Bariloche, Argentina
I got so caught up with the activities and scenery in Bariloche and the next couple days of travel, that I´ve hardly had time to blog. But today is a ´day off´from my vacation so I´m catching up on the next few days. The town of Bariloche is nestled in the Lake District of Argentina. As you may guess from the name, there are lakes everywhere!
The natural beauty and abundance of outdoor activity are what attracted me to the tour that I am on. I haven´t been disappointed by any of that. However, I haven't had as many moments of ´wow´as some of my fellow travelers and I believe that is because I am fortunate enough to live in a place where natural beauty is everywhere. We have it really good in the Pacific Northwest and I look forward to taking advantage of that as the sun starts shining, somewhere around the 4th of July! :)
During our time in Bariloche, we did an all day hike to Cerro Lopez. We caught a local bus to the trail head, hiking about 4 hours, then we still had to walk 2 hours to catch the bus back to the center of town where we were staying. We had a couple near misses with members of the group nearly getting lost! It was a long day, but I felt like I earned my dinner that included trout, a local specialty. We fished for rainbow trout with my grandparents as a kid, so this brought back memories as I had forgotten how good it can be.
In addition to our hike, we tried our hand at kayaking. This reminded me that I need to get to the gym more! My arms were tired in the first five minutes. They finally warmed up and despite the challenge of keeping our boat going straight, it was an enjoyable couple of hours on the lake.
The rest of our time in Bariloche was spent eating and enjoying beers at the local Irish Pub. I´m sure your shocked that I would enjoy beers while traveling, but I can attest to this being a cultural experience as well. I learned a new word in spanish - frambuesa (rasberry) - while ordering my girlie rasberry beer.
