For the past week and a half, we have been staying at a hostel in Bariloche, which is in Patagonia, Southern Argentina. We arrived in Bariloche from Mendoza to be pleasantly surprised that it was FREEEEEZING with artic winds and bitter cold temperatures. Em, Kate and myself got off the bus in our singlets and shorts....and suddenly realised we needed to go shopping.
Anyway, after a couple of hours shopping....and a new wooly jumper later, we were ready to experience everything Bariloche had to offer! A beautiful lake with amazing views of snow peaked mountains, white water rafting through icey cold water straight from the Andes as well as drinking too many sprites and vodkas while playing pool with fiercely competitive English men!
An amazing few days were had!
And then it was time to say goodbye to our close knit family, Mama Kate, Daddy Hocks and Immature sister Em.
Lets just say that was an emotional day, and Mugs and I spent couple of hours feeling disillusioned and a little bit scared!
We woke up the next morning, however, feeling refreshed and revived. We decided it was time to tackle our spanish the best way possible....and do some lessons. We enrolled in a tiny little spanish school and were lucky enough to receive private lessons with an amazing teacher Adrianna, ten minutes from our hostel. Each morning we were picked up at 8.50 am for our lesson to commence at 9. We spent four intense fours learning spanish....verbs, nouns, tenses.....I honestly wanted to die. Adrianna however, was a lovely person and was very patient. One day she asked us if we wanted to attend a tango or salsa class. We decided to go to a salsa class... and Alice, my zumba TOTALLY paid off! It was so much fun and I was surprised I could keep up with the steps. It was so funny though, because none of the class spoke a word of english so a lot of gestures and sign language went on. Mugs was great considering he has two left feet! It was a great night and a great way of practicing the language as well as meeting some locals.
Today we finished spanish classes and tomorrow we are catching a bus to El Bolson...a little hippy town, approx 3 hours from here. It´s going to get colder and so I am hoping I have enough clothes to last me!
My spanish is still VERY rusty but I am now recognising words and phrases and able to ask for very simple requests. Mugs is pretty good! This afternoon we went out for lunch to a parilla (argentinian grill restraurant) and he was able to converse pretty well with the waiter, which makes things so much easier. He was also able to order our bus tickets in spanish! I´m a bit jealous.
Anyway, that´s all for now!
ADIOS!!
