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Published: April 13th 2007
Friday the 13th!
After the longest journey of our lives - we left Ushuaia at 5.30am on Wednesday morning, stopping in Rio Gallegos & Commodora Rivadavia to change buses - we finally arrived in Bariloche at 11.30am Friday morning. So, about 54 hours on the road!!!!
Absolutely exhausted we initially had trouble finding accommodation so phoned up one of the better sounding hostels in the guide book and managed to reserve a room for the night. However, on arrival we discovered the recommendation in the book was written with a sprinkle of journalistic licence (this is becoming a regular occurance!) - the room was disgusting and the sheets on the bed looked like they hadn´t been washed for a while! Yuk!
Having obtained some info from the receptionist at the hostel about hikes and activities to be enjoyed in Bariloche, we booked ourselves onto an afternoon of horseriding for Saturday then headed off in search of a better place to stay. After several enquiries we finally found a lovely little Hosteria, called el Ciervo Rojo (The Red Deer), where the receptionist was extremely friendly, the room was lovely and clean, and the price was great!
Having
reserved a room we had some lunch in another very friendly joint, and then planned to take on one of the many hikes.
Unfortunately the weather was not proving to be in our favour as the heavens opened and it started chucking it down - meaning the planned hike would have to be abandoned. So we visited the local museum instead, where we saw lots of stuffed beasties and various relics of the Mapuche and Tehuelche indians (indigenous people of Argentina) - however we didn´t learn much as all the info was in Spanish (which we´re both still struggling with - our best phrase so far being "Habla Ingles?")!
After the museum we made our way to the main street in town (avoiding the rain by darting from one awning to the next) where we discovered one of the reasons Bariloche is so famous - the town is renowned throughout Argentina for it´s chocolate and there are several HUGE shops devoted completely to the sale of this sweet produce. Hence Av had a great time sampling various flavours of choc whilst Suzz looked on enviously, having decided that choc is off the menu for the rest of the
trip!
Having managed to waste as much time as possible we finally HAD to return to our hostel, where we decided to use our sleeping bags for the first time of the trip.
The next day we got up early, checked out of the hostel and hastily made our way to the hotel, where we were offered a free breakfast! Having made full use of the facilities, we stopped off at the local supermarket for some lunch before making our way back to the hostel where we´d booked the horseriding trip. However, due to it being too windy (!?), this trip had been cancelled so we decided to try out the hiking trail we´d abandoned the previous day.
Hopping on a local bus, we headed out to one of the lakes nearby and promptly got lost having gone in the completely wrong direction! After quarter of an hour or so, we realised our mistake so back-tracked to the bus stop and finally found the correct road to follow. This led us on to a route along the shore of the lake, then into a small forest and up to a pretty waterfall.
For our final day
in Bariloche we booked a boat trip across Lago Nahuel Huapi.
Getting up early we were very pleased to see the sun making a show for the first time in days. We were picked up by minibus and taken to the harbour about 20km away. There we boarded a catamaran which took us across the lake to the west shore, closest to Chile, passing small islands and peninsulas along the way. There we disembarked for a short walk up one of the mountains to Cascada Canteras, a beautiful waterfall, and the lake that feeds it, Lago Canteras, before stopping for lunch at a nearby hotel/restaurant.
After lunch we took a short walk through one of the dense forests surrounding the lake where we saw a huge tree, approximately 700 years old, then walked along the lakeside beach and back to the boat for the journey back to town.
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Proshanta
non-member comment
What happend to You?
Hi Av, are you still there? I could not see your sight after the first 2 pictures. Wish, Suzz rescued you at some point. good luck. Proshanta