Sandy´s South American Adventure!: Bariloche and beyond

What has been going on? On March the 7th, I bused from Temuco down to Orsono in Chile where I changed buses and headed over the border to Bariloche in Argentina. The Orsono to Temuco leg of the journey was very beautiful, lots of greenery, lakes and mountains. My bus arrived a couple hours early which is nice. I met my good friend Michele, who has been travelling throughout South America for about 2 months already –boy, it was good to see her! Bariloche is a tourist town, understandably so. It’s in Argentina’s lake district, in a national park called parquet national Nahuel Huapi, and it is right on the shore of the Lago Nuhuel Huapi lake, which has 7 or 8 árms´. It’s huge! It’s surrounded by Andean mountains which provide decent and easy access hiking in the summer, and some skiing in the Winter. There are also opportunities for rock climbing, rafting, ect… the whole works. The downtown core is littered withy expensive shops, but also lots of chocolate factories! I was meeting Michele in Bariloche to do 2 weeks of Spanish Language school – I have no previous Spanish education and I was super motivated to learn some. I felt and still do feel a little left out and somewhat helpless when it comes to communication. Peopl do not speak English here. Even in some super touristy destinations, people speak Spanish – which is good! Full immersion into the language. The school we were taking lessons at (Michele speaks a high level of Spanish), was called, ´La Monataña´. It was great! There was a maximum size of 4 people per class, which is a great ratio of students to a teacher. School started at 9am and went until 1pm in the afternoon. In my ´class´ there was another woman from Vancouver, a massage therapist, and a guy from NY, who was doing a NOLS trip down south, when he got super sick and had to take a break from a month long sea kayaking adventure. I learned a lot in School, and I have a lot more to learn. We ended up only doing 1 week of school, but I plan on going back for another week or 2 to study more and to stay with a family. Our week in Bariloche was filled. We went hiking after school a couple times, once up Cerro Otto, and another time up Cerro Campanario. After those two little treks, we´ve noticed that people here don´t believe in switchbacks on hiking trails. We bused out to a Swiss colony and walked back 10 ish Km to a bus stop one day. We checked out some chocolate factories, AND their ice creams in town for a day. There is an Argentinean dessert called an Álfajores´, which I have come to love. There is this delicious caramel spread called Dulce del Leche´ (think means sugar or jam of milk), which is hugely popular to combine with baked goods. It is apparently boiled condensed milk. I have gone through 2 jars of it already- it’s delicious with fresh fruit! Michele and I ate Empanadas almost every day for lunch. Yum! I like the food here, however, it is hard to find whole wheat things, and people don´t seem to eat vegetables! Michele had found an Íntegral bakery, where everything was made with oatmeal! It was yummy. South Americans also eat a lot of bread. A lot of white bread. A LOT. One night we went out to a Mexican restaurant with a group of girls to celebrate international women’s day, and I ended up squashed on a bench between a local girl who is a river raft guide, a girl from Ireland and another from England, all who have lived in Bariloche for a while – hah it was an funny night. We also played a game of Fùtbol (soccer) with a bunch of guys in an indoor arena. It was a ton of fun. The field wasinteresting; it was fake grass, with little bits of rubber all over it. At the end of the week, Michele and I spontaneously decided to not continue with school for another week, as we wouldn´t have enough time to do everything we wanted in Southern Patagonia, so we consulted our guide books and bought bus tickets. There is still quite a few things I want to do in Bariloche when I return. There are a couple bike circuits I want to try, and I want to hike up Mnt. Tronodor, an extinct volcano that has 3 icy peaks, and it straddles the Chilean and Argentinain border. Apparently there are lots of Condors up there! (Condor: a massive bird. They are the largest flying land birds in the western Hemisphere, that are vegetarians, and mate for like. ) March 13th We bused to El Bolsòn, a hippy town about 2 hours away from Bariloche, They are known for their outstanding feria artesanañl, a craft market. We spent a day wandering around it checking out the goods. We stayed in this super neat hostel called …. It was an old wooden home. So funky. Michele and I had our first experience getting a ride from a stranger, hah. We had considered hitch hiking a couple times, to get in and out of Bariloche, however most of the time we have deemed it not safe enough. This guy who gave us a ride worked at the hostel, and his little red car was so old! The shift stick went in and out of the dashboard – I don´t know how to describe it, it was neat. Sitting in the front seat I was about 4 inches from the windshield, and we both were super dusty and dirty after riding in the car. It was a funny experience. There is also some hiking in El Bolson I would like to return to do. March 14th We boarded a super deluxe bus for a 26 hour ride down to El Calafate. We had prime seats: the two at the front, at the top of a double-decker bus. It was a LONG ride. Busing is how most people travel in South America. There are so many bus companies. We also got served food, like on an airplane. There are different seats at different prices. The cheaper they get the more upright they are, and the more pricier, the closer they get to full cama (bed). Ok! That’s enough for one blog. Extra tidbits that stick out in my mind:
- Yes the toilets do flush the other way.
- Most of the time, you don´t throw your Toilet paper into the toilet, you put it into a waste basket. I am very bad at this - not throwing your TP into the toilet is a hard habit to break, since I have been doing it my whole life.
- You greet store and shop owners when you enter and leave their stores.
- Don´t thank bus drivers. They think it’s weird.

Old Truck in Elbolson, outside our Hostel, waiting for a bus.