Next up on our Bariloche adventure was a tour, booked through the company I work for, Argentina4u, to El Bolsón, the notorious hippy town outside of Bariloche. A full day tour meant another early start, but this time Lucas, the owner of the cabin we were renting, offered us a ride into town. After learning he is a mountain guide who leads treks in Bariloche, I was resolved to return to Bariloche in the summer to do some hiking in the mountains here.
Another tour in Spanish meant I had another day of translating ahead of me. We had the most wonderful guide though, who I ended up having great conversations with since he had been to South Africa during the last world cup and had lots to talk about. He even told me about a tourist attraction in SA I had never even heard of: the zipline in Sun City, stretching 2km and reaching up to 120km an hour. This is definitely on my agenda for when I return home!
Waiting for the bus into town
The tour to El Bolsón ended up being one of my highlights of the trip, not even for the town itself but the other places we stopped along the way. Driving the opposite way to the previous day, we passed more spectacular lakes and scenery. We attempted, without much luck, to adequately capture the scenery from the mini-bus, but again it was a sight to be experienced rather than photographed. Our first stop was at a trout farm, something this region is famous for. It was quite interesting to wander through the ponds seeing the fish at different stages, culminating in a tasting, of course. I may not be the biggest fan of fish in general, but give me some fresh or smoked trout or salmon and I’m a happy camper. Then we headed to another big money spinner in this part of the world – jams. We visited a big fruit farm specialising in fruit. I was quite grateful for this talk because walking around the different plants and seeing the names in English and Spanish, I was finally able to figure out the proper Spanish names for all the berries! Plus getting to taste all the delicious fruity jams (and a bit of dulce de leche!) was fun and delicious and I put a fair few on my list of things to buy back home in Buenos Aires.
We passed through El Bolsón but didn’t stop yet, instead carried on in to the next province to Lago Puelo. This, undoubtedly, was one of my favourite places of the trip. We were the only people in the park when we arrived, and we had a chance to walk on the pebbled beach of the lake, with a moody sky above us, and there was this wonderful sense of tranquil alienation, and unspoilt nature. After failing miserably at skipping stones on the lake, we walked to the forest on the lake’s edge for a magical walk surrounded by thick trees, the occasional arrayanes trees (myrtle, I believe is the English translation). This amazing orangey-brown trees are something out of a fairytale, and are said to have been the inspiration behind a few disney movie forests, including Bambi. The rest of the trees also had this magical quality to them, and the stroll through the quiet woods had my imagination firing up with my favourite childhood stories of fairies and magical forests.
Finally we retreated back to El Bolsón. First a German settlement, this town got famous in the 70s when a whole bunch of hippies moved out here, to make handicrafts and horticulture (or to be less pc, grow some weed in the mountains…). A picturesque town, sandwiched between two mountains, there is a big feria (handicrafts market) a few times a week. We wandered around, looked at the crafts, I managed to find a really nice handcrafted ring, we watched some dreadlocked hippies play some music, and then attempted to eat our home-made lunch on the stairs in the central plaza, only to be watched intently by the local pack of stray dogs. While I managed to gulf mine down quiet quickly, mom was a bit more put off by the dogs watching here, and I don’t think she got much pleasure from the meal! So to make up for it, we made a stop at Jauja, a famous ice cream shop that started here but now has branches all over the country. On the way home, we made a final pit stop at a beer factory – El Bolsón, like Bariloche, is famous for its craft beers.
One of the things that made the tour interesting, besides the beautiful sights, was the people. Our tour group was all Argentina, making a change from the previous tours majority of Brazilians. Some lovely people were patient with their Spanish, allowing us to chat about a variety of things from rugby, Invictus, and heated discussions about football! Among the interesting people was a young lawyer from Buenos Aires who is studying Mandarin. It never ceases to amaze me the connections that we’re able to draw across vastly different cultures and languages, and this remains the beauty of travel for me.
Returning to the city, after an amusing drive through the back end of Bariloche and the Chilean district in the throes of celebrating independence, and a stop to chat to a local ski instructor who told us some under the belt jokes, we took a stroll to downtown once again to see the St. Bernard puppies (literally my obsession on this trip). After debating where to eat, we settled on Blest Brewery, a craft beer brewery and restaurant just 2km from our cabin. Unfortunately I realised at this point that I’d forgotten the bus card at the house that morning. So we began a wild goose chase around the town to find a place to buy another card – which as it turns out is not so simple. Finally one shop owner gave us detailed (and correct) instructions of where to go, and we were quite relieved to get on to the bus and on our way to food and warmth after our very cold walk all over town.
Arriving at Blest at last, we escaped into the warmth of the brewery with sheer joy as dark fell. If I had imagined my ideal, German-style beer bar, this would have exceeded my expectations. A warm, cosy place, everything in wood, and eclectically decorated with the beer mats / place-holders of patrons who had signed them and stuck them on the wall. Not only did we enjoy a delicious beer (which was hard to choose from the menu, as all their locally crafted brews looked delicious), we managed to tick off another big to-do off our list: eat Patagonian lamb. Mom had a shephard’s pie and I had lamb ravioli, and boy, did these delicious and hearty meals warm us up, inside and out. Definitely something that should be on your list if you’re headed to Bariloche! Unfortunately we had to trundle back into the drizzle and cold – the temperature was dropping quickly to zero – to get our bus and to endure the walk to the cabin. I’ve never been so relieved to walk into our heated place and to dive straight under a blanket with a cup of tea!
On our final full day in Bariloche, we woke up to the continuing cold and a steady rain. We took the opportunity to have a lazy morning, catching up on some washing, and enjoying some bonding time indoors. Finally we braved the outdoors, as the sun started shining through, to go in search of some chocolate.
The first stop on the chocolate adventure was the Havanna factory. Havanna is a pretty famous brand here – not only is it a chain of coffee shops, but they are the makers of the best alfajores in the country. We took a tour of their chocolate factory which was fascinating for me to see the entire process of making chocolate – especially the odd fruit it comes from. The tour also showed the history of chocolate – from it’s early origins in Mexico, where it was primarily made into a drink, then travelling to Spain, where drinking it hot, and dipping churros into it, became the fashion, spreading next across Europe. There was even a chart tracking the opening of the world’s chocolate factories and the experimentation with different types of chocolate. We also saw some incredible chocolate sculptures, weighing upwards of 120kg! As beautiful and realistic as the penguins, sheep, pumas, llamas etc were, I couldn’t help thinking – what a waste of chocolate!
After enjoying a coffee in their café and purchasing some alfajores for mom to take home, we went in search of more chocolate! We found another artisanal chocolate factory and after hemming and hawing for a while over the decision, eventually purchased a selection to nibble one. We took a last stroll in town, soaking in the beautiful scenery, quaint architecture, cute puppies (yes, again!), and just general laid-back atmosphere. We had a late lunch, and I had a chance to try another local speciality, deer, dried in a form kind of similar to biltong. A last shop, to put together a tapas style spread for dinner, and to stock up on snacks for the next day’s bus journey, and we were on our way back to the cabin for the last night.
It was with mixed feelings that we boarded the bus the next day. On one hand, we were both looking forward to the next leg of our journey, Mendoza, but on the other hand, it was incredibly difficult to leave Bariloche. Something about the combination of the breathtaking scenery, the refreshing clean air, the tranquility and the atmosphere just creeps into your heart, and pulls you back to this gorgeous part of Patagonia. So instead of bidding it goodbye, I’ll be saying nos vemos Bariloche, until I see you again!
Nix Travels 