Bariloche

"If we're not supposed to eat animals, how come they're made out of meat?"
~Tom Snyder

Friday , December 26th 2008

San Carlos de Bariloche is located in the heart of Argentina's lake district. An unashamedly touristic town, it's only manufacturing industries are chocolates, ice cream and steaks. Almost the entire town in employed in catering for visitors such as myself. Hearing so much about the place, I was full of high hopes but when I finally arrived from Pucon via Osorno, I quickly found that Bariloche was not entirely for my taste. What can go wrong in a touristic heaven you ask? well for first it's was so damn packed with tourists... arriving between Christmas and New year's eve, the town was packed and only grew more crowded as the time passed. The second bad thing was the hostels. I stayed in 4 different hostels during my short stay - a definite bad record. (compared to 2 hostels in places I spent a lot more time in..). The first hostel was a drug lair (getting off the bus penalty), the second was a shabby building without hot water, the third was noisy with a kitchen that was a certified health hazard and the forth was reasonable but not much more. But even with all the people and bad hostels I got to enjoy my stay, after all a place that sell great ice cream and thick steaks on every corner can't be all bad.. other than the culinary highlights I got to enjoy the city itself with the great views to the lake and surrounding mountains, the place looks like an ancient European ski resort although it was founded less than a 100 years ago and scenery around it is magnificent. I used my time to go on two short one day treks in the neighbourhood, one to Cerro Otto and the other to an observation point call the 17th kilometer- both offered great views in return to very little effort from my side. In the rest of my stay I went for a 3 day trek in the nearby national park, dined in the fine restaurants and ice cream parlors and shopped around for a place to rent a car into Chile's Carratera Austral, the next stop on my adventure...