Switzerland on tour

SAN CARLOS DE BARILOCHE, ARGENTINA - 10th March 2010

A week in the big city came and went and, after exploring various possibilities as to where to head next (and ruling out El Calafate and Tierra del Fuego in the deep south on the basis of obscene cost), ended up settling on the 20 hour bus ride to the scenic town of (San Carlos de) Bariloche, seated in the heart of the Patagonian Lake District. After, in chronological order, beachy seaside, tropical wetland, jungly inland waterfall and, most recently, urban cityscape, I guess we can now check mountainous lakeside off our list of South American environmental conditions to be experienced.

I instantly loved this place - and had an inkling I was going to from the moment it first came into view in the distance from the other side of the massive Lagoa Nahuel Huapi. Peacefully sat on the southern shore of the lake, the reflected midday sun glistening in the windows of its white buildings, the appearance of this plot of civilisation in the distance, after hours of the desolate, wind-swept, arid Patagonian landscape that seems to continue in infinitum on the eastern side of the Andes, was like an oasis in the desert, or a beacon out at sea. Closer inspection upon arrival, however, revealed that Bariloche is in fact a little piece of Alpine Europe transplanted into the Argentine Andes. If you were blindfolded and dumped into the middle of Bariloche with no idea where you were, the wooden buildings and their sloping roofs, every car bearing a European marque, and the distinctly Franco-Swiss feel of a tourist-underwritten mountain town where every second shop sells chocolates, would leave you more than convinced that you were in somewhere like Interlaken - more than once I found myself somewhat surprised to hear Spanish spoken when walking into a shop. To give you some idea, an old Britannica image I just found on Google looks a little something like this:


In a way, Bariloche is like Argentina's version of Queenstown, New Zealand. There are a wild array of activities to occupy your time (and burn holes in your wallet), and while there aren't bungy jumps and skydives to totally blow your senses, rafting, mountain biking, horse riding and all sorts of treks up mountains are on offer through the summer (as opposed to winter, when skiing is all that matters). On the recommendation of a girl we met the day we left BA (and slightly thanks to a desire to do some exercise after several weeks of impressive food consumption), Anna and I took on the bike ride, which runs through the Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi. 26 kilometres of massive hill climbs later, and my thighs were feeling more than a little tight - although Anna probably seemed to be feeling a tad worse; the memorable line "Oh my butt is gonna hurt sooo much in the morning" almost convincing me to restart my old "Favourite Quotes" page on Facebook.

To be fair (although I am now purely speaking for myself), the loop of "Circuito Chico" ("small circuit" - haha) was definitely worth the effort. The views around the lake were absolutely stunning, and an off-road excursion to the tiny hillside village of Colonia Suisse ("the Swiss Colony") for lunch was excellent both for its fresh, tasty food and its idyllic location. Many a photo was taken, but as tends to be the case with these things here in South America, they remain locked up on my camera memory card until I can find somewhere with a card reader that actually works. However, you can take it from me that a couple of hours kotching by the edge of the lake at Bahia Lopez, throwing a few skimming rocks while some old geezers excited themselves with a game of pétanque (seriously, it is that much like the Alps), and generally being shutter-happy with our cameras - idyllic is a fairly apt description.

There are some cool things in the Lake District around Bariloche, and being the intrepid adventurers that we undoubtedly are, we naturally found ourselves renting a car. After trying and failing at a fair few establishments, we ended up scoring a little 3-door mk3 Corsa (branded Chevrolet in these parts but obviously a Vauxhall to any of the 80% of English kids who learned to drive in one) at "A-Open Car Rentals" for 160 pesos (a bit over £25). The only issues were having to walk all the way back to our hilltop hostel (the "Marcopolloinn" - recommendable largely thanks to its free dinners) and back again to get our passports, and the fact that we were limited to 200km. The latter wasn't a massive issue, however, as our afternoon of driving was unlikely to need much more.

I was in the driving seat (Anna having passed her test, but not brought her driving license) and we were soon burning down Route 40 past a whole load more lakes (this is the Lake District, after all), and eventually pulling over at a random point alongside Lago Mascardi where a derelict pier traipsed out into the ice cold water, still and tranquil against a backdrop of mountains and summer greenery that genuinely felt like a slightly smaller scale version of Lake Geneva, sitting on the Swiss side and looking across to the Evian mountains. More photos, including some *seriously arty* stuff with my MUFC shirt, before we continued down the road towards the Ventisquero Negro (literally "Black Snowdrift") - the famous Black Glacier that makes up part of Cerro Tronador - the highest mountain in the area.

Unfortunately, we were enjoying our drive too much and missed the right turning our map told us we were supposed to take... although after turning around closer inspection revealed the so-called road to be a gravel track - "gravel" being a generous term of rocky dirt crap. Things got doubly bad round the corner, as we first found ourselves having to pay 30 pesos (£5) entry to get into the park, and secondly discovered that we couldn't actually drive the 20km to the Black Glacier as the road operated on a one-way system: towards the glacier in the morning, away from it in the afternoon. Having already invested about 60 of our 200 kilometres driving to this point, we sure as hell weren't gonna leave empty-handed, so instead opted to take the alternative route through the park to a waterfall - very much a second best option but at that stage the only option.

A couple of hitch-hikers from Buenos Aires were lurking around the park entrance looking for a ride to the waterfall, and we duly obliged - and damn lucky we did too. The "gravel track" through the park had about as much in common with a road as it did with a rockfield, so driving conditions were a shade tricky. Or at least they would have been if we were in a 4x4. In our little Corsa, it was a rollercoaster and a half! It was ironic, therefore, that the only issue with the car came when we came to a stop - I slightly underestimated the depth (and compactness) of the pebble shore between the track and a lake, and ploughed the Corsa straight in - a decision I immediately regretted as the front right wedged itself into the stones. Reversing just made the hole deeper, so desperate measures needed to be enacted. Cue putting Anna in the driving seat, and getting her to engage reverse, drop the handbrake, balance the clutch on the bite, and apply just enough (but not too much) throttle to lift the front-right wheel onto the lip of the hole it had made for itself - at which stage I could use old school man power to push it back to harder ground. Simple? Well it took a couple of stalls but Anna did a first class job and, with a bit of effort from the Argentine girls as well, we were back on the *road* smashing up rocks and the Corsa's increasingly off-white paintwork.

After Iguazú, you find yourself somewhat desensitised to the otherwise exciting sight of a big waterfall in full flow, but this one was not without its charms - surrounded upstream by dense forest, while downstream the river opened out into a broad, sunny vally as it tailed away towards mountains on the horizon. More photos, and a relaxing half an hour of Anna and Dean quality time discussing the usual blend of emotiono-philosophical questions, the paradoxes of dreams and realities, and complexities of life in general. Or something along those lines.

Back in town, it was free dinner in the hostel - tonight a particularly good bit of chorizo with mash and some blend of vegetables that was better than last night's meat and veg concoction with spaghetti, and far far better than the first night's offering of vegetable stew with rice. Yes, vegetables. Just vegetables. And we're in Argentina. I would have been outraged, if I hadn't already eaten one dinner (a rather good bit of Veal Napolitana making up for my inability to find somewhere selling jabalí (wild boar), supposedly a local speciality), had a couple of pints of excellent local brew (Volcanes del Sur), as well as accidentally ending up with by far the biggest dessert I've had at any stage on my travels. Passing chocolate shops left right and centre, it would have been rude not to stop by in one, and with Anna ordering a cake or tart of some kind I contended myself with a coffee... only to turn the carta (menu) to see "tiramisu". I have anything but a sweet tooth, but tiramisu on a dessert menu has some strange stranglehold on me - so it had to be ordered. Turns out it was a tiramisu sundae - a whopping great glass full of not just tiramisu, but tiramisu flavour ice cream, God knows how much cream, and 3 chocolate flakes in the top for good measure. Anyone who knows me (and as Anna has recently discovered), I eat a quite stupendous amount of food for someone of my relatively small size - but on this occasion I knew I was beaten. It made The Harvester's infamous Rocky Horror look decidedly tame.

Tomorrow, we could be leaving. But where... who knows. We don't (/can't) make these sorts of decisions unless we have less than 12 hours till a deadline...!