San Carlos de Bariloche

After our great time at Futaleufu, we pumped up Sara´s flat tyre again, crossed our fingers and headed over the border and on toward the Tourist mecca and one of the largest towns of the region, San Carlos de Bariloche (also just known as Bariloche). What struck me originally on this ride was the difference between the Chilean side of the Andes and the Argentinean... It was almost immediate as we crossed the border that the scenery turned from wet rainforest type terrain to much dryer, open plains there was even a hawk or eagle circling overhead just as we reached this first plain... as if to add to the stereotype.

We were very happy to reach Bariloche on that same day without incident. Bariloche shocked me a little as we arrived and rode though miles and miles of slums that reminded me of those in countries like Peru. I hadn´t expected this from all the banter from other tourists about how beautiful the town was. It wasn´t until we reached the central tourist areas that I realised that most tourists obviously only get a small glimpse of this (much larger than I expected) town.

We found ourselves a hostel and settled in for a few days. We knew we had to be there a couple of days as I had a package that was supposed to be delivered there, but was now stuck in Buenos Aires.

While there we tried our had at Canyoning. Something Sara and I had talked about doing for a long time. It wasn´t exactly what I expected. More like following a small creek down a mountain, but we did have a great time jumping into rock pools, sliding down rocks and abseiling down beside beautiful waterfalls with a view of the lake in the background.

We also rode round a popular tourist circuit and spent a fair bit of time just relaxing and wandering around the town and sampling some of the locally made chocolate. It was a little too touristy for our liking, but a comfortable place to stop nonetheless. There also may have been a small cheese & salami related incident which has still to this day soured my taste for those foods and also delayed our departure from the town by a day.