Solo Claire

San Carlos de Bariloche is a pretty, alpinesque town. It is on a lakeshore - Lago Nahuel Huapi and there are mountains in the background with snow on the top. It´s quite expensive but nice all the same. My first night here I met up with 3 Costa Ricans and we went out for a beer to celebrate Jorge´s birthday. He works with an airline so they got their flights for next to nothing. From the sounds of it, and some photos, Costa Rica is gorgeous so that just might be the destination for my next trip! Went white water rafting the next day. On the journey to the river we stopped at a point where all the lakes to the east of us drain into the atlantic and those to the west drain into the pacific. The river was gorgeous - a lovely deep green colour, yet was transparent too. The current was quite strong so we didn´t have to paddle much. It was grade 3 and 4 so the rapids weren´t too dangerous. We went for a swim twice - intentionally, no one fell out, and the water was quite cold. The guide said 10 degrees but I´m not sure about that. It was good but too short. We came ashore right at the chilean border so we went and stood in Chile so I have been there now, albeit unofficially. Was meant to head out on Saturday night with people from the hostel but by half one I was too tired and went to bed instead. There is an Irish pub here which they went to and it´s quite popular with backpackers although from what the lads said there doesn´t seem to be any Irish actually working there. Went up Cerro Otto which is a mountain (1400m) kind of behind and to the side of Bariloche. Picked the lazy way of doing things and got the cable car up. Fantastic views of the lakes and mountains. They have St Bernard dogs up there which you can get your photo taken with for 5 pesos. Some of the pictures they had up looked great cos they were taken in the winter with the snowy mountains behind but the ones wearing shorts and a top looked silly so I didn´t get one. I like Bariloche and am enjoying travelling once more. Maybe the spanish classes were worth the expense cos I booked my bus ticket yesterday speaking totally in Spanish and understood what she said and was able to ask questions, maybe not grammatically correct ones but nonetheless she understood. Was talking to Kira, a german girl sharing my room who has very good spanish. She was saying that she wasn´t satisfied by her level of Spanish because she is not fluent. I can understand what she means - I only wanted sufficient spanish to be able to buy tickets and book into hostels and now that I can do that I´m not satisfied and want to be able to converse.