Bariloche so far

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Hola chicos and chicas,

It has been a fantastic start to Patagonia here in San Carlos de Bariloche. We arrived about an hour or so late from Iguazu after two buses, the third of which (from Buenos Aires to here) was the best so far, it even had a vegetarian option for Alex, surprising in this nation of carnivores, some of whom eat meat three times a day!

We were greeted by Konrad (he doesn´t like being called Uncle!) at the bus station which is just out of the ciy centre and drove about 3 kilometres to his house, where I met Julie and Nils for the first time in about 14 years! After a lunch of empanadas (yum!) we had a tour of the house and garden which are both fantastic, but the best thing about this house is the view over Lake Nahuel Huapi to the snow capped mountains beyond, a view no-one could ever tire of! We decided to spend the rest of the afternoon on Konrad and Julie´s kayaks and set off on the lake in due course. However, the wind across the lake picks up in the afternoon and so some fairly large waves were being created, which inevitably led to my losing my balance and falling into waters that are almost glacial at 11 degrees celcius. Not exactly pleasant! However, a hot shower and food later I was right as rain! Alex, who has done a bit of sea kayaking faired a lot better than me on the water, until he capsised climbing out of the boat at the end! However, our moods definately increased as we managed to watch England beat France live 17-9 in the 6 Nations. Get in!

On Sunday we got our first taste of life on an estancia. Firstly we watched Konrad and his 3 gauchos round up cows and then weigh them as they were to be sold to a nearby slaughterhouse for a set price per kilogram. We then saw Konrad´s boss´house (wow!), helped transport some chainsawed pieces of tree trunk to be used as furniture, and me two awesome animals, a cat called Ron and a bloodhound called Dik. From the small glimpse we´ve had, life seems very hard-working with lots of early starts, but very enjoyable as well.

This week we started our week long Spanish course at La Montaña Spanish School here in Bariloche with our last day to come tomorrow. I am so glad we decided to do it because it has been great up till now! Our teacher (Graciela Fernandez) is really nice, has a great sense of humour and is the best we could ask for. I´m definately able to understand Spanish more easily now and am much more confident about talking to people in basic conversation and we´ve definately learnt a lot! The only problem is trying to get Alex to school on time as we have to be there at 9am which means a 7.20 start!

There are about 20 or so other pupils at the school who are all really friendly and we´ve made friends with a couple of lads from London, Jonny and Amos, and a guy called Will from Worcester and a guy called Harry from Dorset (nicknamed the Princes!) as well as many others. Its been great talking to people who have already been travelling for quite a while and have some stories to tell. One girl called Hanna in our group is from Finland and she sold her house, quit her job, bought a motorbike and is travelling around the world! Its like something you´d see in a film!

The school also organises activities in the afternoons and evenings and so far we have been bowling, tried our hands at salsa dancing (i think we took to it quite well!) and went for a hike up Llao Llao, a fell that gave us a stunning view over Bariloche and the lake that is one of the best views so far. So far Bariloche has been amazing, except for the fact that for the first few days we kept getting lost looking for Konrad´s house, as we weren´t familiar with the way and everywhere along the road which is about 3 km long looks exactly the same, leading to about 2 hours walking at one point! On the bright side though, Julie´s cooking is incredible!

Hasta luego

Conrad

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