Day 184 - Bariloche

  San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina
Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Our hostel was a cool little place but rather noisy, so unfortunately neither of us slept very well with all the frivolities going on outside.



The only good thing about being up early was that this meant we were both ready to leave the room before 9am for once, so we packed up all our stuff, put it into lockers (the hostel couldn't guarantee us another night until later in the day) and headed out to the hire car.

After the drive back from the car hire place last night Katie already hates driving here because remarkably few of the locals seem to have any idea whatsoever how to drive!

Indicators & signals are seen about as often as Halley's Comet and if anyone makes any effort to look behind or beside them, you'd be forgiven for fainting from shock.

We managed to negotiate our way through town without getting killed and then took the lake road west, where we'd be following a 60 km 'loop', taking us along some scenic viewpoints and then back into town.

The first stop was a cable car ride up to the top of a local mountain and we were the first people there, reaching the ticket office before the 10am opening!

We must have looked very keen and organised, but it was a complete fluke really.



We shared a car up to the top with some of the staff who worked at the top and enjoyed the early morning views back over the town and out over the lakes.



The visitors centre at the top must have looked amazing 10/15 years ago but now it looked a bit battered & bruised and was definitely showing its age. Join the club ;)



The views over the main lake were spectacular and we were lucky to have such a clear day to enjoy them.



There was an observation deck at the top which was a bit pointless because the views from there were more or less identical to those outside, only with dirty glass making it all murkier.

It looked a bit like a flying saucer from outside though, which was cool...



You could see Bariloche down and to the right of us, what an amazing location for a town.



The view the other way wasn't bad either ;)



It was really pretty up there so we chilled out for a while, soaking in the scenery before getting back in a cable car and heading downhill.

After we got back down to earth we continued along the lakeside road until we reached another cable ride up a mountain, this time it was a chair lift.

By this time it was about 11am and much busier at the ticket office so there was a long queue, but it was definitely worth the wait.



The ride to the top was long, but spectacular.



The views from the top were no less spectacular, showing fantastic vistas in all directions.



This place offers what National Geographic magazine have declared as "one of the top 10 most scenic viewpoints in the world", looking over a variety of different lakes and mountains. Nice eh?



There was a lot of space at the top for walking around and admiring the views, from a variety of different angles and perspectives.



Like most fantastic photo spots around the world there was a whole lot of reciprocality going on as regards couples taking photos of each other. You scratch my back and I'll scratch your's...



We soaked up the views for an almost indecent amount of time and then headed back down to earth again in the chair lift.

After getting down to earth we followed the winding road until we reached the most famous hotel in Argentina, the 'Llao Llao'.

Those of you who have been reading the blog since the beginning of our trip might recall that this is also the name of the rank homemade whisky which they drink in Laos in south east Asia!

We had to smile at the thought of the most luxurious 5* hotel in Argentina sharing its name with a disgusting rural Laotian moonshine ;)

The hotel looked absolutely fantastic as we got to the gates (lake views, golf course, alpine design) but we decided to keep driving, taking the loop road around the north part of the peninsular and keeping our eyes open for a good spot to have our packed lunch.

We followed signs for a 'scenic panorama', eventually turning the corner to see a handful of stalls selling various tourist tack and realising that this must be the viewpoint.

Again the views were just incredible, it was the perfect spot for lunch and arguably the best place we've stopped for food anywhere on our trip so far.



After the food and a few photos...
 


...we got back in the car and soon found a dirt road which took us into the hills and - rather bizarely - to a small Swiss community near another lake.



We drove right past that one and followed the trail out to yet another shining blue lake.



I scrambled down the bank to get some photos of this one and then we headed out to the main road which would take us south, past another 3 lakes before turning around and heading back to the town of Bariloche.

I guess we were getting a bit blase about all the natural beauty by this point, maybe even approaching 'lake overload', but despite our saturation we could still appreciate how attractive they all were.



Eventually we passed the final lake... before turning around and coming back down the same road towards town. We hate retracing our steps but we had no other choice on this occasion.

We decided to stop the car and have a quick walk by the shoreline of one of the lakes on the way home which I'm really glad we did. It was so peaceful, so quiet, so beautiful out there.



When we got back to town we found that unfortunately our hostel still didn't have a double room free for tonight so one of the staff kindly phoned around a few places for us until she found somewhere local with a double room.

The place she found wasn't in our guidebooks and as we had the car we figured that we'd head off and try and find somewhere ourselves that was in the book instead.

Bad idea, there was nothing, nowhere, nada, nuh-uh... All the best places were chocka.

About 45 minutes later we were standing outside the place that she'd suggested, which seemed ok.

It was nowhere near as nice as where we'd come from but it was a bit cheaper and absolutely full of REALLY noisy young Israelis. It was like they were all drunk, or had severe A.D.D. or something.

By now tonight's Champions League games were now underway, so we watched Barcelona v Celtic until Barca scored early (game over!) and then switched over to watch AC Milan v Arsenal.

After Milan beat my team Liverpool in the final last year, I was right behind the Gooners and was very impressed at the way they played Milan off their own park in front of their own fans.

It was a fantastic game, which Arsenal deservedly won, becoming the only English team to ever beat AC Milan at home in Europe, very impressive.

Hopefully Liverpool can now do the double next week when we play Inter Milan in the same stadium! COME ON BOYS.

Our room was super-basic but had plenty of big windows which we could open fully to keep us cool, even if it was clearly going to be noisy here tonight.
 


After unpacking we went downstairs and cooked some pasta that we'd bought earlier, which we enjoyed with a bottle of wine out in the garden by ourselves, almost as if we were back in London. Very nice ;) 

As the sun was close to disappearing we walked down to the lake to see the sunset but were a bit late, thankfully there was still some colour in the sky so it wasn't a wasted walk.



We then headed up to bed and hoped that it wouldn't be too noisy.

Sadly my concerns were locked on the wrong target, it wasn't the street noise that was the problem, it was the Israelis next door who were shouting and screaming at each other until 3AM?!?!

I'd finally reached the point of no return and was heading to the door to ask them to put a sock in it when they finally stopped yelling and went to sleep.

In the words of a great philosopher, enufsk is enufsk and enufsk is too much, ag-ag-ag-ag-ag-ag...


Lots of love,


Al & Katie xx