Bariloche is a town which lives at the foot of the the Andes and is surrounded by these beautiful mountains for as far as the eye can see. It doesn't matter what direction you look in, if you look up even for just a moment you will get sucked in to staring at the jagged white peaks that stare down at you. The town is also surrounded by lakes (Nahuel Huapi, Gutiérrez Lake, Moreno Lake and Mascardi Lake) which create an awesome contrast, reflecting the towering mountains which surround them.
People come from all over the world to exploit Bariloches beautiful landscape which will not fail to please if you enjoy hiking and snowboarding. As you know we're not much into hiking and the extent of this for us was hiking our way to and from the local pub. We had planned on making the most of the local resort Cerro Catedral which lay a mere 20 minutes from our hostel but bad luck struck us down in the form of our board bag not arriving. We did get a couple days up the hill though thanks to the local hire gear (1990s eat your heart out) and had some of the sweetest lines we have ever experienced. The Andes are awesome and if you ever get the chance to shred these mountains then grab it hard with both hands. You will however need a swollen wallet as the prices here are not for the poor. We again had the bad luck of arriving just in time for peak season where the lift pass jumped up to a impressive £38. This isn't actually that much in comparison to France etc. and the mountain is just as worthy but when you put in context of Argentina it is A LOT.
Speaking of bad luck I forgot to mention how we started our time in Bariloche. We arrived in the late afternoon in the pouring rain to try and find our studio apartment, our only instruction of where it might be being to get off the bus at kilometer 23.4. This might sound odd but the whole of Bariloche outside the main town is basically determined by one main road which runs through it. For example a local would tell you where they live by saying km 6 rather than an area or street name. So we hopped off the bus at km 23.4 tired and weighed down with our bags and couldn't find our studio for a good 30 mins during which time we almost got mauled by one of the many local dogs which roamed around like herds of angry sheep. This was our first experience of the local dogs, which were EVERYWHERE but at km 23.4 they were in packs. Territorial, angry packs which scared the living crap out of us. We decided after a couple sleepless nights of being too scared to leave the door in fear of catching rabies that enough was enough and so we moved in to town, where there are still dogs but they were pussycats in comparison.
Although we had some bad luck in Bariloche we also had some good luck. One example being Hostel Pudu. This irish owned hostel is just awesome and we couldn't have asked for a better place to live during our stay. We met a whole crew of really nice people from all over the world and we couldn't recommend it any more if we tried, if you go to Bariloche, you have to stay here.
We also had the great luck of meeting Maria our spanish teacher who couldn't have made us feel more welcomed to Bariloche, helping us experience the local way through sight, taste and stories. Maria is a legend and we are stoked to have met her.
The bus out of Bariloche towards Chile offered yet more immense scenery and as we rolled out through customs and in to Chile we were met with deep, fresh snow that transformed in to green mountainscapes and flowing rivers. We were on our way to Pucon, the sleepy town in the south of Chile that sits at the foot of Villarrica, Chile's most active volcano.
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