Rapolin in Rapiloche!
Bariloche is suffering from some sort of an identity crisis. The town has convinced itself that it is not, in fact, Argentinian at all, but rather SWISS! All you have to do is count the number of chocolate shops and fondue restaurants along the main tourist drag and you will see that I speaketh the truth. I chose, however, not to indulge in either due to budgetary & belt constraints/concerns.
I spent three and a half days in total in Bariloche, but the first day (+ half) was plagued by a steady, depressing drizzle that kept me off the trails and mostly indoors. I stayed in the town center in a dorm at the Periko Hostel, which was only a few blocks from Lago Nahuel Huapi.
That first night turned into quite the memorable evening. First of all, the whole town was blanketed in darkness for about an hour or so due to an inexplicable blackout. Thankfully our hostel was fully prepared for such an occurrence and sprang into immediate action by lighting candles throughout the common areas which lent the place a cozy ambience. Due to this power outage, everyone who was online at the time, including yours truly, were forced to...GASP...actually talk with one another! There were a number of Americanos present from the "Blue" States. Representing the Pacific-Northwest we had 2 childhood buds from Oregon, Gus and Martin (who looked just like John Stamos' long lost twin or love child). And then we had an East Coast contingent- a couple from upstate New York whose names have unfortunately escaped me. And of course there was little ole me from the Midwest (is best) city of CHICAGO! To keep things interesting though, we added a dash of Anglo spice to the mix in the form of Daniel, an English fellow with amazing culinary skills but who also claimed to be the son of the lead singer of the Manfred Mann Earth Band. Could have been true but we didn't really dig for details, alas. Once power was restored and we returned from a successful beer run, a joint was produced by the supposed rock star offspring and duly passed around. I plead the 5th here though and refuse to say whether or not I indulged in this illegal activity because I prefer to let my readers decide. Did I or didn't I? And IF I did, did I inhale or pull a Bill Clinton? Hmmm??? Anyway....the gathering was pretty lucy goosey by this point, so when one of the New Yorkers produced a mandolin, all hell broke loose. Okay, okay, not exactly...but it was close, soooo close. Daniel de Manfred Mann Clan and good ole Oregonian Gus started rapping along with the mandolin and I gotta give it up to Gus- he was in the groove and showed a natural talent for off-the-cuff Eminem lite rapping, albeit without the cussin' and misogynistic slant. I only wish I'd had a notebook so that I could have written down some of the pearls he uttered that night. All I can remember now was something about a Chilean miner and another line about dropping "word bombs from his head down to his dick". Cough, cough. Maybe you just had to, errrr, be there? Before we all retired that night, we appropriately christened the musical movement as "Rapolin in Rapiloche" (Rap + Mandolin/Bariloche).
On the 3rd day, the rains skedaddled and the sun at long last made an appearance. I chose to go for a 5k run along the lake followed by another hour of walking with my iPod cranking tunes all the while. At one point in my run, this incredibly ginormous dog came out of its yard and approached me. I admit to feeling more than just a tad trepidatious due to previous encounters with barking dogs, but this dog turned out to be merely curious, choosing to sniff rather than bite me. Mind you, it was such a huge dog that instead of smelling my lady parts like most dogs disgustingly do, this one took a whiff of my armpits. TMI? My sincere apologies...
My final day in Bariloche was spent doing what my heart most enjoys...trekking. There are a number of day hikes in the nearby Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi, so it was rather difficult to narrow it down to just one. In the end, I chose to take a bus to the Cerro Catedral Ski Resort, the starting point for a hike to the Refugio Frey(1700m), which overlooks the picturesque Laguna Toncek. I was told it would take about 7 hours to do the full loop, but Ms. Speedy Gonzalez managed it in just a little more than 5 hours. It wasn't particularly challenging until the last 45 minutes which was a steady, sweaty (Betty) ascent up to the refugio. For the first part of the hike, I was accompanied by a father & daughter tag team from Buenos Aires. Veronica and her elderly pop Ricardo were incredibly friendly and I would have hiked the whole way to the refugio with them, but her father's pace was considerably slower than mine and I was simply unable to comfortably adjust my pace. Pity. I must mention that while hiking to the refugio, I realized that my boots were literally falling apart! Thankfully I managed to make it there and back without either sole falling completely off, but now I will need to purchase a new pair of waterproof boots...which won't come cheap. Drat!
Adiós Patagonia, and Cheers to my next
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