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Well here we are again! Are you impressed with the regularity of our updates? I am. We must be more relaxed now.... Well, after we got into Bariloche at night we were pretty eager to do some more exploring the next morning. We made our way down to the main tourist drag and wondered at the proliferation of cheesy souvenir and chocolate shops. We paused at one for tea and alfajores before continuing our walk up to the big church in town, opened in 1946. A quick side note on the town itself- Bariloche is incredibly touristy and is a big draw card for domestic tourism and also where all the schoolies kids come at the end of the year- thankfully not now! Thus the huge amount of tourist- oriented stuff including accomodation- ranging from beautiful cabanas right on the banks of the lake to huge ugly hotels. However the tourism does exist for a reason, the position of the town, right on the edge of the huge Lago Nahuel Huapi and the Nahuel Huapi National Park, really is unbeatable. Plus there's swimming, hiking etc in summer and skiing in winter. OK enough with the tourism campaign. We continued our walk by heading down to the lake and walking for a while along the shore. We also hit up a couple of local bookstores, in order to buy some (kids) books in Spanish to help with our vocabulary - Hayley purchased Mujercitas (Little Women), while for me it was El Sobrino del Mago (the first Narnia book, The Magician's Nephew). While in the shop, we came across a local bestseller, which dealt with some of the areas history… Bariloche Nazi! Yes, this is one of the infamous places in Argentina to where many Nazis escaped after WWII. The book was quite disturbing, especially when it began to mention Hitler and Eva Braun's planned Bariloche hideaway - creepy! Another thing to think about was the wealth upon which Bariloche is built… it is rather conspicuous in comparison to similar towns in the area, and it's boom occurred in the late 40s/50s - coincidence… maybe! After being creeped out enough for one day, we rounded it out with a late lunch of empanadas in the park and spent the evening in the hostel - big rambling old house- pretty! Plus a dorm to ourselves again- score!
On our second full day in town, we decided to get physical, and go for a small hike about 50 mins west of the centre of Bariloche. First of all though, we had decided to move to hostel 1004, not because there was anything wrong with our hostel at the time (in fact we both really liked it) but rather, because we had gotten sucked in by the 10th storey views we had seen from our first day in Bariloche! Shortly afterwards, we found the bus terminal (and bumped into an Irish couple who we knew from Ushuaia!), and caught the number 10 bus out of town. The bus ride itself was very diverting, as on the way to our destination we spent the whole time staring out the window admiring the gorgeous, idyllic scenery. It is very hard to do justice to, but most of what we saw was a series of high peaked lodges dotting the shores of the pristine lake, with intermittent clusters of verdant pines. Every now and then, in between the trees and cabanas, we could spy in the distance the silhouette of the cordillera, or mountain range overlooking the seemingly never ending stretch of deep blue water. I think for a moment at least, each of us felt as though we were no longer in Argentina, but rather within the borders of some crazy Swiss/Bavarian city-state which just happened to be in the middle of South America! Eventually, we arrived at our destination, Colonia Suiza. This is an incredibly small settlement, originally comprised of Swiss migrants, which is now more of a tourist attraction - but still very nice. From here, we began our hike which slowly made its way along the dirt road out of Colonia Suiza into National Park land. We pretty much stuck to walking along the road (along the way, however, we did find a really cool cemetery located beneath some mountains) until we reached roughly half way (about 7kms) and stopped for some lunch. The place we stopped is called Bahia Lopez, and was also the site of a hotel, but was opened to the public. Like many other places in SA, it also had some friendly dogs! We then pressed on, at one point walking between the two main lakes in the area, Nahuel Huapi and Lago Perito Moreno. After another couple of kilometers, we eventually moved off the main road, and down on to a walking path, which was lined with… bamboo! Weird, I know. We pushed on for another hour or so, at one point coming across Arrayanes Forest, which was apparently rumored (falsely) to have been Walt Disney's inspiration for Bambi - see pics! We soon left the National Park and headed towards the end of our hike of 13ks or so. As we stumbled back into civilization, began again to marvel at the surreal nature of the surrounding architecture and scenery, as we had during our earlier bus ride. Waiting for our bus back to town, we even spied a nearby hotel , with its perfectly manicured lawns that would not at all have been out of place in the Sound of Music. We returned to our hostel, pretty knackered, but decided to reward ourselves with dinner at a nice restaurant before bed.
The next day was spent, doing pretty much nothing! We sat around in the hostel, read some books (while being amused by a guy sitting out on the balcony singing along to his iPod, surely thinking that no-one could hear him… haha!) and later went out to buy bus tickets to our next town, along with the all important task of buying chocolates for the bus ride. On an interesting side note, the shop we actually bought the chocolates from (called del Turista… hmm) was more like a warehouse than a chocolate shop. In the middle of the shop, there was a loong stretch of glass cases, filled with individual chocolates which you could by by the kilo - we showed some restraint and went with the quarter kilo! Later that night, things were a bit more interesting, as we met up with some friends from Buenos Aires, Lisa and Fife (Pieter!). It was great getting some advice on their adventures in Argentina, sharing some wine and cervezas - all in all a very fun finish to our time in Bariloche!
The next morning was a relatively late start- bus only left at 9.00 am! We ate some of our Bariloche chocolate as we watched the beautiful scenery- our route was part of the famous Siete Lagos (Seven Lakes) route. Also the bus was almost empty so that was nice. We also stopped at the prettiest petrol station in the world- right on the edge of a lake- we were quite happy when our driver stopped for a while to bang on the bottom of the bus :P. Soon enough we arrived in our next destination- San Martin de Los Andes. After a bit of wandering around (Lonely Planet doesn't have a map of San Martin- thanks a lot!) and a guy called Mario offering us a room in his house for only 35 pesos (Cushions on the floor? How lovely. No thanks Mario. Must remember to download a map next time, so we don't look so much like lost, homeless tourists) we found our hostel of choice- Hostel Secouya, recommended by friends. It's a lovely place, opposite a park and our room was very cute with a little eave window looking out on the street. We spent the rest of the day, checking out the little town- set on another lake (Lago Lacar) a big draw card for Argentine tourists during summer but lovely and quiet this time of year.
Unfortunately Ryan had started feeling a little worse for wear and still wasn't 100 percent the next morning. It was a beautiful blue autumn day though so after making sure Ryan was ok and a quick visit to the tourist office I set off on a hike near town, solo mia. After a slight wrong turn into a hotel car park (corrected in Spanish by the gardener) I began the ascent to a mirador close to town. Had beautiful views of the lake as I walked and soon reached a gate welcoming me to the Community. Most of this walk and the mirador I was aiming for was on Mapuche land who are the indigenous people of this part of Argentina and Chile. Due to this I shared part of my walk with a cow and a bull- the community also farms on this land. But apart from that I was alone- it was quite nice just to walk, listen to the birds and chill. As I walked I kept seeing little hand made signs, reminding people not to bring your dogs, telling you times of walks etc (Family, who I watched "Rat Race" with many years ago….I was kind of afraid the signs would start saying "YOU…SHOULD…HAVE…BOUGHT…A…SQUIRREL!" lol) After only about 40 minutes I reached a cross roads. Here I chatted with a lady from the community and paid two pesos to walk on Mapuche land. The mirador was very beautiful, opening up a whole new view of the lake further on from the town and some views back towards San Martin also. I had heard that there was access to a playa (beach) further along so I continued walking for a while and had a brief encounter (and kiss on the cheek!!) from an old toothless Mapuche cowboy in boots, bandana round his neck, beret and aviator lenses J. Ryan should never leave me alone, he never knows when I might run off with a gaucho! Anyways my walk continued along the prettiest little road, past peoples farm yards where I saw EVERY kind of animal you can domesticate and get wool, eggs, milk or meat from- sheep, goats, the previously mentioned cows, chickens, turkeys, pigs and LLAMAS! This encounter make me realise llamas are actually kinda big and I'm a little scared of them. Good luck to me in Peru!!! My path took me towards the shore of the lake but not quite to a playa so I settled on a rocky outcrop to eat my lunch on. Not a soul around, just the sound of the lake lapping the shore. Wonderful! Had a bit of a scramble back up to my path and saw a biiig hare as well. As I walked back up I saw a truck in the distance and at first presumed it was on the road but then realized it was on the walking track - chewing up the grass and spewing smoke. Lol. Sometimes even roads don't exist out here. Sauntered back down to town to find Ryan much recovered. We spent the rest of our day sitting in the plaza, reading our books, and later went out for the most delicious helado of our lives!
We started our last full day in San Martin running errands. Buy bus tickets. Check. Buy breakfast and snacks for bus ride. Check. Withdraw money from the bank to pay for our hostel. Not so easy. What we haven't mentioned about San Martin yet, is that during our ENTIRE stay, there was a convenient little power cut between the hours of 6am and 4pm. While this made little things like, say, using lights difficult, the most annoying thing was that we could not draw out money to pay for our hostel. With the power cut occurring over a weekend, San Martin was virtually a ghost town, with most shops, banks and general stores closed for business for that period. This day, however, being a Monday, things started to get a little more active (even though the power was still cut) and we found the only working ATM in town, conveniently hidden away from the main street! Phew! After taking out some money, we returned to our hostel to settle our account, and rent some bicicletas, for a nice little day of cycling to a local beach.
We started off near the lake, and cycled for around 5km along a little highway dotted with the usual religious shrines, to Playa Catrite, a pebble beach hidden within a tiny little cove which even had its own restaurant. Here we ate our packed lunch of sandwiches, with treats of little donuts filled with dulce de leche… amazingly delicious! We chilled out for a little bit, took some photos and even played on a see-saw (!) before beginning the ride back to town, mostly all down hill (my favourite bits!) and upon getting back into town had a well earned beer at the local Irish pub!
Well that brings us up to right now! Tomorrow, we catch a bus to Pucon, Chile, a somewhat touristy town special for its proximity to an enormous volcano! As always love to all, and in terms of the most recent questions/comments left on our blog:
-No unfortunately we didn't take photos of the mutant cow, as we thought it might have been a little rude.
-I (Ryan, in case clarification is needed) am almost beginning to think some people don't like my beard. This tempts me to shave my head and await the Jihad Jack inspired taunts.
-Britt, thanks for the message, glad to see you are following our blog and that our Argentinean treats arrived safely!
-Dad, still eagerly awaiting latest football update, detailing the triumph of the Pies and the second consecutive loss of Caaarlton.
There are a few new pics to check out very shortly, as soon as we can manage to find a Chilean plug converter! Hope all is well at home, looking forward to hearing from you all, and take care.
Until next time,
Hayley and Ryan
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