Back from Barilo

Dan: We got to Bariloche and found a hostel. The town itself, being picturesquely situated on a huge lake, surrounded by snow capped mountains, was really windy and cold. Our second day there we spent resting, and reading as it rained outside. We didn’t find too much to do in the town itself. We’re too old to stay up late enough to go out, we’re too budget-minded to eat out. We window shopped a little and ate ice cream. Bariloche is the undisputed chocolate capital of Argentina. There are huge chocolate shops so people can fill their suitcases before going home.

This place is the number one domestic tourist destination, in the winter for skiing, in the summer for scenery and an escape from the heat. Right now though, it seems that Bariloche, and much of Patagonia for that matter, are overrun by Israelis. Young, college-aged kids from Israel are everywhere. Our hostel was filled 70% with Hebrew speakers. Most of them didn’t speak much Spanish but their English was really good. The peak season for tourism in the area begins pretty soon and goes until March.

After our relaxing time in El Bolson, Bariloche wasn’t really our scene (although we did find Chinese food!). We rented a car and left town. This was my first time driving in another country, and the first time behind the wheel in nine months. I’m not very good at manual transmission on hills, and this town was all hills. I had to have Lou get us out of town before I felt comfortable driving.

We looked at the map and decided to try to “Path of 7 Lakes.” Yeah, I know you Minnesotans are thinking what we thought, “Oooh, they have SEVEN lakes!? Wow.” That is a big deal around here, but they are quite different from any of the 1000s back home, in that they are surrounded by mountains, and the water is blue, blue, blue. We didn’t have enough kms on the car to do the whole circuit, but that was ok because we found a place to camp on Lago Espejo Chico, lake number 2 or three. It was there that we learned another lesson about temperature change and camping in the mountains. We found a nice place for the tent, “ooowee, its warm, let’s put it in the shade.” We made a fire from fallen timber and ate, watched the lake and the birds. It was dusk for hours so the birds were very active. By the time it got dark, we had a few layers on. In the tent, as the night went on, we ended up putting more and more layers on. We really thought we had brought enough clothing and sleeping bags and blankets and hats and gloves and jackets, but we were wrong. There wasn’t even any wind on the mirror lake, but we shivered through the night. But other than the temp, the place was nice. We did a little hiking, but were too tired to do anything ambitious.

We drove back toward Bariloche, stopped for some hiking in the woods and arrived at Villa la Angostura, a smaller ski town on the other side of the lake from Bariloche. We found the most comfortable place to stay, Italian Hostel. They looked brand new and their kitchen was loaded with everything we could need to cook. We opted to use the brick pizza oven. We haven’t had an oven of any sort for 7 months, so we made everyone in the place jealous with our pizza indulgence. We’ve had some pretty good luck with hostels this trip. My new theory is that we should avoid hostels that are mentioned in guide books. I feel that once they have a steady stream of tourists coming in from Lonely Planet recommendations, they don’t have to try any more. This trip we usually went to the local tourist office and asked what the newest places were and have had good results.

We returned the car in Bariloche, killed a few hours sitting on the lawn of the Cathedral and eating ice cream and caught the bus back to Mendoza. We hope to spend the next few days catching up on the blog, making plans for the nest week, resting, doing laundry, buying crap, and saying goodbye to folks. We are trying to organize a farewell party here at the Spazio hostel. We’ve been to so many asados, tomorrow we’re going to try to have our own, for BBQ karma.