Bariloche

For my “Spring Break” this year I went to Bariloche, a small city in northern Patagonia. It was the best trip of my life. The city is absolutely beautiful- words and pictures won’t even do it justice. It’s a smaller city right on Nahuel Huapi Lake and surrounded by the Andes Mountains. So needless to say the views were breathtaking. The architecture was also very cool, and different from Buenos Aires. It had a German and Swiss influence- so a lot of buildings made from wood and stone. Sometimes it felt like I was in Europe because the buildings looked straight out of Germany or Austria. And I have never even been to Europe.  

View of Bariloche

Cool house in the middle of downtown Bariloche

Our whole trip lasted six days: fours days in Bariloche and two days of travel.

Sunday: My roommates and I woke up early and packed because we failed to do it the night before. Our host parents made us sandwiches for the bus and packed a whole suitcase of food to take with us. They packed us all kinds of snacks, 2 containers of dulce de leche, something that resembles spam (which none of us had the guts to try), a mate kit, and 3 bottles of wine. By the time we finished packing we realized we were ahead of schedule! This almost never happens. When you put us 4 girls together, it’s a miracle if we make it on time. Kelsey, Tara, and I left for the bus terminal, where we met Jay, Kelsey’s friend from class. Lucky him, he was stuck with 3 girls for a whole week.

Our suitcase full of food, courtesy of my host parents

We all got on the bus ready for a 22-hour ride to Bariloche! Flying is expensive in Argentina, so buses are a popular form of travel. 22 hours sounds bad, but it really was not terrible. They played movies the whole time and it was overnight so I slept a good portion of the ride.

Monday: We were on the bus until about 11am, and then we got a cab to our hostel. This is when our luck began. The hostel had exactly 4 spots left. We found our rooms, dropped our luggage off, and went outside to check out the scenery. Our hostel, Patanuk, was the only waterfront hostel in Bariloche so we had quite the view. We wanted to do an excursion that day, but the lady at the front desk told us it was too late in the day, so she gave us some other options. The people who worked at the hostel were so helpful. They helped us throughout our entire trip with planning activities and gave us great recommendations. Since it was a really nice day outside we decided to go to Cerro Companario, a panoramic view from the top of a mountain. They had lifts to take you to the top, but we all wanted to hike. It was a steep climb all the way up, but it was definitely worth it. Once we got to the top, none of us could talk. The view was absolutely breathtaking. We snapped a bunch of pictures, enjoyed the view, and then hit up the café at the top of the mountain where we all got ice cream. Afterwards we hiked back down and caught a bus back to the hostel.

Our backyard at the hostel

Panoramic view from the top of Cerro Companario

Later that night we went to a Mexican restaurant that was amazing. Mexican food is hard to come by in BA, so we were all excited to finally find a good place. Afterwards we went back to the hostel and sat outside on the porch until we could no longer stand the horrible music they were playing.

I will write about the rest of my trip later because this is really long and I am too lazy to finish it now.