On the road again!!

You know it’s bad when you have to go back and read your last blog post to know where you left off. This seems to be a recurring theme; once again so much time has passed since my last post. Hopefully I will be more on top of things in the upcoming weeks.

Since my last post, I moved into another hostel where Sandy and I have spent the last week. Last weekend for me was basically filled with excitement and anticipation for Sandy’s arrival. Saturday was spent in town, walking around with a friend that was leaving the next day and wanted to do a bit of last minute shopping. I also went to my old hostel to take part in the asado they have every Saturday. It was a great time and nice to see catch up with people in the hostel that I hadn’t seen in a week. On Sunday, I went biking with a few friends, a guy and a girl from Canada and a girl from Switzerland who is in my school as well. The bike root we did is called the Circuito Chico and it is basically a 25km loop that takes you through gorgeous mountain scenery and an abundance of lakes. It was a beautiful ride and lots of fun, not to mention challenging, it was very hilly but it always felt great when we got up to the top of a huge hill! We stopped a few times to look at the amazing scenery. At one point we stashed out bikes in the woods and hiked up to a Mountaineer Cemetery. It is basically a cemetery for all those who lost their lives to the mountains. We did a little detour on the Circuito Chico to go to small village called Colonia Suiza. Basically a long time ago some Swiss immigrants moved to this village and ever since it has had a lot of Swiss influence. We had lunch there, which included a menu full of Swiss food. After the Colonia Suiza we headed back to the rental place and returned out bikes. I was anxious to get back because I knew Sandy would be arriving soon.

The group that I did the Circuito Chico with.

Circuito Chico

When I got back to the hostel Sandy was already there and it was great to see her!! I am so happy to have her here; we have already had a lot of fun and are sure to have a lot more fun.

This past week I really haven’t enjoyed school, mostly because of the teacher I had. I had the same teacher for the first 2 weeks and she was great and then I got one this week who was absolutely terrible. I won’t go into detail but lets just say that she did all of the talking and when a lucky student got to throw two words in, they would rudely get interrupted by her as she tried to finish their sentence or correct something. I barely learned anything this week.

We have been filling our afternoons with activities. On the first day we hiked up Cerro Otto, there is a gondola that goes up to the top but we wanted to hike. I heard that below the gondola was a trail so we walked to the gondola and found a trail. Little did I know that the trail followed the gondola straight up the mountain. We hiked straight up a sandy, rocky slope for about 2 and a half hours. It was hard and we’ve come to the conclusion that Argentineans don’t know what switch backs are. The view at the top was very pretty. We decided to walk down the road to get back down, mostly because our knees would hate us if we went back the down the way we came. In the evening we met up with some girls we know for skating and dinner because it was the international day of the mujer (woman). Unfortunately the skating rink was closed and so we just went out for Mexican food. The second day we hiked up Cerro Campanario with a few people from our school. This is a very short hike, the same one I did with the Brazilian couple, and I was surprised to arrive so quickly at the top. To put things in perspective, the first time I did the hike it took us an hour and a half this time it took us 30 mins. That’s how slow we were going the first time. At the top of course we had to try their famous cake and took a few pictures. On Wednesday we just hung around town, Sandy wanted to see downtown Bariloche so we walked around sampling chocolate and visited a few of the chocolate factories. Yesterday Sandy and I played soccer with a bunch of people from another Spanish school. It was lots of fun and after many years of trying to convince Sandy to come and play soccer (at the University) with me she finally did and more importantly she had fun! I guess all it took for her to play soccer was getting her down to Argentina. In the evening we went out for dinner and went to the bus station to book some bus tickets south!

Sandy and I at the top of Cerro Campanario. Supposedly one of the top 10 views in the world.

Sandy and I having fun in one of the chocolate factories

Talking about tickets south, Sandy and I made a last minute, impulsive decision to not go back to school next week and to head south early so that we can spend more time hiking together. Sandy may come back and do another week of Spanish classes later on. We leave Saturday morning for El Bolson, a town 2 hours away to check out their famous market and then on Sunday we start a LONG bus ride to El Calafate. From there we plan on catching a bus to Puerto Natales where we can do some hiking. I am happy with our decision and think that we will get lots of amazing hiking in over the next few weeks.

Our last day in Bariloche was good. We went to class and then got ready to travel south. We then caught a bus east to visit la Colonia Suiza and catch the sunset at the top of Cerro Companario. We didn’t really know the bus route (and we still don’t) and ended up getting off 3 km away from the colony. We walked into the colony only to discover that it is pretty dead (except on Sundays during the market) and were ready to leave immediately after we got there. We thought that the bus came through the colony so we waited at the bus stop for 30 mins with no luck and then decided to walk back out to the main road where there would hopefully be more buses. We got to the main road and quickly realised that there wouldn’t be any buses so we started walking the 8km back to Cerro Campanario since we really wanted to catch the sunset. We got there 30 mins before sunset and still needed to hike 30 mins to get to the top. We quickly changed our minds and decided it might not be the safest idea, especially since we didn´t bring headlamps for the walk back down. We caught the bus back to town, feeling tired and satisfied from a long day.

We leave Bariloche tomorrow and hopefully I will have an update when we get to El Calafate.

Bariloche

I have been in Bariloche for a little less than weeks now! It started with Stephanie joining me for 2 days. It was really cold when she was here and we ended up being cold and wearing all of our clothes all of the time. I was worried that I would need to buy more pants and sweaters etc. With Stephanie we walked around looking at the touristic things that Bariloche has to offer. Bariloche is in the mountains on the edge of a large lake it is very pretty. We walked a lot and visiting a lot of chocolate stores and did some window shopping. We also went a saw a few of the chocolate factories, it was really neat to see the chocolate being made. We also took a chairlift part way up a mountain/hill and rode these really fun luge like things all the way down on a track. The day Stephanie left everything cleared up and its been very hot since. She must have taken the cold weather with her and left it somewhere else.

After Stephanie left I moved into a different hostal, the one that La Montaña Spanish School reserved for me and I started class on the 22nd of February. At first I didn´t like the hostal very much but I quickly realised that its a great place and the owners are very layed back and have a great business. The first night at the hostal they had an asado which was delicious and I got to meet a few people. The next day I went ¨hiking¨ with a couple from Brasil up a mountain called Cerro Campanario. I say hiking but it really was more of a SLOWWW walk. The couple was very slow but in the end the view was worth it. This place claims to have one of the top 10 views in the world. I am not sure who decided that, it was very beautiful but I dont know if it would make the top 10.

I am very happy with the school and I think that they did a accurate job of placing me in a class based on my level. The school organizes after school activities and the first night they offered salsa dancing lessons. Well I hate dancing but I decided to go for it since I didn´t know the next time I´d get the opportunity to learn how to salsa dance from the pros! The instructor was really good and it was fun at first but I got bored really fast. The next days school activity was a ¨caminata¨which means walk and we walked around this neat forest about 30km out of Bariloche.

On Friday I went to a beach along the Nahual Huapi with a few Canadian girls from the school. It was really hot and nice to cool off in the lake. The lake is very cold, probably similar to some lakes in the NWT. On Saturday I went on a hike with some other people of the school, majority Canadians!! (There were a lot of Canadians at the school last week for some reason.) The hike was great. We hiked up to a place called Refugio Frey. It took us about 3.5 hours to get up and was extremely hot. At the top they is a refuge where you can actually rent a bed for the night or pitch a tent outside. There is also a small lake which I waded around in to cool off. We had lunch at the side of the lake and then hung out a little longer. That evening I had to move into my host family so I had to be back at a specific time. Of course we didn´t leave until the last minute since we were enjoying ourselves so much and ending up having to speed walk/run down the mountain. It wasn´t the most enjoyable descent because of the heat and speed were were going but we made in down in 2 hours and arrived 5 minutes before the bus.

I then moved into my family. The family is kind of weird and I´m not sure what to think yet. The dad always throws in English words to everything he is saying which really bothers me since I am staying in his house to learn spanish. The mum is really nice but I haven´t seen much of her because he mum is very sick and therefore she spends every waking moment with her (which I don´t blame her at all). I am a little disapointed with the host family since I moved into a family to speak spanish and the only time I see either of them is 1 hour at dinner time. AND dinner another things that remains to be desired. I don´t know if its because she is in a rush but the food is all instant/frozen food that takes 10 minutes to prepare. I am thinking about going back into the hostal since a host family is expensive and being with this one is really not worth what I´m paying.

The only positive of the family is that there are two girls from another school that are staying with them and they are a lot of fun. On Sunday we went to the local pool which happens to be right beside the lake. The water was a bit warmer than the lake and it made it easier to stay in a little longer.

Overall Bariloche is a really neat place. Although it is very touristy the opportunites in the mountains are amazing. So many hikes with gorgeous views and lots of water activites as well. Sandy should be arriving on the weekend and I am looking forward to the adventures we will have together.