Getting to Bariloche was relatively long, lasting about 18 hours in total with a 2 hour lay over in Neuquen, where my connecting bus was an extra hour late. Suprisingly that has been the latest bus that I have taken. I arrived to Bariloche and immediately noticed the difference in temperature. Bariloche, sitting on the south shores of Lake Nahuel Huapi and on the eastern side of the National Park, named after Lake. This is Argentina´s lake district, directly across the border to Chile lies the Chilean Lake District.
I have now entered Patagonia!
Patagonia is heavily mistaken as being the small section of Argentina, the southermost point. This is wrong. The Patagonia area covers around 1 third of the length of the country and has a range of climates and geography. It is not all cold with snow covered mountains. The Patagonia region is extremely popular world-wide for its beautiful geography. I hear it gets only more expensive as you get further south to the more remote areas. Anyone can experience Patagonia, many old folks with mucho dinero come and do trips, see mountains and cruise to Antartica... like my grandfather. Unfortunately, I do not have that kind of money, yet, Antartica will have to wait. Although maybe there is a cheap ride to the Falklands. ANYWAYS. A large portion of the ride from Neuquen to Bariloche was absolutely enchanting scenery. Arriving in the town only brought more of it. Tall, snowcapped mountains, blue lakes, green grass. This is one of the most beautiful landscapes that I have experienced so far. The city iself is not extremely attractive, although the center reminds me a bit of a ski resort town, by design and architecture. There are no sky scrapers in the this city. I would love to visit this area again in the winter and do some serious skiing for a few weeks. Riddled all over the main street are locally made chocolate shops, many of which are huge, having an enormous storefront of every find of chocolate you could imagine along with different types of icecream as well as a huge cafe sort of thing in the back, where people go to socially chat and try various forms of sugar! How Splendid! We tried to take a seat although there was a 30 minute wait for a table! I couldn´t help but think that this would greatly resemble Santa´s workshop in the winter, we just need to import some Bolivians and dress then up as little brown elves with missing teeth. There, now we have a vivid picture. Off Topic Again.
I walked the 30 minutes to the hostel, all the while being blown around by the strong winds off the lake, which made it quite chilly. I wondered whether every day would be like this. As soon as I got to my hostel and got outfitted with a room, I met my roommates, Mark and Anabell, more couples, more catalans, although Mark is definitely not a common Catalan name, considering his own people don´t even pronounce it right, sounds more like ¨Mar¨ when they say it. Its like when you meet an Asian and he tells you his name is Anthony, whats you´re real name Anthony? I laughed about it to myself and carried on. Within 5 minutes we knew eachothers back grounds and trip history, withing 10 minutes they were informing me of their plan for the next few days in Bariloche. Within 15 minutes they were offering me to join them in a car rental and drive around the northern part of the Park on the route called ¨7 Lakes Road¨, pretty straight forward, we drive by 7 lakes. I couldn´t turn down the offer, after all, renting a car was one of the things I had been thinking about wanting to do in the weeks previous to my arrival here. Fate had dealt me a good hand.
We awoke the next morning and took off. It took some time to get used to the differences in vehicles and cultures of driving, such as there are no stop signs or traffic lights anywhere, everyone has to yield! all the time! how does that work? pretty much whichever direction of traffic had momentum continues to have momentum unless someone in that dirrection chooses to stop or turn, then the other dirrection quickly jumps at the opportunity and takes control. All the streets are one way, so one must devise a game plan before trying to get anywhere or do anything. Cops are hardly ever spotted in the city, only once we left did we start seeing them. Standing in the middle of the road, on the median, with pylons also down the median, telling people to slow down if they were going to fast. What a damn good job to keep the law enforcement busy with. Once we got out of city and past these pointless police control points we were free. We set out on the road to San Martin de Los Andes about 180 Km away. The scenery was stellar, driving was refreshing and the people I was with were good company and it got me speaking spanish again. Having our own car, stopping when we wanted and where we wanted, these are the beauties of raod trips. The lakes were very cold and varying in size and shades of blue. The mountains around were also beautiful as well as the natural rock formations. We spent the whole day getting to San Martin, lazily driving and stopping for large amounts of time to relax and enjoy the nature around us. It was a very enjoyable trip and arriving in San Martin was a good way to finish the day. San Martin is like a small Bariloche, where practically the entire town hs that ski lodge feel. It was very warm all day, it also sits on the shores of a beautiful lake, nestled between the Andes. A cute and expensive town that we did not spend much time in. We had dinner and drove a few Km out of town to a campsite where we slept. Mark and Anabelle had bought a tent the same day I had met them, it was a 2 man. We squeezed into it that night (which I am still suprised even worked), head - to - feet formation we slept uncomfortably. We awoke in the morning, again early and drove up into the andes to do a short but very steep climb up a mountain there which offered a great view of the entire surrounding area. Once descended we carried on down the road and arrived at another campsite, on the shores of another lake for that night. The tent was tremendously hot and I ended up sleeping outside, on the sand beach, in my sleeping bag, on my thermarest, with a low and bright moon reflecting off the waters of Lago Traful. It was hard to close my eyes and fall asleep when offered such an awesome view. I woke up exhausted from the last few days lack of sleep and late nights talking and stumbling over guitar. I slept for the entire drive back to Bariloche and spent all of that same day relaxing. The next day, Mark and Anabelle went on a three day trekk outside of Bariloche which I turned down the offer to because I felt like it was time to move on. I myself spent the morning of that day rockclimbing. It was a private lesson, my Instructors name was Cora, being in Argentina I couldn´t help but hope for a beautiful climbing babe helping me up the rock face. When I arrived late, I was sad to see an old worn out woman with a harness by the roadside, impatiently smoking. When I approached her I smelt a mix of body odour and cigarette smoke. Her face was lined with wrinkles that increased tenfold when she smiled, errupted all over her face. This was not the babe I had been hoping for. At any rate Cora was a very nice woman and assisted me greatly with completeing challenges which I, at first, struggled with. We spent the 3 hours together talking of climbing, ourselves and Argentina as a country. It was an great morning that left me absolutely spent. My entire body ached, mainly my hands (which now had scratches all over them) and my feet (which we crammed into shoes that were too small for 3 hours, which Cora said is normal for climbers). I made my way back to Bariloche, satisfied with the 3 hours I had been given.
I think many tourists, at least I do anyway, always look for the best price for the longest duration of time when looking for activities to do. I had spent the last 2 stops always looking for full day excursions or multi day excursions. More time doing something does not mean it will be better. Some things are better left short and sweet (expecially if you are a beginner), then if you like what you tried, try it again, and again and again, for longer periods of time. I was constantly looking for full days although in hindsight, I am glad that the climbing was only 3 hours because, in all honesty, my muscles would not have lasted another minute. Likewise for horsebackriding. After only 2 or 3 hours of poor riding on my part my genitals and ass hurt more than I could explain. I has happy to get off that damn horse when I did. That being said I will readily get back on the next when the opportunity arrises once more! So does this have some higher meaning, should I learn something from this? Maybe we should not always relate experience to time. A longer trip is not necissarily a better one, a 3 day trek may not be better than a 2 day trek. So is not more about what we do with the time given, than the amount of time itself?
Later that afternoon I took the next available bus down to El Bolson, only 2 hours further south of Bariloche. El Bolson is a smaller town, full of hippies and farms all around the surrounding area.
No comments:
Post a Comment