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Published: March 3rd 2011
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After a 21 hour bus ride from Buenos Aires, Heide and I arrived in Bariloche. We were told at the information desk that bus 20 would take us to the city center. An hour and a half later, we realized we missed our stop, which was 30 km back. We realized this when we were the only two who didn't get off the bus and the bus driver asked us what we were doing. I told him we think we missed our stop at the center. Supposedly he had announced the stop and we failed to hear him. And so begins our adventures in Bariloche...
We then had to take the bus all the way back to the center, and after walking around for another 30 minutes, finally found our hostel which we were supposed to have arrived at by noon or we would lose our reservation, it was 1 pm. Luckily I had seen a hostel across the street earlier that had space. Immediately when we arrive at the new hostel we are introduced to a man who we are told speaks perfect English and refuses to speak to us in anything but English the rest of our stay. This
is perfect because, as everyone knows, I came to Argentina to practice my English. Later in the day this man gives Heide advice on where we should hike and tells her of a great place called Refugio Frey that is a 3 hour hike with waterfalls, a lagoon and a big lake. Heide tells me about this hike which sounds perfect for our first day and relaxed enough for our first hike since last summer.
Next day we take the bus to Lago Gutierrez where we begin our hike to the Frey. You might be wondering what the Frey is, which is exactly what I asked Heide 5 miles into the hike, to which she responds "I don't know." So yes, we have hiked 5 miles towards something that we have no idea what is it (it ends up it is a hostel in the woods that you hike to and spend the night, we never made it there). We never saw anything that great, just ended up hiking 12 miles, Heide hurt her knee and we were very sore the next day. Regardless, it was nice to go for a hike.
After the hike we got back on the
bus to return to the center. We sat down on the bus and a few stops later a larger woman wearing a fanny pack boarded the bus. She decided she wanted to stand right next to my seat with her fanny pack continually hitting me. At one point she was completely pushing me into the window. I turned my body so it was parallel to the window and put both hands on the window sill to give the woman the space she seemed to need. This, however, did not deter her and she continued to push her fanny pack and stomach into my back. This distraction and the fact that Heide was preoccupied with knee pain caused us to yet again miss our bus stop. We realized this time that we had missed the stop when we ended up in the "ghetto." I knew we were in the ghetto when I saw the tire store. The tire store consisted of a dilapidated wire fence, a wooden sign with "Gomeria" (tire store) painted on it and a pile of 6 tires. The bus then pulled into, as Heide called it, "where the buses sleep at night." I asked the driver if
he was returning to the center and he said that we would have to take a different bus. So we began to walk toward the corner to see if we could get another bus which luckily came soon. At this point in our trip we had already seen all of Bariloche and some of the surrounding Barrios in the local buses.
We spent our 2nd and 3rd night at Penthouse 1004 which was a great hostel on the 10th floor of a building with very friendly people and a great view. Our second day we explored the shopping center and ate some amazing ice cream. Our third day we tried to take the bus to Campanario, which is a hill that is at the center point of Bariloche with a good surrounding view, but, you guessed it, we missed the stop to get off. This time it worked out for the best because we went to the end of the line at a place called Llao Llao and a boy sitting behind us told us where to hike near there. We hiked Cerro Llao Llao which had one of the most amazing views I had seen in my life and
ended up having a better view and being much less touristy than Campanario, which we saw the next day. The rest of our trip in Bariloche we stayed at Alaska Hostel which was outside the center of town and hiked and spent time relaxing at Playa Bonita (the beach) that was close by. Overall, my experience in Bariloche was wonderful. It is a beautiful place with friendly people and confusing buses. 😊 It was a great place to go to get out of Buenos Aires and relax.
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Eric
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Buses & Fanny packs
My favorite parts of your story are as follows: 1) fat lady wearing fanny pack (what does she keep in there!?) 2) the tire store with 6 tires 3) the fact that Heidi thinks buses sleep 4) the fact the you had an authentic adventure :-) Sounds like you are having lots of fun! Miss you