Next on the tour... the Argentinian Lakes District. First stop - San Carlos de Bariloche (also known as Bariloche)
A view of Lago Nahuel Huapi from the town
Skipping rocks across the lake.The Lakes District is some of the most beautiful area in the Andes mountains across Argentina and Chile. They are packed out in both summer and winter when Argentinians come to either escape the heat or blaze a trail on the ski slopes.
Our first stop on the Argentinain side of the Lakes District was Bariloche, a very pretty little mountain town not far from several ski resorts. There are lots of restaurants and tons of chocolate shops to enjoy. They certainly love their chocolate here! I'm not joking when I say that every third shop is a chocolate shop! It was a nice spot to use as another relax for a few days, visiting a few restaurants and taking in the views.
We stayed at a good hostel called La Bolsa Deportes (the Sports Bag). It was a cozy place that was very relaxed, and they had another guest that had exactly the same haircut as Kyle. The resemblance was striking...
Kyle and this little beauty are currently visiting the same barber and sharing hairstyle tips.
Now, as a bit of a side note, some of you may or may not know Kyle's first car was a very generous gift from his Auntie Sue of a bright yellow 1974 Renault 12. Kyle has insisted on numerous occasions to anyone who would listen (and even those who wouldn't) that the car was a classic and if people were more intelligent, everyone would be driving them.
Well, apparently in Argentina, everyone IS in the know, because every second car was a Renault 12. Kyle was in heaven because finally he had found an entire population of people that could agree with his latent sense of automotive style and quality. A collage is attached for your interest.
Another of Kyle's brainwaves one day was that it would be a great idea to rent a couple mountain bikes and do some sightseeing. It was nice for rides around town, despite the Saturday traffic, although I had a little trouble with all the one way streets...
Now, as a bit of a side note, some of you may or may not know Kyle's first car was a very generous gift from his Auntie Sue of a bright yellow 1974 Renault 12. Kyle has insisted on numerous occasions to anyone who would listen (and even those who wouldn't) that the car was a classic and if people were more intelligent, everyone would be driving them.
Well, apparently in Argentina, everyone IS in the know, because every second car was a Renault 12. Kyle was in heaven because finally he had found an entire population of people that could agree with his latent sense of automotive style and quality. A collage is attached for your interest.
Another of Kyle's brainwaves one day was that it would be a great idea to rent a couple mountain bikes and do some sightseeing. It was nice for rides around town, despite the Saturday traffic, although I had a little trouble with all the one way streets...
I don't exactly kow what was with all the St. Bernards, but they were adorable. It must be club or something, and there were just as many little pups there as full sized dogs.
When we backtracked and found the trail, it was straight uphill to one of the ski resorts I mentioned. It's confirmed... I'm a wuss. I backed out while Kyle pushed on up the hill for the team. I went back to town and sat in a little cafe sipping very yummy hot chocolate while he was sweating out kilos going up the mountain. Ah well. Someone had to do the intelligent thing, and I was happy to do so!
Kyle's herculean efforts did have a pay off with spectacular views over Bariloche and the surrounding area. Beautiful!
Pierdras Blancas, the ski resort at the top of the bike trail.
Some of the views of the lake from the top...
After returning the bikes (which we could barely sit on as our asses were so sore), we headed down to our favorite little brew pub, Antares. They made fantastic “Cervezas Artesanal” (microbrew), however the beer was relatively expensive - pints were 12 Argentinian Pesos each (about US$4). However, from 7-8pm every night they had 2 for 1 happy hour, making pints of their fantastic brew a much more reasonable US$2. We were in there at 7pm and out by 8:10pm every night after finishing our pints!
Antares... our localWe stayed in Bariloche for 3 nights before we took a “Seven Lakes” tour, covering the stretch of road from Bariloche to a small town called San Martin de los Andes.
Here are some of the lake views that we took in along the way.... Unfortunately, I can't recall any of the names of lakes, but we passed through so quickly that it didn't matter too much.
A few friends that we made along the way.
San Martin reminded us of Aspen, a small little village with lots of boutiques, expensive ski and mountain bike shops and a chocolate shop on every corner. Very cute.
San Martin de Los Andes
We booked into out hostel and then took a hike up to a fantastic mirador overlooking the town and the lake.
Posing in front of Lago Lacar.
We then continued on for an hour or so to a little spot called “La Isla”, a small rock beach tucked away from the town with a little island about 50 metres offshore. There was a small swim involved with seeing the island and we didn't have our bathers with us, so we decided to admire from afar.
Contemplating life...
After we returned from our hike, we did what the guide book told us to do... went out to a great asado and order the parillada (mixed grill plate). Well, that's not completely true... Kyle got the mixed grill. I played it safe with a filet. Kyle, on the other hand, got a plate of random grilled “stuff” that just lit up his eyes.... filet, chorizo, pork, morchilla (blood sausage), tripe, liver, kidneys, etc. It could have fed 4 people (if they were keen to eat everything). Kyle, of course, gave everything a try, and I watched. The low point for me was when I smelled the kidney, and it smelled like urine. Yuck!! Not a chance! I was a little bit glad that Kyle didn't like it either. The fantastic chocolate mousse helped me forget about the ickky things though.
Kyle's parillada
The grill of one of the Parillas that we passed on the streetAnd as we were on a massive lake, the next logical thing to do was get in it, then on it. We went to the (rocky) beach to have a swim, but once I got in, I couldn't get back out fast enough. I've been in lots of water that is “refreshing, but you get used to it”, but I don't think this was it. It was the end of the summer, and it was frigid! As per usual, Kyle didn't agree so he went out for a swim and actually managed to come back without frostbite, which was nice.
Kayaking was next on our agenda. We signed for 1 hour in the tiniest little two person kayak we've ever seen, but we were keen.... The guy at the booth mumbled some random things in spanish from which we picked up “stay to the right because of the boats”. Yeah, no problems.
After our day of paddling in the Abel Tasman in New Zealand, we thought we were pretty good, so we just went for it. We've only got one hour, so we've gotta see how far we can get in 30 minutes, right? We paddled along the side for a bit to see a guide rappelling down a very high cliff, then we set out to see if we could rediscover La Isla! Now, it's possible that it was just a bit further away then we thought, but we were making good progress when we heard a motor boat coming along the lake right toward us. Now, I thought that they are supposed to stay on the other side..... They weren't even 100 meters away before Kyle starts saying “You got us into trouble, you got us into trouble..”
Well, apparently yes, I did get us into trouble, because I definitely didn't make out the part where they said you can't go around the corner and out of sight. “Oh, right. We'll stay within sight, but far enought away that you couldn't actually save us but could watch us go down and retrieve your kayak.... No worries.”
Apparently, they also didn't trust us now when we said we would turn around as they stayed behind us for the next 10 minutes or so “herding” us back to shore like sheep. We laughed, knowing exactly what they were doing and were half of the mind to turn around and start paddling away again once they passed us. It would have been too funny!
The last day we were there, before we left for Mendoza, we decided to lighten the load a bit and send a package home. With all the weird hours around siesta, it took a couple of goes before we actually got into the post office to try to send our package. We managed to get the box, pack it up and weigh it (3.001 kg), and then understood enough Spanish to figure that we had to actually take the package first to a customs officer a few blocks away to be inspected.
After sifting through my skivvies and a couple souvenirs, he added all the appropriate labels and taped it up with approximately 0.2 kilos worth of tape.
I happily trotted back to the post office, so proud that we had figured this all out and were actually going to get the package out, when we postal officer weighed our package at 3.21 kilos. I'm sure you can see where this is going... there was a 50 peso (US$17) price difference between 3.0 kg and 3.1. When he said that it would be 155 pesos instead of the 107 pesos that I expected, I nearly broke into tears. I had meticulously packed to be sure that we were just under the price point, but I didn't allow for the tape and packing labels that were stuck all over it. When the worker could obviously see that things were starting to go south, and I might have a breakdown, he did the nicest thing... he changed the total weight to 2.999 kg and gave a little wink and a “shh”. What an angel. Looking back, it seems really dumb, but I was trying so hard to keep us on budget.....
W headed back to our hostel, picked up our gear and looked forward to the next 24 hours or so that we would spend on buses to get to Mendoza, the wine capital of Argentina where they were having “Vendimia”, their annual wine harvest festival!
PS - Just an afterthought, but I thought this might be an interesting addition. This ws a group of kids getting out of school as we drove out of town. If you look closely, their school uniform is a white "doctor's" coat over their clothes. When I first saw this, I thought they must have all jsut gotten out of art or science class.
School kids in their school uniforms
