Bariloche

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Bariloche is at the top of Patagonia. The region reminds me of the forests around British Columbia. I meet Ray at my hostel, Pudu. The hostel is owned by an Irish couple and an Argentinian guy. There is a bar in the hostel and happy hour is between 6pm - 9pm. Ray and I go hiking and then biking around Bariloche. I post on Facebook that I'm in Bariloche and Shauna sends me a message saying that she and Peter are in Bariloche as well. I meet up with both of them and we head out for dinner at a restaurant that looks like Frodo's house from Lord of the Rings. It's a very cool place.

I invite Peter, Shauna and their friend over for happy hour as their hostel doesn't have a bar. I figure they can't refuse considering they are Irish. By the way, I forgot to mention that Ray is Irish too.

On the night before my bus ride back to Buenos Aires, I decide to cook fajitas and make a salad for everyone. Peter and Shauna bring 3 bottles of wine and Ray helps me prepare dinner. We finish dinner and it's still happy hour, so, we decide to have a few drinks. The Irish hostel owners are at the hostel drinking with everyone as well. At some point in the night, we all decide to drink shooters. The hostel owners bring out their snowboard with four large shot glasses attached to it. They pour out different alcohol into each shot glass. I drink the glass that has Fernet in it. It's actually good. One of my other friends has the glass with the Vodka in it and says it tastes really bad. I can't believe it as Vodka is usually tasteless. On the second round of shots for everyone, I decide to drink the Vodka shot. It taste like shit! It's the worst Vodka I have had in my life and I'm not feeling so good anymore. I say goodnight to everyone and head off to bed.

The next morning, I wake up early and check out of the hostel, but, I go into the TV room and lie down on one of the bench seats. I have a really bad hang over. Ray comes in a little later and has a hang over as well. The female hostel owner comes in and asks me how I feel. I tell her that I feel like shit. She says she knows how I feel because she has a hang over as well. She tells me that her husband kept drinking after she stopped last night. He was one hour late for work and he doesn't know how he drove to work. My friend Shauna sent me an email telling me that she has a hang over too. I wonder how much we all drank? At least I'm starting to hold my own with the Irish.

I spend the whole day trying to recover from my hang over. I don't eat until 4pm and I still have my hang over when I get on my 20 hour bus ride to Buenos Aires. I said before that my bus ride up to Cusco was hell. Well, my bus ride to Buenos Aires was the worst ride of my life. Note to self: don't have a hang over before you travel.

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