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Published: February 9th 2006
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(second part of truck tour in Patagonia finishing 23rd January)
Bariloche
After the Fitzroy National Park and the cute El Chalten, the 33 passengers and I made a straight run up towards civilization (meaning towns accessible by betumen roads), stopping briefly in the small town of Perino Moreno. Yes, the name is common here (ie. the glacier near El Calafate) due to the generosity of this explorer who donated the land given to him for good deeds to the region, and thus allowed many natural areas to become protected.
Luckily, along some natural parks, the history of Natives has somehow survived too. The Natives in these Northen regions of Patagonia are called ´Tehuelche´. They had a strong oral history which was recorded along with their cute legends. There is one telling how all the animals were trying to hide the 2 ´clouds sons´ from the evil giant spirits and how by failing to keep the main meeting a secret the skunk for example got his smell as a punishment. Their explanations of the world and nature is certainly cutier than our scientific approach.
The town of Bariloche was bigger than expected, with the tourism magnet creating some
neighbourhoods unfortuantely looking quite poor (as observed when coming in town). Reality behing the glitter.
El Chocolate - Food for the Gods*
I was told that a past Welsh migration gave the ´mountainy´ town of Bariloche a swiss feel to it with abundance of fondues (I had a delicious chili cheese one) and chocolaterias (and San Bernard dogs!). Oh, ok, I will say more about chocolate by starting with a lesson in history:
Chocolate is old (and wise) having been regularly used by Kings of past civilizations of Central and Equatorial Americas for sacred rituals (sometimes by adding chilli to it!). The Mayans even called the cacao tree (Theobroma* tree which grows the Cacao/Chocolate grains), the ´Tree of the Gods´, symbol of life and fertility.
Our famous Colon was even pictured in 1504 drinking the scared beverage.
In 1519, Cortes brings the chocolate drink to Spain, and a century later, sweeten with honey, vanillia or cinnamon, it is discovered by the rest of Europe throught the association of Louis XIV with the Spanish court.
The rest is history because I have stopped reading articles accerting the benefits of chocolate like anti-oxidants (polyphenols good for heart health),
tryptophan and phenylethylamine for more serotonin (increasing the feeling of pleasure), relaxation while providing some caffeine, magnesium (goods for menstruation), etc, etc.
The processing starts with the drying and then roastering of the grains after the fruit reaches maturation (red color). The difference in temperature makes them become ´licor´(105) or ´butter´(112). It is then kept 18 to 24 hours at 55 degrees before deciding which beautiful concoction it will become. See photos.
Did I mention the great taste of good chocolate? Here you go, I rest my case. See you guys in front of a cuppa of chocolate when I get home!
Snow?:
After some chocolate eating I figured I better do some exploring and jumped on the bus to Mount Catedral where I got some pretty good views. You get on a cable car and then a chairlift, feeling the air becoming cooler as you go up, up, up. Something like 20 min later, it ended close to the top and there I found unexpected snow! I means this is supposed to be their summer!?. I decided to continue on walking towards the tip, passing the restaurant, the kiddies luges, and little creeks of melting
snow. I can see some people coming down from the frozen bit right from the top and hesitating for a while I can´t resist my unsatiable curiosity of seeing what´s on the other side!. I mean, imagine it: I am wearing jeans and sneakers and I am climbing boulders and trying to stay upright some sections of the sliding snow.
But boy, I must have said a good 15 fa%& once I got to the other side -after I was able to close my mouth-: it was fabulous. My camera certainely couldn´t catch the sight of this huge range of moutains sprawling in front of me. I was by myself on top of the world (Ì´m sure it was higher than 2300m), and there was this view without end.
And then... the alarm went off!! Sh%@&! The chairlift is stopping in 15minutes! You should have seen me bolted, imagining spending the night here dying of hyperthermia (I mean the temperature close to the snow was 5C!). I decided to bypass the rocks and go through the snow section straight down to the beginning of the track. Ok, so it was a bit funny trying to manage sliding down on snow
with sneakers while not wanting to do it on my bum!. And the alarm and the local guide kept calling in the distance...
Of course I made it back on time (not being the last last one on the chairlift I should mention), and even made it to our last group diner (yes showered). But sniff, after a late game of bowling (with pins picked up by little human slaves! and I somehow scored 149), we had to say goodbye. The group had been quite fun to hang out with. But Grant was in Bariloche with a great timing and it was great to catch up and hear about the difficult -and beautiful- sections of the infamous Ruta 40 for my trip up with Ted and the bike in mid-February.
The next day, unfortunately I was already on my way to Peru (deciding at the last minute of course), but now thinking that 2 weeks, learning some Spanish, trekking around Bariloche would not have been so bad after all. But I had made an appointment with Peru, its strong history and its gentle people and my plane was waiting... kind of. (wait for next blog).
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