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Published: December 25th 2022
Bariloche Town Square
More German InfluenceOhhhh, we’ve been eating well in Argentina, we have. Patagonia is a haven for carnivores and we’ve had our fill of the beef, lamb and pork available in the many good restaurants of Bariloche and El Bolson. Parillla y asadors are very popular here. Parilla means ‘grill’ and asador means ‘roast’. Some restaurants have whole roast lamb on display in the window. They cook over hot coals for half a day before they are put on a plate at dinner time. Menu’s are quite simple. There are only about 6 different meat dishes and perhaps only three sides to choose from. We’ve learnt that we don’t need to order one each. Servings are huge and can easily be shared.
As well as dinners, we’ve enjoyed the many chocolate shops in the area. I’m not sure why it is such a big thing here, but we’ve tasted them and watched different types of pralines being made by hand. The area is a fruit bowl for Argentina too. Raspberries and strawberries are in season and taste good on waffles or by themselves.
Then there are the hop fields. And what do you do with lots of hops? We’ll I’ve never seen
Cloudy day in Bariloche
Windy and cold at the start of our stay so many breweries as there are in the three towns we’ve visited in Southern Argentina. The ones we’ve sampled have been very good too and they usually serve up good quality pub grub at a reasonable price. In general they are quite trendy places like the breweries in suburban Melbourne and Sunshine Coast. My favourite is called Wesley, in the heart of Bariloche. They have all the usual pale ales and golden ales and a selection of belgian style beers too.
As good as the beer is, we prefer something red, that comes out of a larger bottle to drink with our meat. Whilst it is no secret that Mendoza Malbec can be very good wine, we were recommended to try Patagonian Pinot Noir. We did and were not disappointed. I think the cool climate at these southern latitudes would be good for that varietal like it is in Tasmania and Victoria.
On top of all that we have developed a taste for dulce de leche. Last time we were in Argentina, we tried it once or twice and weren’t big fans of the stuff, but it is very common in sweets, icecreams and desserts and at a
Rafting
When we stopped for a swim in the current good restaurant, almost every dessert contained dulce de leche. We were given a little sample and loved the caramel looking and tasting gooey stuff. We ordered dulce de leche flans and mousse and have changed our mind. I’ve been looking for other ways to eat it now and tried it in alfajores this afternoon. Alfajores are a sandwich of two chocolate biscuits filled with dulce de leche and covered in a layer of milk chocolate. Yummmm.
We arrived in Bariloche with a plan to spend 6 nights and 5 days here. The first day we were going to plan our time and get a feel for the place, but we encountered a few difficulties. Firstly, everything was shut because an impromptu public holiday had been called to revere the world cup winning football team that were paraded through Buenos Aires in front of an estimated 5 million crazy Portenos. In the end they had to cancel the parade because it was too dangerous for the crowds and the players were flown over the capital by helicopter for an ‘aerial parade’. There was no parade here, but nothing was open. And as well as that, we decided that we didn’t
like Bariloche (or the accommodation we had booked in Bariloche) as much as we liked our last port of call, Villa la Angostura. It is bigger, busier and the weather wasn’t as nice. There is often a cool breeze coming off the lake and the first few days we were in Bariloche were cloudy and cooler.
Because of the weather, our star gazing tour was cancelled on the first night too. We never had a chance to do that, which was something Leanne had been looking forward to.
We decided that we could see what we wanted to see in less time and have two days, one night, in a nearby small town called El Bolson. We caught an early bus, which broke down and we ended up arriving at El Bolson at the same time as the not so early bus. But we were picked up by the owner of our very comfortable apartment. He gave us lots of advice on what to see and do in a little over 24 hours. We had lunch and headed straight to the car hire place. The car hire place was closed. After ringing the doorbell, the car hire man’s
mum yelled out to us from the third story and she made a phone call. He was with us within five minutes. Soon after, we had a little Chevrolet, that still hadn’t been cleaned from the previous customers. The Chevrolet had automatic absolutely nothing. Nathan learnt how to wind windows up and down by hand. He also leant how to close a car door that has no central locking. Do you remember the old locks that you had to hold the handle up to stop them from popping up when you shut the door? And I learnt to turn the indicators off after turning the corner. I don’t think that was meant to happen, but this probably wasn’t the best maintained car in town. The car reminded Leanne and I of the first cars we owned. It was much newer, of course, and I’m surprised they sell such a low speced car this century.
El Bolson had fantastic food and beer. We saw some good scenery as the town sits between two dramatic mountain ranges. The landscape around these towns is similar to Villa. There are mountains, with a bit of snow on high peaks, rivers, lakes and waterfalls
surrounding these alpine retreats. With the car we were able to see the best parts in a relatively short stay.
Bariloche is a much larger town, and doesn’t have the cosy feel of its nearby smaller neighbours. There are lots of tourist services though and we had a good day rafting in class 2 rapids, which is as much as Nathan is allowed to do, at 11-years old. The tour was really good fun, made by the funny guide that took us and the friendly Mexican family who shared the raft with us.
When we got back to Bariloche, the weather improved and we took in the sights from the mountain/hill not far from the centre of town. There is a cable car to the top and in winter it is a ski run. A free bus took us to the bottom of the cable car and we were lucky to get there just in time for the last bus to the base, giving us enough time to see what we wanted to see before the last returning bus took us home again.
see street performers strutting their stuff infront of drivers, trying to earn a few pesos. Well this guy took it to the next level. We watched him do this every time the lights went red. He timed it to maximise his performance and I didn’t see him make any money from the drivers, so we had to slip him a few hundred pesos before we left.
