How to recover the lost or floundering memories of the past seven days. So many things have happened, and I've barely had five minutes to get it down in e-ink. Still, I shall do my best.
Sunday saw some heavy heads rising from the covers. A long lie-in and a hefty cup of coffee to open our eyes eventually occurred. Lots of people depart for their homesteads, a long ride by motorcycle to Buenos Aires. Still, in this glorious summer weather I'm sure that its not a hard trek.
The plan is simple. Watch some rugby, if possible. Watch Sevilla play Barcelona, if possible. Have a beer or two, very possible as I already have a couple in the fridge. Thats about it. We thought about going to an asado festival, but its far too far away. We want ease! It's got to be a relaxing day.
Sadly plans involving tv or internet rarely go according to plan. Hostel Casa Del Pueblo has many things going for it, but a speedy internet service is not one of them. The TV is also fine if you want to catch the Winter Olympics, but not so great for specialised sporting events. Not only that, but Esquel's shortage of bars (let along sports bars!) is unlike to have improved for a Sunday afternoon.
So no watching the rugby then. In a hungry pique we head out to find a bar, but that is also a massive failure. We end up in a little modern cafe with no one else, trying to order a simple burger and chips, only to discover they have no burgers left. We order lomitos instead. Fifteen minutes later our food has yet to arrive. We receive an apology that there are no chips left. We consider laughing or crying. They were lucky that I have a sense of humour.
Missed most of the Sevilla game, catching frozen frames over the internet stream every minute or so. Not desperately upset as Sevilla were beaten, but it is difficult to shout abuse at your team when you can barely keep track of what is going on.
From our local deli we collect a couple more delicious El Bolsón beers and also a DIY pizza. A slightly hungover day becomes a raucous night as we imbibe and watch people with bits of wood / fiberglass / plastic / other strapped to their feet throwing themselves down snowy embankments. Ryan gets drunk and abuses the Estonian chap working at the counter. We get told to shut up. Eventually I convince Sarah that it is time to go to bed. We go to bed. Here is a pretty picture of daisies from Esquel.
Monday. An early start, out the door at 10am to head to a bus station with a better view than anyone I know.
Alpine bus stations are cool. Admittedly this one wasn't too busy in comparison to others we have visited. Now that we are in the shade of the Andes, every time the wind blows you are chilled to your bones. Then the sun shines on you and you are sweating. Thank god there is little cloud cover. At night you need a big jumper. We have actually seen wool products here (and trousers, rather than shorts). Off into the wilderness we go. North to San Carlos de Bariloche via El Bolsón.
You get some houses in the middle of nowhere here. Lovely in the summer, would like to see this place in the winter.
El Bolsón reared out of the greenery shortly after this place. A hippie haven, noted for its micro-breweries and laid-back vibes, it features on the Israeli Trail and probably should have featured on our plans too, had we known about the beer. We didn't. Much like when we were in Esquel and wanted to go to the National Park just outside of town, only to discover that the place was infested with giant rats all carrying some modern version of the Black Death. Lovely. It baffles me how information makes its way amongst travellers, especially when they don't really speak the same language. Maybe "Evil Rat Death Bad Don't Go" makes sense in all the romantic (and North European) tongues.
Anyway, here is Bariloche from afar. Its a town where people start off before going on to do outdoorsy things nearby. It is one of those places that, somewhat unexpectedly, relies on you having a car, as things are far out of town. That a lot of these places are brewpubs is confusing. The area is awash with ski-lifts, and every building is meant to look like pioneering folk put it together (rather than contrived, which is really how it ended up appearing).
Still we're only here for a day or three, and the plan is to walk and take photos. How bad could it be?
Let's start off with a random fact. Only one hostel in Bariloche isn't on a hill. That doesn't stop Home Hostel being a nice and new sort of place, with hot water and a pretty big kitchen (with the novelty of your own cardboard box to store your supplies! Fancy!) We can see the lake as soon as we leave the front door. We can also smell the McDonalds. It calls to us, in its filthy voice. "Come and eat our discounted Big Macs!" it cries.
Sure as the internet says it, McDonalds in Argentina like to hide the price of their Big Macs. Only on the wall, to the side of the tills, is a full list of prices, and there it is. Where other burger meals are around $68 for burger, fries and drink, the Big Mac is a meagre $41. A wonderful novelty. A few minutes in this branch, however, and we realise we are not the only foreigners aware of this novelty. Still, not going to look this particular gift horse in the mouth.
Off down the main street we go, past the branded stores and all the shops selling chocolate to tourists (a speciality of Bariloche, and a key reason for its popularity) and we head to the 'artisan market'. Imagine what we find! Bobble hats and key rings and scarves and wood things and bracelets and crap jewellery and tat and ear rings and other things that 'artisans' do. Guff!
Enough of that. Into the main square. Nice old buildings around the edges occupied by museums.
Also lots more white headscarves of the Mothers of the Disappeared.
Obviously where there are tourists there are also sham artists making money out of them. One man had a big St Bernard and a wee St Bernard and got them to pose for photos. We snapped our own shots, but you had to pay a fortune if you wanted to sit beside the big dog. The whole thing upset Sarah, who was quite certain the dogs were very unhappy too.
Down to the costanera, the view is as good as people say it is. Bariloche itself isn't exactly very exciting, but then it does exhibit all the signs of a tourist town: basically an awful lot of shops catering specifically to the tourist wont. The chocolate was fine, but Europeans wouldn't be too excited about it. Almost everything branded was overpriced, and anything with 'Bariloche' written on it was to be had for a song.
Here we have the beach. We have found the noun 'beach' to be a very vague one whilst in South America. We started on Copacabana Beach, which would be a very traditional type of beach for me. This, on the other hand, was not.
The water was bloody freezing too.
Local statues look out over the lake. I'm sure they're significant of something but I don't think I read anywhere of what.
There's always a nice church to go to too.
This map explains how this church forms one of the stations of the cross, mapped out across South America.
Out the church we go and a-wandering back towards the hostel. I try and remember the name of Marquis De Sade's famous novel but it doesn't spring to mind. Instead we find a little street that is reminiscent of San Francisco.
And we find a car the two of us would like to buy...
Ah well. Showers and whatnot later, we step out again and follow the well-worn route back up the high street to Der Tiroler, an Austrian (!) resto-bar, highlighting the key influence of Austrian immigrants in this part of Argentina. Should be a winner, except any time I've been in Austrian the options have been pizza or salad. Instead we get offered schnitzel or goulash. What a dilemma! We choose beers instead, and my goulash and Sarah's schnitzel bear little resemblance to what we have known in the past. Is food in the eye of the beholder? Or the recipe?
Still, we had some acoustic rock on the tv to distract us; yet more Alanis Morisette, and even the Eagles. Who could be happy with options like that? Not me. Even worse, the doors slammed shut on us at midnight. It turns out that, whoever it is that holidays in Bariloche, they forget all about the conventional rules and go to bed at British times. Horrible! We are quite used to eating late now. We practically force the remains of our XL pints down our necks (not sure what sort of imperial measurement XL is).
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