With Jen now hobbling around with her gammy leg, we were done with Chile for a bit so we crossed back over to Argentina and thought that we would chill out for a bit in Bariloche, even though we were going back down south slightly when we were heading north. Chocolate and beers were on the agenda so we were looking forward to enjoying the lazy life.
There was no direct route to Bariloche from Pucon so we needed to stop off for a few hours at a place called San Martin. Pretty cool place, all to report from here is that a bloke we climbed the volcano with left his ukulele on the bus and ran back to get it (successfully) and we also went to an Irish bar which was ridiculously overpriced. It was also super rainy so got drenche before the next bus ride. Upon getting to our hostel in Bariloche after the second bus journey, late at night there suprisingly wasn´t really a lot going on.....a nice hostel with a nice dude on reception but no one about so we got an eatly night.
Getting up the next morning, again, there wasn´t really much going on, no one about. Thinking we had booked a dud hostel, we ventured out into the town on our own in search of chocolates! Walking down our road we came across a road full of trees which people had given knitted outfits which was pretty cool.
There was also a pretty cool central area where some dude had carved out sculptures from wood.
But wood to us was boring, the excitement was in the chocolate and we weren´t dissappointed! Walking around town we came to a whole bunch of chocolate shops, which were absolutely massive. Imagine a shop such as your local WHSmith or something similary sized. One floor of WHSmith was the same as this chocolate shop, absolutely massive. We´d never seen so much chocolate in one place. With giddy faces we strolled around and decided what to have which was tricky as it all looked amazing.
We did finally decide thought and with sketchy Spanish we tried to order, mainly with pointing. Luckily the woman spoke pretty good English so it was all good. Collecting up our chocolates, we went and scoffed them all straight away with a view of the lake and mountains. They were ace if you were wondering. Some of the best chocolate I´d ever sampled.
With the chocolate fix satisfied we went back to the hostel and planned our evening, which just so happened to be munching on some steak as we had agreed this was the last of many steaks we would eat in Argentina. Arriving at Alberto´s, a reputable steakhouse in Bariloche and one talked about by almost every traveller who had been to Bariloche we ordered up some steak, chorizo sausage, blood sausage and chips (and mandatory wine). What came out was out of this world. First up the chorizo and blood sausage to wet our appetites which were incredible in themselves but nothing in comparison to the main. The steak was literally rhe best thing I had ever tasted and it was accompanied by the biggest moutain of chips you´d ever see. We didn´t know what to do with them!
Steak munched, and with stuffed bellies I joined Jen in waddling back to the hostel. Next day was another lazy one, so not much to report. With guilt setting in that we should actually do something productive with our time here so we organised a bike ride the following day with the two other girls in our room. The bike circuit was a bit out of town so we hopped on a bus. After half an hour I saw a bike rental place out the window thinking nothing of it as I thought there would be a few. Turns out that was the only one and 10 more minutes on the bus we realised we had gone too far and had to jump off there and hike back. Good start! Getting back to the bike rental place we sorted everything out and set off on our merry way. The views were cool. mountains in the backdrop of forested areas.
Once again the bike ride turned into a bit of a hassle, with a lot of the "biking" being walked by Jen and another girl from the room. I decided to bike the whole thing just so I could claim I had so biked on ahead and then waited for the others to catch up with their pushing tactics so at least I can claim I biked the whole 27k circuit.
Some more awesome views looking over the lake....
Getting the the highest point we thought we would take a sneaky break (we had to wear the bibs and helmet if you were gonna say anything!)
At this point there was a cool moment where we spotted a bird of prey just chilling out on the road. 10 points if you can identify the bird as we couldn´t! Anyway this majestic chap wasn´t scared of us and I was able to get right up close to it and take this cool shot.
With some easy downhills from here out we could take our time and take in the views.....
Coming across some amazingly blue water we left the road and stopped for our packed lunch by the river and lake.
Riding on after lunch we smashed a lot of it out the way, only for me and Jen to look back and realise our roommate Kathryn was no where to be seen. She wasn´t the fittest bless her and was doing more pushing than Jen so we were a bit worried as to where she might be. Stopping for a moment some local bloke pulled over and ranted some Spanish at us, all we understood was "Chica" (meaning "girl) so I left Jen there and cycled back to check on Katheryn. Turns out she got cramp and was sat cross legged on the side of the road. After a short recuperation period she got back on her way and we completed the circuit.
What better way than to celebrate with a good old drink, so we had some beers at the microbrewery along with some food at about 11.30pm so we were obviously starving. I ordered trout as it´s supposedly a local dish. Big mistake as my dish was mainly bones. I was tempted to ask if any fish came with my bones, but I just ate Jen´s left overs and had more beer making me content!
The next day we thought we better smash some more chocolates seeing as we were off soon. So we went to another 2 chocolate places and got a bag from each which we would eat during the day and save some for the bus and the next destination, the wine region of Mendoza (cos we all know wine and chocolates are a great match)
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