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Published: August 7th 2007
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We thought Mendoza would be hard to beat as a great place to spend a few days, then we got to Bariloche……
Bariloche is the first decent sized town you come to as you head south into Patagonia. Patagonia inspires thoughts of wide open spaces, huge mountains, glistening lakes and some of the last true wilderness areas on the Planet. It lives up to all of that.
We caught our first glimpse of the Patagonian landscape with the dawn on our bus from Mendoza. It was gorgeous, desert landscape with scrubby plants and huge lakes. In the distance there are hills and snow capped mountains everywhere. Brilliant.
Then it’s exactly the same landscape for the next 5 hours until we reach Bariloche, an indication of just how incredibly large Patagonia is.
Anyway, Bariloche is a great place; it sits on the shores of a huge lake and at the foot of a group of mountains which reach 2000m into the sky. In the winter Bariloche is a Mecca for skiers and snowboarders and in the summer it attracts climbers, walkers and, of course, travellers. The early settlers of Bariloche were from Switzerland and Italy, so it feels
very Alpine and European and is a bit of a shock to encounter in the middle of Argentina. The buildings are generally cute wooden structures like something out of Heidi and their culinary speciality is Chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate.
The Riot We´re not quite sure what was going on, but our bus to Bariloche was held up for 10 minutes as a large crowd of demonstrators passed by on a remote country road, followed by a line of scary looking, fully kitted out, riot police complete with a tank and water cannon. Very very bizarre. The only thing we could imagine was that it had something to do with a large nearby oil refinery and environmental protestors.
Circuito Chico on Bikes We hired a couple of great mountain bikes and took off on a 25k ride around the lakes and mountains outside Bariloche known as the Circuito Chico. It was a beautiful day, we really loved the bikes and think we may take it up more seriously when we finally find a home. The 25k did stretch closer to 35k as we managed to get lost on one off road section
only to be rescued and shown the right track by a friendly local. This local turned out to have had a grandfather who fought with a Scottish regiment in WW1, so he invited us into his home and showed us photos etc. A great meeting.
Scones Our friendly hostel threw a party for all the residents and invited us to bring a typical dish of our country to share. After racking our brains and ruling out Pancakes (too generic), Haggis (too scary) and Smoked Salmon (too expensive) we decided to bake some Scones. It turned into a huge adventure as neither of us had done this before although we had watched our mums and grannies making scones inumerable times in our childhoods. They turned out brilliantly as you can see from the photo.
Cerro Otto We took an afternoon trip up Cerro Otto (Mount Otto) on the chairlift. Then walked down from the summit through some gorgeous scenery back into town. A great afternoon only slightly spoiled by the arrival at speed of a group of very angry wild dogs. Seems like we might have stumbled into their territory or something. Anyway a
few loud Scottish swear words had them backing off…..
Cerro Catedral On our last day in Bariloche we decided to do some serious hiking and took off to climb Cerro Catedral, at 2010m, a fairly significant climb for the region. All week in Bariloche, the mountains had been clear and the days crisp but sunny so, of course, this day dawned cloudy and cold with a hint of winter on its way. Nonetheless we set off and got close to the summit before the snow started! Just our luck to pick the first snow day of the winter, but a fine day hiking anyway.
Turtles on Tour - The best ice-cream in South America is in Bariloche and is called Catedral. It is chocolate ice-cream with Dulce De Leche (an Argentinean delicacy that is similar to smooth runny caramel - gorgeous)
- Is it coincidence that we are in the Chocolate capital of South America on Easter Sunday when the Bunny arrives? I think not…..
- We spent two days trying to find a relatively civilised way to make our way further South in Argentina to our next stop at El
Calafate. Between the bus company having system failure, public holidays closing down travel agents and the overwhelming desire of touts to sell you tourist tours instead of simple transport, we ended up resorting to booking a flight with Aerolineas Argentinas! So it’s the high life for us now as we jet off tomorrow to El Calafate.
- We spent a hilarious Easter Sunday morning in one of the huge Chocolate superstores marvelling at the choice of Easter eggs. Heaven for a couple of chocoholics.
- We stayed in the best hostel we’ve been in so far, it’s called ´Apartment 1004´ and is on the 10th floor of an apartment block in the centre of town with amazing views and a really friendly staff. Maybe a wee bit too friendly we think as most of them have worked together for 6 years and are a touch on the hippy side. We suspect they are part of a fiendish cult that preys on travellers as they pass through and convert them into happy shiny people in return for all their worldly goods. The newest member of staff stopped off 3 years ago after travelling from her home in Sweden. We’ve
spotted her occasionally glancing at the door with a sort of wide eyed / hopeful / panicked look. We may offer to smuggle her out in our backpacks when we leave.
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dmendonca
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Ok guys, so you are still in Mendoza, I can understand that. So you have both become nature lovers, and that's great. I remember a tme when Stu, could not be be more than 6ft away from a laptop before going into a coma. Have fun wherever you are.