7 days in Bariloche

San Carlos de Bariloche is near the Chilean border and is referred to as Argentina’s adventure capital. ‘Adventure capital’ is the most over-used phrase I’ve ever come across but does usually reflect activities on offer such as trekking, mountaineering and other outdoor type stuff, so it’s typically going to be somewhere we like, so we decided to make this our destination for New Year.

The bus journey there was enjoyable, scenic and we were fed free biscuits and sweet black tepid coffee to dunk them in. From about an hour away, we could see the city of Bariloche stretched out alongside a glistening lake and against a backdrop of lush green hills and mountains. 

Our hostel looked good on first sight. Central with red painted walls and an adjoining bar and restaurant. On arrival, we were offered the set menu for New Year’s Eve but had already planned to head into town to see what was about. In fact, we literally dumped our bags in the room and headed straight out. The weather was on the turn, as expected and it was starting to rain quite heavily. We jumped around a few bars trying to find one we’d like to go out to to toast in the new year. After a few rounds and a bit more of an idea of the area, we headed back to the hostel to clean up and well, get ready to go out again!

It was soon apparent however that the hostel wasn’t that great. We had opted for a private room, but had to push the 2 single beds together to make a double, but the issue was they were different heights so it totally wasn’t going to work. To add to this disappointment, the window in our windward facing room didn’t close either and it was blowing a gale. Oh well, we were hoping we’d probably be too merry to worry about either issue later!

Things didn’t go to plan though and every single bar and restaurant in the whole city was fully booked with reservations for New Year’s Eve. The only thing on offer was a set menu for £50 in a crowded German pub, with a video of Rod Stewart live playing on the tele, on a table of 4 with 2 other middle aged people we didn’t know. This clearly didn’t appeal but we at least managed to get in a drink at the bar whilst pretending to ponder the decision. Seriously we couldn’t even find a bar to drink in! 

Anyway, after thankfully managing to purchase a few bottles of dodgy looking wine at the local newsagent equivalent, we returned to the confines of the tiny hostel kitchen to cook up some pasta n sauce, hoping that we may be saved the company of the grumpy German man who was apparently hating his time in overpriced Bariloche and couldn’t wait to go or the group of crack smoking Israelis who were in the room next door. 

We cooked up our food, put on some clips of Jools Holland from YouTube and brought in the New Year with resourceful style! In fact, we headed down to the restaurant-bar at the hostel for the countdown and ended up gibbering with a few other random travellers, nearly getting dragged to a salsa bar, but having scoped the clubs out earlier, or lack of them, opting out. But all in all, it was quite a fun night in the end and in the height of a hunger some moment managed to steal some nuts that had been left in a bowl guarded by a big St Bernard’s dog. 

Happy New Year

The next day, we were craving food and entertainment but it seemed that everywhere was pretty much closed. We managed to achieve getting served an overpriced pizza and some cold chips in a restaurant by an extremely surly waitress in the one place that appeared open and after this we trudged around for a bit. One saving grace was we found a chocolatiers that was open and we could sit inside with a coffee and some amazing chocolates, but apart from this, it was all looking a bit quiet and feeling a bit cold! I suggested we go back to the hostel and I went to bed, with my coat and boots on because it was still cold from the window that wouldn’t shut. 

Tim photo)

All was not lost on the day however. After 4 hours sleep, we woke, had coffee, and headed out to what was now a much more alive Bariloche. The town had woken up for New Year’s Day evening and we found a cool brewery to eat in and sample some tapas. However, after leaving the restaurant, the chill in the air drove us back to the hostel where we had coffee, more amazing chocolates and watched the Doctor Who 50 year special that Tim had previously downloaded. We thought we’d save the pennies for those extra drinks in a hammock somewhere in the warm!

So, that was Bariloche city. Not quite the experience we had been expecting, but I don’t think it was Bariloche’s fault – it was just the fact that is was massively overcrowded because of New Year’s Eve and having come from the isolation of southern Chile, we hadn’t really planned for it!

The real appeal of this area is what is on offer in the National Park that surrounds Bariloche. It is a mixture of craggy rocks, mountains, forests and lakes in the middle of South America’s lake district. So the next day we headed out on a short bus trip to Los Coihues campsite – a place we had researched that appeared like a great base from which to explore. We were right and the campsite was beautiful. But it also had an adjoining hostel which was even more beautiful, so we stayed there instead! The guys that ran it greeted us with kisses, the sun was shining and it had a really strong community feel. 

Los Coihues campsite hostel

Within 8 hours of being there, we had been shown around, organised bikes for the following day, found a local bar with a lake view for lunch of pizza, empanadas and beer, I’d rented out a horse for an hour for £8 t do with what I wanted, Tim had explored on foot and found some fresh broccoli at a local supermarket – a rare find round these parts and to top it all at dusk we climbed one of the steepest trails – 500m in 40 minutes to sample the views over the lakes at sunset. Now, this was more our kind of place! 

Colico and me

View over Bariloche

View over the other side of Bariloche

Waiting for the bus - even this was colouful

That evening we cooked up some quinoa that we had been carrying round with us being unsure what to do with. Firstly, because for the first time in a while, we had a really well equipped kitchen to use and secondly, we had eaten so much cheese at lunch we needed a lighter dinner. Quinoa worked out well too. An awesome day in Bariloche – the countryside bit.

The next day, we hired bikes from the nearby company to do the ‘circuito chico’ – a 25km loop around the lakes region. The guys at the campsite organised it for us and a bonus of staying there was that rather than having a time limit on when we had to return the bikes, we could just cycle them back to the campsite whenever we wanted and the company would collect them the next day. This enabled us to go off the usual route and explore other, quieter areas on the way back to the campsite.

All the roads were well maintained and paved giving such a smooth ride and the bikes were like new. A far cry from the rusty, decrepit, groin battering bicycles of previous. It was hilly, but the uphill kept me warm and the downhill kept me smiling. There were hardly any cars and you were surrounded by either lakes or forests. It was amazing!

Bariloche - aka hobbit town

Some artisian woodsman's design or someone had used a dead whale as their gate

There were also lakeside beaches, and we found one to relax on, against a backdrop of the Andes whilst munching on left over quinoa. There were also a few trails you could hike, having locked your bikes up at the bottom. It was all so easy!

Quinoa on the beach with the Andes in the distance - what a cliche...

Lost City of Gold straight ahead

Another stunner from atop a mountain in Bariloche

Mountain man

Can't quite do the entire dangly legs over edge pose - too scary. Half way there though

Vidal Sasoon pose

Having been given the ability to take the old road back to camp, we came across a little café hidden up in the hills with long reaching views and Bob Marley playing, haha; I’m not kidding! It was heaven.

Budweiser pose

Trying to map read

The route back was hard though with the old road being gravel and it took all my beer and nut power from the café to get me back to camp. Unfortunately at this moment of near exhaustion, we also managed to ruin dinner that night somehow, either by using cheap pasta or by adding frozen broccoli to half cooked pasta. Either way, it was inedible for me and near inedible for Tim. But then the lovely boyfriend of the girl who ran the hostel saved the day by coming over to chat to us and practice his English / help us with our Spanish and shared with us his yummy canned fruit cocktail.

The next day, we had been planning to hike up to a mountain refuge. It was a day hike and apparently quite tough but with stunning views. Unfortunately however, my back was caput. I think due to the horse riding from a few days ago, so the day turned into a planning and chilling day. 

We read up about stuff to do in the coming months, booked some tickets for 2 days’ time back into Chile to a place called Pucon where we wanted to climb Volcano Villarrica and followed this with a beer at the local and a stint on the lakeside beach. It was Saturday, so quite a few locals were about and chilling and swimming and weirdly enough we met an Argentinian fella in the supermarket whose Mum was born in Godalming?! As an allegiance to this fact, he gave to us 2 of the 4 good tomatoes he had fished out from an otherwise rotten lot.

The next day, we woke early and headed out on the Refugio Frey hike. It was 12km each way and a climb to 1700m up to a mountain refuge situated next to a gorgeous high up lagoon and enormous rock face that enticed many rock climbers to this area. It was warm and I was able to walk in just a t-shirt rather than layers of clothing and although still plagued by the god damn tabano flies at times, they weren’t as bad as they could have been. 

The hike was absolutely stunning, running steeply up through lenga forests and with only a half hour clamber over boulders at the end. It took 4 hours to get up there and the reward was worth it. The water was cold, but I paddled in the shallow lagoon and we watched people attempt to climb the rock face towering above us. It was really warm and we soaked up the rays with others up there. Everyone was so friendly. In fact, just as we got to the top, we were met by an English girl and her Mum telling us it’s not far to the top and offering us biscuits! We stayed there for an hour or so before heading back down via an alternative route that took us around the side of the mountain to more spectacular views.

Look at crazy man on the top

Biscuit reward at the top of a 12k hike

Freesing but worth it

Yoga move of the month

It was another long day, but ice creams and beer at the bottom eased any aches and pains and this was topped with pasta with mushroom sauce for dinner and a bottle of red – Dad, you will be proud at the amount of mushrooms I’m eating out here. 

I was a bit sad the next day, having to leave such an awesome place with such great people. They even said things like ‘say hello to your sister for me when you see her next week’, without even having met her! The scenery was spectacular but the friendliness of everyone made it even better. 

We rushed off, leaving slightly late the next morning and only just made our bus to Pucon. I literally had to plead with the bus driver not to leave, whilst Tim queued up to exchange our electronic tickets for paper ones at the desk that was only being serviced by one lady who was dealing with the most difficult customer ever. Our ‘anxious English people not being able to speak much Spanish or understanding the situation’ look that we have now perfected quite well resulted in the driver just letting us get on without tickets. By the skin of our teeth, we were on our way to Pucon, Chile to climb the awesome Volcano Villarrica!