will pick it up when the French arrive next week.

Our limbs sore from clinging to the back of nags the day before, we waited a day before signing up for the mountain bike tour of the Circuito Chico, a 17 mile loop around some of the spectacular lakes and mountains located a short distance from the town itself.

I was particularly worried about this as my stomach felt like it was a darting shoal of frightened fish. Not wanting to spend the day running between a disgarded mountain bike and the woods I prepped myself with some immodium and we made our way to the bike rental. After a 15 minute pep talk about using our gears correctly and how best to navigate the course we set off.

Naturally things didn’t go well, our water supplies being drank before we were a third way around and having serious difficultly with some of the hills, nevertheless the lactic acid that filled up our limbs was worth it. We got some serious postcard quality shots and inspiring vistas the only downside was that I reckoned I swallowed a significant number of winged insects on some of the downhill stretches, none of them particularly tasty.

The downhill’s were exhilarating, you can be panting like cowen climbing stairs trudging up the mountains and once you get to the top it’s a pure cannonball run down hill. You bolt down, massive trees flying past on either side of you, making you feel like one of those imperial scout troopers in Return of the Jedi, although you have to look out for incoming cars rather then Warrawick Davies or any of his Ewok buddies.

The track has a number of other attractions on the route, namely a Swiss village complete with a microbrewery, several hidden lakeside beaches and a dinosaur park. The latter was limited to those under the age of 16 so we gave it a miss, as you can imagine I was absolutely inconsolable as a result.

By the end of the circuit we were absolutely worn out and wheeling our bikes up the final hill, Blondie had been asking me to consult the map at regular intervals during the later half of the course and she was eager to get home. We bought a bottle of wine to enjoy along with a movie but we only managed a few sips before we passed out.

The wine didn’t go to waste though as I emptied it into an easily stowed Gatorade bottle for use as “Bus Hooch”. The concept of Bus hooch was explained to us by an American called Ted who I mentioned in previous entries who bought his own whiskey on board our last epic bus trip. I had given Ted my email address on the premise of meeting up in Bariloche but he never dropped us a line, he told us he was checking out the lakes on his first day but would like to meet for drinks thereafter. During the course of the mountain bike circuit I learned that the lake in Bariloche is supposedly the haunt of a lake monster similar to that of loch ness, the dinosaur park it actually named after the very beast.

I naturally assumed that poor Ted had fall foul of the beast, plucked from his mountain bike while whizzing past the waters edge and dragged into the deceptively peaceful depths to be consumed.

However, Niamhs theory that he probably lost the piece of paper I gave him with the email on it or that I had dissuaded further contact from him by of course talking to him about lake monsters on the bus probably had more credibility. I personally cannot recall me telling him about the lake monster but in fairness im a little fuzzy due to his generosity with the whiskey.

Final day in Bariloche and it was off to a horrible start, Niamh had to be reassured that she did not contract rabies after being swiped by the hostel owners new born kitten, the swiping was the result of miss power getting overexcited and squeezing the poor feline within an inch of its young life.

Upon check out the same gentlemen who offered me the chocolate biscuit following my incident with the vomiting roommate tried to sting us for more money, insisting we hadn’t paid out accommodation fee when we arrived and forgetting the fact that he was the one who checked us in and pointed us in the direction of the atm so we could actually pay him. After 20 minutes of phone calls to his boss he gave up and let us go, Niamh vowed to give the hostel negative feedback on hostelworld as opposed to my mid day Quilmes beer induced idea of spiking his coffee with laxative. In hindsight that little stunt however deserved and humorous probably would have got me in trouble.


Battery about to die so I’m off to get some sleep…hopefully bus man will sort out more bingo in the morning.

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Photos

The lovely Niamh
Niamh is tipsy and told me to title this picture as above

Panorama
We ended up biking around all you see here and more!

Niamh on the bridge
Lake monster could have had a tasty snack if he was on the ball, thankfully he wasn't

Hidden Lake
Just took a fucking long walk to reach

Blondie in the shadow of the mountain
The yetis up on the mountain have spotted dinner

TED NOOOO!!!!!!
A dramatisation of the fate that likely befell poor Ted...cheers for the email!