On the long road to rock

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We spent a long day travelling on Feb 25th from Santiago to Osorno (a small German themed town), where we had to wait for about five hours before catching another bus to Bariloche in Argentina. The bus ride through the Andes was very pretty, and the border crossing from Chile to Argentina was so smooth and painless compared to crossing from Canada to the US. The bus too was luxury compared to Greyhound buses in the US. Funny that the world´s biggest economy has possibly the worlds worst public transport system. I guess because ´the US is such a so-called rich country, most people have their own car (or cars) and wherever they don´t drive, they fly, so buses are just left to fall apart for the poor people. HAve I had this rave before? I think I might have. If so, apologies for repitition.

Before arriving in South America, I had a vague misconception that it would have more of a third world flavour, which is not the case at all. Santiago, for instance, felt just like any City in Australia or Canada, which is why I did not have much to write about! I don´t think this is either good or bad necessarily, just interesting. Actually Chile and Australia are probably almost on par with each other in terms of so-called economic status. I don´t know the stats off the top of my head, but I don´t think there is much difference between the two, which I did not realise before travelling here. Anyhow, that is only one way of measuring and I am just a tourist...

So back to being a tourist, we got to Bariloche without any pre booked accommodation, even though we were warned that Bariloche is a very busy tourist town and you need to book ahead of time. We found five kiwi´s on the bus who had also not bothered to plan ahead, and when we got to the terminal, there was a woman (Alicia) with an apartment for 7 looking for customers. Perfect. It worked out to be pretty affordable and easy. I don´t think our kiwi pals thought much of the place, as I heard them say the next day ¨lets get out of this dive¨, but Jono and I liked it. We thought it had character. Sometimes it is nice to stay under, above, or in a local´s house. It makes a change from the artificiality of hostels and gives you an idea of how some locals live. Plus, it is nice to give money straight to an individual family that seems to need it. In this case it was just Alicia and her mother.

The next night though, we joined the rest of the tourists, and headed in to the center of the city. Despite warnings to the contrary, we had no trouble finding a hostel and maybe it is not indicative of how locals live, but it was clean and comfortable and cute.

Bariloche is beautiful. Touristy, yes, but still pretty. Its geographic location alone, set on a sparkling blue lake and surrounded by an almost 360 degree view of snow capped mountains would be enough to impress, but the town itself was also cute. It is another German themed town (those Germans certainly got around) with cobblestone roads and sweet quaint stone architecture. Craftspeople and artists added splashes of colour while selling their wares on the streets. Musicians, jugglers, dancers or clowns were at almost every main street intersection, busking for money from cars passing through, where in Canberra you are used to seeing window washers. Every third or fourth shop was either a chocolate or ice cream shop. Oh, and the chocolate, meant to be the best in the world, is soooooooooo good. I am not even a chocolate lover, but just thinking about it now makes my mouth water. Oh, and the wine, and the steak, and the berries... I could live here. It felt like a pity that we were only here for a couple of nights to have showers, and buy food and supplies for our trip up to Cerro Cathederal for a week of climbing.

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Photos

standing on a corner waiting for a bus
I remember singing this violent femmes song for some reason while standing here. This is out the front of the woman´s apartment that we stayed in.

Going for a swim
It was actually not too cold, I think the dark coloured stones must help warm the water a bit.

Berries and beer
We got about twice as many berries as this for about $2 from the market. Heaven. And beer was even cheaper.