Bariloche is in the heart of the Lake District in Northern Patagonia, about a thousand kilometres south of Mendoza. I think Sarah was in denial about how cold it was going to be there. She stood shivering by the baggage carousel wearing shorts and sandals, surrounded a crowd of Mammut and North Faced tourists.
To be fair to her, it was a bit of a shock flying from 30ºc Mendoza to 6ºc Bariloche. Driving into town surrounded by snowy mountains made us feel like we were back in New Zealand again. This feeling was soon dispelled as we discovered that Bariloche is an almost exact copy of Geneva. Just like its Swiss twin it's a lakeside town crammed with faux-chalet buildings, and specialising in chocolate and fondue. To be honest I was surprised they hadn't gone the whole-hog and installed a flower clock and a jet d'eau.
The hostel we had booked was out of town, a 15 minute lakeside taxi ride away. The lake is bigger and meaner than Lake Geneva, a menacing bullet grey colour streaked with wind-whipped white caps. Perfect for kite-surfing, we saw several surfers tearing along the water. The hostel when we arrived was a lovely place, kind of like a timber lodge / air-raid shelter hybrid that was run by a young couple and their dog. Javi, Natti and Lolly made us very welcome during our stay and were a great help in our getting the most out of the area – Lolly especially, who made a point of saying hello to us each morning, and showing off whichever mini ski sweater she had decided to wear that day to keep out the cold.
Like the Lake District back home, outdoor pursuits like hiking, sailing and cycling are the main event here. Our first outing was a 30km cycle ride around the many lakes that lay to the west of town. Sarah competed in the 10th Annual Tour de Libourne race, but it seems that the cycling prowess she demonstrated that day was purely alcohol-inspired. She fared less well in Bariloche. She didn't want to cycle uphill as it was too hard, or downhill as she felt out of control; didn't like cycling on gravel as it was too wobbly and would only cycle on the roads as long as there were no cars. All of which made for pretty slow progress. But it did give me a lot of time to enjoy the scenery, which was stunning.
As a reward for Sarah's manning-up towards the end of the cycle ride, we stopped for tea at a guesthouse we spotted on the way back to our hostel. We were waved inside by a jolly red-faced man by the name of Alexander Gough. As he introduced himself it came to light that his family were Welsh immigrants to Argentina, one of many families that moved to Patagonia in the 1800s. This went some way to explain the décor of the living room, which bore an uncanny resemblance to Sarah's great aunt Enid's house in Porthcawl. When he learned that we both had Welsh heritage too, that was it – we were soon enjoying a fresh pot of tea with an assortment of seven different types of cake, whilst a CD of the Welsh National Anthem played on repeat in the background. It brought a tear to my eye.
The next day we hired a car from a friend of Javi's and drove out to see the Seven Lakes – one of the 'must-see' day trips in the Lake District. We hired the car with a cool young couple from just outside Brisbane, Andrew & Megan, who were off to Peru the following week. We were lucky to have such great company as the incredible views that we were promised were hidden behind a thick curtain of rain and mist for most of the day. We didn't mind much; we had a great time chatting away about Australia, London, Peru, and weddings. I think this wedding chat may have distracted Sarah from her map-reading duties, as we accidentally ended up driving to the Chilean border. The border guard did not look amused as we did a rapid u-turn and motored back into Argentina.
We had the car for one more day, and used it to drive out to see the 'Black Glacier' in the Nahuel Huapi National Park. Now the roads around the Seven Lakes were pretty ropey, but those in the National Park were ridiculous. Once we got into the park the road disappeared altogether and we had to drive for over four hours along a bumpy dirt and gravel track through the forests to get to the glacier. It was pretty eery – we were so completely alone in the wilderness the whole time it was a relief to see other people when we eventually arrived at the glacier. The glacier itself is black due to the rock and sediment mixed up in the ice when it formed thousands of years ago. Bascially, it's dirty ice. Nevertheless, the sight of the dirty glacier shunting down into the milky meltwater lake filled with icebergs was very nearly worth the bone-shaking drive to get there.
Tired after the second long day of driving, we walked to a local Parrilla – grill restaurant – that Natti had recommended to us. To the left of the door walking in were stacks of cooking meat sizzling over red hot coals, tended to by two serious looking chefs with large knives. Encouraging! We tried a steak cut that we hadn't tried before called entraña – again a recommendation from Natti – that has only been on menus in Argentina for the last couple of years. Apparently when meat prices went up recently, everyone started frantically experimenting with cheaper cuts for their barbeques and entraña was one of the more popular innovations. What else could they do? Eat less beef? Like that's going to happen! Entraña is a skirt steak – a little chewier than filet but much more tasty. And it goes very well with a strong malbec like the Patagonian Intimo which we drank in record time. We meandered home stuffed, ready for the next leg of our journey down the Chubut valley to Gaiman to visit more of our Welsh brethren.
To be fair to her, it was a bit of a shock flying from 30ºc Mendoza to 6ºc Bariloche. Driving into town surrounded by snowy mountains made us feel like we were back in New Zealand again. This feeling was soon dispelled as we discovered that Bariloche is an almost exact copy of Geneva. Just like its Swiss twin it's a lakeside town crammed with faux-chalet buildings, and specialising in chocolate and fondue. To be honest I was surprised they hadn't gone the whole-hog and installed a flower clock and a jet d'eau.
The hostel we had booked was out of town, a 15 minute lakeside taxi ride away. The lake is bigger and meaner than Lake Geneva, a menacing bullet grey colour streaked with wind-whipped white caps. Perfect for kite-surfing, we saw several surfers tearing along the water. The hostel when we arrived was a lovely place, kind of like a timber lodge / air-raid shelter hybrid that was run by a young couple and their dog. Javi, Natti and Lolly made us very welcome during our stay and were a great help in our getting the most out of the area – Lolly especially, who made a point of saying hello to us each morning, and showing off whichever mini ski sweater she had decided to wear that day to keep out the cold.
Like the Lake District back home, outdoor pursuits like hiking, sailing and cycling are the main event here. Our first outing was a 30km cycle ride around the many lakes that lay to the west of town. Sarah competed in the 10th Annual Tour de Libourne race, but it seems that the cycling prowess she demonstrated that day was purely alcohol-inspired. She fared less well in Bariloche. She didn't want to cycle uphill as it was too hard, or downhill as she felt out of control; didn't like cycling on gravel as it was too wobbly and would only cycle on the roads as long as there were no cars. All of which made for pretty slow progress. But it did give me a lot of time to enjoy the scenery, which was stunning.
As a reward for Sarah's manning-up towards the end of the cycle ride, we stopped for tea at a guesthouse we spotted on the way back to our hostel. We were waved inside by a jolly red-faced man by the name of Alexander Gough. As he introduced himself it came to light that his family were Welsh immigrants to Argentina, one of many families that moved to Patagonia in the 1800s. This went some way to explain the décor of the living room, which bore an uncanny resemblance to Sarah's great aunt Enid's house in Porthcawl. When he learned that we both had Welsh heritage too, that was it – we were soon enjoying a fresh pot of tea with an assortment of seven different types of cake, whilst a CD of the Welsh National Anthem played on repeat in the background. It brought a tear to my eye.
The next day we hired a car from a friend of Javi's and drove out to see the Seven Lakes – one of the 'must-see' day trips in the Lake District. We hired the car with a cool young couple from just outside Brisbane, Andrew & Megan, who were off to Peru the following week. We were lucky to have such great company as the incredible views that we were promised were hidden behind a thick curtain of rain and mist for most of the day. We didn't mind much; we had a great time chatting away about Australia, London, Peru, and weddings. I think this wedding chat may have distracted Sarah from her map-reading duties, as we accidentally ended up driving to the Chilean border. The border guard did not look amused as we did a rapid u-turn and motored back into Argentina.
We had the car for one more day, and used it to drive out to see the 'Black Glacier' in the Nahuel Huapi National Park. Now the roads around the Seven Lakes were pretty ropey, but those in the National Park were ridiculous. Once we got into the park the road disappeared altogether and we had to drive for over four hours along a bumpy dirt and gravel track through the forests to get to the glacier. It was pretty eery – we were so completely alone in the wilderness the whole time it was a relief to see other people when we eventually arrived at the glacier. The glacier itself is black due to the rock and sediment mixed up in the ice when it formed thousands of years ago. Bascially, it's dirty ice. Nevertheless, the sight of the dirty glacier shunting down into the milky meltwater lake filled with icebergs was very nearly worth the bone-shaking drive to get there.
Tired after the second long day of driving, we walked to a local Parrilla – grill restaurant – that Natti had recommended to us. To the left of the door walking in were stacks of cooking meat sizzling over red hot coals, tended to by two serious looking chefs with large knives. Encouraging! We tried a steak cut that we hadn't tried before called entraña – again a recommendation from Natti – that has only been on menus in Argentina for the last couple of years. Apparently when meat prices went up recently, everyone started frantically experimenting with cheaper cuts for their barbeques and entraña was one of the more popular innovations. What else could they do? Eat less beef? Like that's going to happen! Entraña is a skirt steak – a little chewier than filet but much more tasty. And it goes very well with a strong malbec like the Patagonian Intimo which we drank in record time. We meandered home stuffed, ready for the next leg of our journey down the Chubut valley to Gaiman to visit more of our Welsh brethren.
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