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Published: March 7th 2009
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My semi cama chair
Great pillow Anna. Thanks :o) I shared my final night in Buenos Aires with a couple of girls from Cork eating at an amazing steak restaurant called Desnivel. They both had a plane to catch at 5am so of course the sensible option was to follow Argentinian tradition and see the morning in with a few drinks.
The next day I made my way to the bus station to catch my 4pm bus to Bariloche. After almost embarking the wrong bus I finally found my semi-cama seat (half bed-half seat) and settled in for my 24 hour journey. I have to admit, 24 hours sounded a lot to endure on a bus but I had heard good about South American buses and I´m glad to say it was all true. Snacks, dinner, breakfast, sleep, five films and even a glass of red wine kept me company through the journey and I arrived in Bariloche at 2pm the following day!
Bariloche is renowned for being the Lake District area of Argentina. The town is situated by one of the huge icy blue lakes and is surrounded by beautiful mountains. Despite it being Summer, you can even spot a glacier in distance - amazing. In the
Sunset on the bus
Route to Bariloche Winter, the town is a lively touristy ski resort. In the Summer (now) there´s just as much to do in the mountains. However, the climate is little variable to say the least. Some days we´ve been on the beach in temparatures of 30oC+, other days I´ve regretted not packing my jeans and jumpers - the weather wasn´t far from a few grey days in Romford.
My first weekend in Bariloche was spent with some brilliant people I met in the hostel. Two English, one French, one Argentinian, one New Zeland and one Italian. We spent two truly great days together! The first night we found our way, as always happens in a new town, to the Irish bar called Wilkenny. The most famous in Patagonia apparently..... As the best decisions are made after a few beers, we agreed to meet early the next day and start to explore. Grabbing a bus, we headed out towards the mountains. Feeling a little delicate we chose the easy option and headed up the mountain on the chair lift to take in some magnificent views of the lakes and enjoyed a picnic in the sun.
The next day, Gregoire (the French one)
Road trip
Gregoire, Anout, Fredirico and the Italian without a name kindly offered a road trip in his car so five of us squeezed in his white 4x4 and headed of on a circuit around the lakes. Heading towards the mountains, I found it a little strange being in a ski resort in February without snow. However, instead of using two skis, we grabbed a four legged friend and enjoyed a gentle horse ride in the mountains. Unfortuntely I was provided with the slowest horse in Argentina and an hour later, following the tracks of the other horses, a very dirty, dusty but brown Krysia emerged. The cheapest fake tan ever!
After, we did the touristy thing and pulled up the car whenever we spotted a nice view to take some pictures.. a perfect Sunday past time.
The following day I checked into my new hostel and arrived at Spanish school at 8.45am. Straight away I felt at home and the staff did an amazing job at making everyone feel comfortable. After a brief conversation test I was put in a class (not a beginners, yey) with Alana (from Cornwall) and Stephen from the US (who bizarrely loves Hugh Grant too!). Lessons were for four hours every morning, with
Wilkennys
Good times time for a medialuna (elevensies) in between - just enough time to get to know the other students. Over the next week the school arranged an assortment of activites. City tours including a visit to a chocolate factory, hiking tours in the mountains, films, restaurants, cerverzerias. One night we ate in a restaurant owned by the Dutch Princess´ (by marriage) brother. He even joined us for wine and the Dutch girls from the school were a little more than excited. The first week was spent in a hostel where I met Sean from Dublin (also from the school) and evenings were spent sampling a few varities of steak and 2006, 2007 and 2008 Patagonian red wine. We soon agreed on the cartons of vino tinto. You can´t go wrong at a pound for a litre of wine!
I spent afternoons doing my homework on Playa Bonita, an afternoon swimming in the lakes after a good hike and another afternoon was spent at a community centre in a very poor local village. The houses were pretty shocking, not much more than sheds. We taught the children some english words, good ones of course, and played sack races and football. They
found it hilarious trying on our sunglasses and were extremely happy with their goodie bags of sweets and balloons.
Spanish progressed quite quickly and the second week I moved in with my host family. Casa de Kuki! Two Dutch girls and Alana from my class were also staying so the stay has been great fun with my surrogate sisters. We´re not allowed to speak English at dinner so conversation involved a lot of hand gestures and miscommunication. A great way to learn though. Our host parents were fabulous and very welcoming and having a sofa for a week has been a great luxury! The only thing missing is vegetables. They don´t appear to grow over here. Again, another week was spent hiking in the afternoons, at the beach, having Salsa lessons etc. On one hike, we were accompanied by an extremely fit Retriever dog who did a good job at directing us to the waterfall and mirador (view point).
Another thing that Bariloche is famous for is chocolate. The town is hugely influenced by the Swiss and like Geneva, is swamped in chocolate shops. For one of our Spanish lessons, our teacher Flavia took as to Rapa Nui
(a cafeteria) to practice our Spanish conversation in a louder environment. We were just a little distracted by the chocolate caliente and medialunas!
Thursday night was also spent at the opening of the World Tango event here in Bariloche´s theatre. The dancing was pretty mesmorising but unfortunately, a few Argentinian song artists and poets in between sent most of our class to sleep. After, we laughed at the relief we had all felt when we suddenly smelt burning and had began to plan our escape route.
It´s been an amazing two weeks here. Spanish, chocolate, skiing (well, ski runs), hiking and wine all in one place! What more could you ask for. Despite being very sad to leave the town and saying goodbye to everyone I will be moving on in the next few days. I had originally signed up to four weeks of Spanish school here but wanting to top my tan up for the wedding of the year, I´ve made the decision to do just two weeks in Bariloche and find warmer climates.
I´m looking forward to spending another two weeks at Spanish school in Mendoza, further North in Argentina. However, I´ll be stopping off
at Nequen to relight my love of paleontology and Tricerotops... a town which apparently has the bigger dinosaur bones ever!
I hope this finds everyone well :O)
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Gareth
non-member comment
Hi K, great blog, glad you're enjoying your travels. I'm green with jealousy! Gareth