So last week was Semana Santa (the week before Easter). It is a time for families, friends, whatever to travel and it seems vacation a bit before the winter sets in. Many head to the beaches but sometimes elsewhere. We were planning on going to Mendoza to do some wine bicycle tours but dropped the ball on buying tickets. By the time we got around to looking into it, they were more than double the price and the hostels were almost full. We (myself and 3 others who had planned to go) were quite disappointed. We wanted to wait until the trip would be cheaper but had really been excited to spend a weekend out of Valdivia exploring someplace new. Finally, I had the wondrous idea that we should head to Bariloche. So Wednesday we bought tickets for Thursday to go! Now, we never have classes on Fridays, but we had to talk to our teachers about missing Thursday class. They seemed used to it, they know we want to travel most of all and we weren't missing anything important. Thursday morning we trudged to the bus station in the dark and pouring rain at 8am. It was great planning that we left because all Thursday and Friday the rain poured down, the wind gusted, and people even lost power in Valdivia! We paid $46 for a round trip of 500miles(each way) and
semi-cama seats. These are the middle level of seats, that recline quite a lot and free tea and sandwich service. We watched The Green Mile (spanish subtitles) and some horrible movie with Chris Pine and Mr. Denzel about a runaway train? (dubbed in spanish). The sad part was crossing the gorgeous Andes while it was raining. I tried to get a few photos, but they turned out artsy and not very good by way of seeing the scenery, just the rain on the windows.
We got through customs no problem. We spoke in only spanish and used our new Chilean resident cards to ensure, as Americans, we wouldn't have to pay a few which is often required. At one point, after we were still on the road about an hour after our scheduled arrival time, we got a little nervous. When the buses stop at some location, it isn't announced where. What if we had passed Bariloche!? But fortunately, reassured that it was the last stop we continued on. We changed a bit of our Chilean pesos for Argentinian ones (about 4 pesos to teh american dollar) and set off in the rain trying to hail a micro, collectivo, or taxi. No luck for awhile, they all kept passing us! (And yes we are walking in an uncertain direction, in the pouring rain, with our backpacks). We finally realized they couldn't stop on a busy street (unlike in Chile were they will stop Anywhere) and made it to a side street. I asked a guy to let us know where to get off and he helped us out, though we got off a bit earlier than we should have. We finally made it to MarcoPolo Inn Hostel, up a giant hill of course and checked in. The receptionist asked "Hablan Casteshano?" In our delirium and exhausting we forgot Castellano=spanish and in Argentina they change all there "ll"'s to "sh"'s. Our room was cosy, up on the "3rd" floor (actually 5th). We had two other roommates, a guy from Israel and a guy from Berlin. One hiking, the other partying-both were hilarious, though the Berliner only stayed for a day more and then was replaced by a Londoner. We decided to forgo the free hostel dinner and set out to find a heartier meal. We tried Malbec, the wine of Argentina for the first time and had some other delicious foods. When we got back to hostel, we went up the bar, got some beers and met some of the others. There were people from Israel, Ireland, England, Australia, the US, and others. Almost everyone preferred speaking in English! As it seemed to be customed for every night when the bar closed up around 11, everyone headed next door to the Moving Bar, where everyone in the hostel was entitled to 2for1 margaritas or beers. After those, we decided to just head back the hostel, hang out a bit, and get to bed early.
The next morning (Friday) we got up around 9 as Konrad was packing up to go. The wind was wailing and there were drops of rain on the window. (Though we realized eventually that the wind on ground level wasn't quite so crazy as on the 5th floor, on a hill, and in corridor of hostels, but trust me Bariloche is incredibly windy and it's all from the freezing lake at the edge of town) We headed to the bar for breakfast: coffee (stronger than Chilean, thank goodness), toast, jam, cereal. We headed out to explore some more, but eventually the cold (and a bit of snow!) drove us into a cafe where we had more coffee, called cortados and similar to lattes) and medialunas which are like croissants but covered in a sugar glaze. Konrad had told of an excellent trek nearby on the ski resort and where to get more information on it so we headed there next to register and get some more information. I signed a pledge of responsibility though I'm not sure for what..my companion's lives? He wished us luck as the weather wasn't looking to promising and told us at the top we might encounter some snow. It is only 10km to the top but quite steep. Next, being the studious students that we are, we grabbed our homework and set off to find a cosy cafe. It was actualy very hard to find one, but eventually we did, got more coffee, and Sarah and I started some essays. Kris and Desmond pushed their homework aside and played chess that was conveniently under the glass table. Everyone in the future that we told of how we passed the day laughed at our responsibility! We returned to the hostel for some good noodle/veggie/saucy mix and drank more beer! We spent dinner talking to a Chilean professor of English linguistics. He had a great saying "Como come un elefante?" (How do you eat an elephant?) regarding learning language and skills in general. If you try to eat it all at once, you'd get full or sick and not able to complete it, you need to eat it portion by portion over days or months or years. Next up, we headed back to the Moving bar for our nightly drink. We planned to get up early on Saturday to do the Refugio Frey hike and Kris and Desmond headed to bed. Sarah and I still had a lot of energy so we headed back to bar to play cards (speed and rummy). After a bit, two Israelis came over and asked to teach us some games: Durek and Yaniv. They were quite hard to follow though somehow I won all 4 games of Yaniv. It was cool talking to them, learning about their travels and lives back home. Apparently, it is sort of a tradition that after discharging from the required time in the army, and before heading to university, many Israelis went traveling. Hence the huge quantity at the hostel.
Oh did I mention I sniffed out some incredibly amazing mexican food?!
Saturday was quite at epic day and a long one. Saturday was our trek on Cerro Catedral. Gael, our Israeli roommate, was fed up with us not going out, so we promised him Saturday night. Our last day in Partiloche will require a new post..
