Lake Country
Trip Start
Jan 10, 2009
1
13
20
Trip End
Ongoing
Bariloche,
Argentina
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Bariloche is a picturesque town with wonderful Austrian/Swiss style wooden buildings especially the main square with the main centre and tourist office. It was packed with local tourists but great feel to it with tons of little cafes and chocolate shops (fresh made chocolate is a specialty here). The view is stunning as the town sits on the shores of a lake and is surrounded by snow dusted mountains from all other sides. Temperature was in the low 20s with clear sun all the time,... ideal for wandering around, enjoying some coffee and all around chilling.
On Sunday we decided to head to Cerro Campomento, a local lookout that supposedly has one of the top 10 views in the world according to National Geographic ( I was not able to find any such list on the internet though). We took a short ride to along the shores of the lake, which was full of beautiful villas, hotels and other picturesque buildings. Then we spent about 30 minutes hiking up to the lookout point. The view really was amazing, on a clear sunny day, the blue shimmering lake and awesome mountains around it. We could have sat there all day. This was pretty much how I envisioned Patagonia from the start and this time the expectation was met and exceeded.
We spent a couple of days in Bariloche, enjoying the weather and scenery and local chocolate. One evening in a chocolate shop, we were discussion what chocolates to get, one the fellow behind us asked if we were Polish. We said and exchanged pleasantries. He spoke Polish that sounded perfectly normal with no accent so we were shocked when he said he was born in Argentina to Argentine parents with no roots to Poland at all. He actually just randomly decided to learn Polish and went to Poland for 4 years, and now worked in Italy with polish immigrants. Incredible story. When I commented that Polish is one of hardest languages around, his exact quote was, "If you Poles can learn Polish, why can't I.". Great reason!
We also rented a car in Bariloche and headed north west to wards seven lakes road. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed the drive, even though a large part of it was on very rough dirt road with tons of dust all over the place. We stopped of for some ice cream and made our way almost up to St Martin de los Andes, another small resort town in the mountains. All around were various mountains and lakes and wonderful scenery on a warm sunny day.
That night we left Bariloche and Patagonia and headed east to the coast to enjoy some beaches and see Polish scouts in Argentina
