After dealing with several windy and cloudy days in Patagonia, I’ve finally come upon a cloudless day in Argentina. The light was right and it was the perfect day to pack some maté, allow my CS host, Leo to gather up some friends, and go for a drive. The view of Lago Nahuel Huapi from Leo’s flat is like that from a 5-star hotel.
With a few pictures snapped and a coffee in my system, we drove with Leo's friend El Ruso and then picked up Mariana, a lady whom I immediately felt was gorgeous. Though I’m still not all the way over my depression, I’m feeling better than I was a few days ago and I’m still seriously considering a break from travel. Our first stop of the day would be the mall for lunch and then we'd drive to Cerro Campanario, which was a short but very steep hike to some awesome views! All of a sudden, El Ruso vanished. None of us knew where he went, but Leo figured he ended up just taking the bus home.
I keep comparing Argentina to NZ, so here it goes again: the view here of seven lakes looks like something out of the Golden Bay region.
I unfolded Juliett (my drone) for the first time in weeks and sent her soaring into the sky.
As if I'm not high enough, Juliett gladly snaps the hard-to-reach places (and vantage points)...
From there we would drive further west past the Llao Llao Hotel and onto Bahia de los Troncos where I got a couple of geocaches and put my feet in the water. Many former porteños (residents of Buenos Aires) move here because the capital is too densely populated and hectic. I can hardly blame them as Bariloche has a great setting and so many beautiful places within easy reach of the city. From la Bahia, we went to a brewery where Leo and Mariana had a beer and I had some beer-battered chips. It turned out El Ruso did turn around and go home but he should have told us where he was going. Leo would say El Ruso gets fatigued very easily and needs to exercise more. Much like rice, Coca-cola, and mobile phones, a brew of hops can be found just about anywhere. From the Dominican Republic to Korea, Peru to Ethiopia, Mexico to New Zealand, beer is produced in just about every country in the world. Despite the many countries and distances I've travelled, I've never cared for beer and I feel that all beer tastes the same.
Tonight I'd have my first asado at La Parrilla de Julián. Brilliant it was. Delicioso! Argentines love their meat as it's one of the world's leading beef-producing countries; the population consumes an average of 60 kg of meat each year! An asado is different to a barbecue: wood and pine cones are used instead of charcoal briquettes to cook the meat in a large grill called a parrilla. When it came out it was legendary...everything was tasty and cooked to perfection. Last week in Ushuaia, I was strongly thinking of hitchhiking up the east of Argentina due to appearing shorter on the map, but I'm glad I've done the journey this way. Things are always more difficult when it comes to dealing with depression but these past couple of days I've felt a bit better. Although I've travelled a long way already, my goal is still very, very far away; I'm still nearer to El Calafate than to Buenos Aires. I've hitchhiked more than 2,000 km but I'm still nearly 1,600 km away from the capital.
The gorgeous landscapes of Bariloche most definitely merit more time and I certainly would love to return.
