Bariloche - adventures and chocolate

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We are in Bariloche, a town set on a blue beautiful lake, where the best chocolate in the country (or perhaps the world) is made and sold in a myriad of gorgeous stores, all filled with chocolate. Here we also had our most challenging adventure so far. Before going into the details of that , a short summary of our doings in the last ten days. On our last day in El Bolson we had another wonderful hike in the banks of a the most beautiful colored river I have seen, the Rio Azul. More about this you will soon read in the boys' accounts. We left El Bolson sadly ( at least I was sad) - the setting of the town is so gorgeous, and it was small and friendly, it remained us a lot of Santa Cruz but it was also full of very very nice Spanish - speaking people 😊
In Bariloche we have been doing 3 things: the boys have been enjoying really good Spanish classes, I have been meeting people in search of a volunteer position here (until now with no success, too much bureaucracy), and we have been eating daily the best chocolate and ice cream ever...But our main event here was a big adventure, a 2 day backpacking hike into the mountains. For Ilan and me it was a great experience, going back to when, many years ago, before kids, we used to be able to do this kind of hiking and reach these kind of magical places. It was a walk with fabulous views, through an enchanted forest and arriving at an a amazing lagoon surrounded by majestic cliffs. For the boys, it was a mixed experience - it was the hardest thing they have ever done, as it was long and steep and they had to carry a lot of stuff since we were carrying Maytal as well. We are so proud of them- they did make it to the end, and now we all know they can do it! Although we are not so sure they will be happy to do this ever again... now you can hear from their perspective:

Amit: “Azul Mapul” : Today we went o the Rio Azul, meaning Blue River. If you have never seen it you probably wonder why is it called that way, but if you saw it you would understand as the river has a unique twinge of blue to it. After 3 km we found a bridge we needed to cross. It was a really terrifying bridge because it was really rickety and rackety. It had missing flank boards and swayed even when only I went on it. When aba was crossing the bridge Maytal tried to jump into the water. But in the end we all passed the bridge safely. We walked a little more and then came to our destination: a pool of water as big as a hot tub. We found out that Rio Azul was colder than Lago Puelo. But I bravely went in for a couple of minutes, but I paid the price: for the next couple of minutes I was freezing. On the way back we found a place that was so tempting that we could not help but to go again down to the water. Me and my brother found a smooth rock overlooking the river and sat there. Below there was a large big beetle in the water . I offered to throw a rock on it and my brother agreed, I threw a rock and missed it, a big splash ht me and I staggered backwards in horror, Shakked nudged me to get my attention and Splash! Amit where are you said Shakked, suddenly a very angry Amit climbed out of the water, demanding an explanation of why he was soaked. My mother just laughed and laughed!
Welcome to Bariloche - today we arrived here. There are 3 things I want to tell you about Bariloche. Te Lake, the chocolate and the Spanish classes. The Nahuel Napi Lake is by Bariloche and it is huge. The chocolate is great, there is a chocolate store the size of Costco! In the third Spanish class we made spaghetti, not just boiled it but made it from scratch, this is how we did it: 1. crack an egg into a bowl 2. Add some flour 3. Mix it 4. Make a big ball of the dough. 4. Absorb the stickiness 6. Put it I a contraption which will make it longer. 7. Pull it .

“The famous adventure”. The day before yesterday we went on a trek! Do you know what a trek is? A trek is a hike with takes days. On the trek we had a serious wasp problem, each minute we heard at least five times the buzz of wasps and bees. The first part of the trek was walking along a river, the second in the forest, the last was the hardest, a steep uphill that was very hard, our destination was a Refugio in a valley, when we at last reached it we felt like we were going to die. In the evening we slept peacefully snuggled up in our sleeping bags. Let me describe the Refugio - a tall building made of stone at the beach of a lagoon in the end of a valley below jagged peaks. In the morning we packed and got ready for the long way down, I in the last kilometer I simply could not bear it any more but in the end I did it!!!

Shakked : “Our last adventure in El Bolson was a memorable one. We walked along the banks of the Rio Azul in hope of finding a small natural pool we had heard of. It was tough going as the bank was steep and the trail dotted with rocks, holes and roots. It was beautiful though, to look down at the sparkling waters of the river, with insects humming in our ears and huge trees towering out right of us. The river was of lightest, yet at the same time the deepest, blue I had ever seen. The water looked so inviting, that , if it was a hot day, you would throw yourself in there even if there was a school of pirahanas waiting for you . Luckily, it was not hot. We got to the natural pool, tried the water, and recoiled as if we had been burned. Actually, it was the opposite of that. The water was so cold that I would not have been surprised if, there and then, my feet turned to blocks of ice. Only Maytal- the cold did not seem to bother her- and Amit, who was trying to be brave, went in. Only one more thing is worth writing about; we had returned to our starting point. Amit and I were sitting on a flat rock a foot above the water. Amit had just thrown in a stone and was in the act of looking where it had gone. He was leaning out. And this put him off balance. So my simple tap on his shoulder - I wanted to tell him something- sent him plunging into the icy waters. He immediately surfaced spluttering and screaming, clawed his way onto the bank and began what looked like a frantic dance. In reality he was trying - unsuccessfully -to get warm.

Now we are in Bariloche, a town north of El Bolson. We are taking Spanish classes and sampling the wonderful chocolate here. The teachers here are the best yet!

Refugio Frey:
The past 2 days were probably the hardest in my life. In short, we went backpacking. Big backpacks, stuffed full with warm clothes, water, a sleeping bag, snacks and sandwiches. It was a 10 kilometer hike. Normally this would have been easy. Instead, we had to struggle up a steep trail with heavy backpacks on our backs. To make matters worse, we were constantly assaulted by insects. Bees and wasps, to be precise. They hummed around us, ducking and diving and avoiding all our attempts to swat them away. As we slowly rose up the mountain, the walk became more bearable because of the view. The mountainside fell down shortly to our left, flattening out into a thick forest which ended at the banks of a lake. The lake was not all the same color. I counted fours shades of blue; dark, light, deep and turquoise. On the other side of the lake loomed more mountains. They were a sort of reddish brown in color and bare except for a few trees. For seven hours we struggled upwards, dodging thorny bushes and fending off bees. Once we came upon a stream and filing our bottles we struggled on. Another time we found ourselves walking though forest that had been ravaged by a fire. The trees were like charred fingers sticking up unto the sky, leafless and black. Seven hours of walking brought us to our goal; Refugio Frey. This is a small cabin surrounded by bleak jagged stone outcroppings. The top floor was a dormitory containing about 20 squeezed- together bunk beds. The bottom floor was a dining room and kitchen, outside was a tiny outhouse. A creek wound its way like a silver thread into a shallow lagoon outside the cabin. We slept that night at the cabin and set up again in the morning. The walk down only took us four hours, but it was harder, since we were still tired from the day before. Even though it was hard, I learned a lot about myself, and just how much strength I have.”

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Comments

[Nesya, Amiel, and Selilah]

We salute the trekkers!
We loved hearing about your trek, and wished we could have tested ourselves as you did. However, from the pictures of the bridge, I know I (Elizabeth) would not have made it, because you could not have gotten me to step onto that thing. So I salute your bravery! Nesya says I could have just gone through the water. What do you think, Amit? Would I have made it? Or perhaps we should ask the cold water expert, Maytal, but I guess we'll have to wait until she gains the vocabulary to describe her daring. The pictures of the enchanted forest and rainbow were lovely. Nesya laughed over Shakked's description of Amit's unfortunate plunge into the water. Amiel wants to know why Maytal tried to jump in the water from the bridge. We all wanted to try the chocolate volcanoes. I hope you are picking up some chocolate-making tips while you are there.