Bariloche: Part Two

I write most of this section sitting on a beach, listening to the waves of the lake lapping ashore, the sun bearing down on us, the cloudless blue sky above, the wind keeping us cool, and the snow capped peaks enclosing the horizon, waiting for the bus to take us to the airport. What a change to the Bariloche (and us) from just under a week ago!

Spa Day

After spending the last few weeks almost constantly hiking about (save the 26 hours sitting on bus), James had the brilliant idea to go to a spa and recuperate our weary muscles. He’d found a place with a deal for two, at the Huinid Hotel & Spa, and today was that much needed day. We got to the spa eager and early, ensuring we were the only people there. The weather has completely shifted and there’s not a cloud in the sky. The snowy peaks now visible for the first time.

We enjoy a lovely hot soak in the jacuzzi surrounded by cheese plants, a swim in the pool, a relaxing read (me) and gym session (James) looking out onto the fantastic views of the lake and mountains, sweat some of the stress of the last few days away in the sauna, and have our muscles massaged to relaxation in the spa. We saunter around in robes and enjoy a brief stint of luxury and relaxation, no planning, no booking, no researching, just enjoying the moments of calm.

For me, it seems, there’s nothing like a sauna to release mental tension. It’s either this or the stunning cloudless blue sky and beaming sunshine that have helped reset mentally as much as physically. I also take some time to develop a mantra to help me get out of funks when travelling throws its curve balls. Desperate to eke out every last minute of this idyllic location, we decide to stay for a bite of lunch.

The hotel has a huge complex of rooms but also cabins through manicured grounds, each patio with its own grill (only in Argentina!), and pointy beaked birds potter around.

In one corner is a huge mansion with a two-storey grand stone entrance, looking out over the lake and mountains that we figure is the family house of the original owners, no doubt living off the land now making a tidy income. What a life!

We’re going our separate ways briefly today, as James wants to finally go and get a haircut, and I decide to check out the chocolate museum.

The chocolate museum is now run by Havana, a renowned, old confectionary company that started out life making alfajores. The little museum gives me a history of chocolate, along with a lovely small cup of hot chocolate that is 40% chocolate and 100% tasty. I learn that it’s once again thanks to monks that we have chocolate, as they were the ones who invented putting the cacao with hot water and sugar to make hot chocolate, and it’s down to this it spread in Europe, and had many more iterations and inventions to become what it is today.

With the weather delivering the scenery I was expecting, I take the long walk home to soak in the vitamin C, and stunning views. I am now able to appreciate the beauty of town that seemed so cold and desolate before. The streets are alive with people enjoying beers on picnic benches, and tourists milling about deciding how many chocolates is too many. Everyone is out sunbathing, playing on the beach, relaxing on the grass, and soaking up the views. The buildings that, when damp with rain, looked like plastic imitations of a Swiss town, now actually look the age they are.

We spend the evening enjoying the night in with a lovely roast dinner James does a fantastic job making in our typically limited Airbnb kitchen.

Cycle Day

With the weather back on side, we’ve planned to make the most of it by getting back on the bikes. There’s something called the Circuito Chico (small circuit) here, and due to it being 27km long, we can’t really hike this one in a day! Hiring bikes is the way to go, and we’re not the only ones, as the bike rental place is setup like a well-oiled machine. We get given a briefing in English, pick out our helmets and high-vis vests, do a little loop around the test track before signing our lives and the bike’s suitability away. And we’re off!

The ride is a glorious journey through woodland, along a proper road, wide, flat, properly paved with hardly any cars, the sky a deep blue above, and the snow-capped peaks showing themselves every so often.

It’s the definition of undulating, with declines so fast releasing the breaks for even a fraction of a second means reaching almost maximum speed in the next second. The uphills are bad, but thankfully manageable, and taper off just before the point of giving up each time. There are a few viewpoints along the way, but the star of the show is a stop at the Patagonia Brewery, where James confirms it as “the most beautiful view in the world”. The beers are pretty good too!

We debate whether or not we just spend all day there and call in a rescue from the bike rental, but as this stop is only half an hour in, we figure we should really continue on. We drag ourselves from perfection and continue the route. It includes another stop for a picnic lunch in a bay, and a little side-explore to Villa Tacul, another beautiful bay, although we realise too late that it wasn’t worth the long return uphill (where I finally gave up and gave the bike a walk).

The ride reinvigorates us and our appreciation for the beauty that Bariloche holds (and held back from us for the first few days). It’s also been nice to do something other than hiking. We spend the route enjoying the scenes, marveling at the gorgeous array of cabins, deciding which style we would live in. Just as I think the day can’t get any more perfect, little white tufts start to drift down from the sky, as some pollen mimics snowfall, to finish off the journey with a stunning flourish.

Returning to the bike shop with wide smiles, we decide to not end the day just yet, and get off the return bus early to stop at another brewery, Blest KM4. I don’t think anywhere can compare to the views of Patagonia Brewery, but they do have a huge array of beers that we’re eager to try, and all for less than £2 or £3 each. We try Cherry, Honey, NEIPA and a red IPA, as we debate which is more physically challenging, running or cycling. It’s been a fantastic day, that we round off with a bottle of wine and leftovers for dinner.

Argentinians Love Cheese

Our last day in Bariloche means checking out a place called La Fonda del Tio, which we’ve seen queues of people outside each day, and have eyed it up as the perfect place for our last meal here. Their speciality is Milanesa topped with ham and a vat of melted cheese with tomato sauce, Milenesa Napolitana is the name. Due to an early check out, we’re the first in the queue, and get a table looking out the never-tiring gorgeous lake view. James also gets a roquefort empanada to start.

As someone who doesn’t like blue cheese, even I enjoyed the empanada. And then it’s not long before our mammoth milanesa’s arrive.

Now we’re not often beaten by food, but two of these finally did it. It’s good, that’s not the reason why, it’s just so… much… cheese. We power through and whilst James does us proud, I flag at the end. We don’t know if we’ll be hungry ever again… Except, of course, I have a separate dessert stomach, and I am craving a proper farewell Bariloche treat. Which comes in the shape and size of a mountain, of icecream this time, instead of cheese or potato. There’s some fruit in there too, I promise!

More than satiated (and feeling rather unwell), it’s time to head to the airport and say farewell to this town that gave us a real ride, psychologically and physically!

Testing the Mantra

As everyone is queueing to board our plane, we’re due to take off in 10 minutes, I’m dreaming of the empanadas, parilla and general good-time we’re planned to have with my old friend Daniel and his family tomorrow in La Plata, there’s an announcement over the tannoy. “Something in Spanish… something in Spanish… [please remain calm]...” and everyone starts walking towards the exit, calmly. At first I think they’ve just changed our gate, but realise that we wouldn’t need to keep calm for that. Deducing that we’re actually being evacuated (which they never announce in English) we follow the horde towards the exit. We are shepherded down the car-park ramp into the car-park which is thankfully bathed in sun.

We’ve definitely been in worse carparks, and the view here is somehow still beautiful. There’s murmurs of bomb threats, but really nothing is communicated to anyone. There’s no-one around to ask either. Some planes take off so we figure it can’t be a bomb or anything serious, probably just some fire alarm tripped. We’re just a mass of people in a car-park sitting in the sun, but still in the dark.

More and more people file out of the airport, more than we thought would be in there, and we later find out they were people who were on 4 planes that took off and had to return as the threat was also to the planes they were on. There’s children and some incredibly frail people sitting in wheelchairs, looking seriously on the edge of life, as their family try and layer them up to shelter them from the now, very cold, wind. After an hour and a half of making conversation with James The Third, a Californian who is enjoying his gin (maybe too much), but has 3 more flight connections to get after arriving to BA, we are given a false start back to the terminal. The novelty has definitely worn off by the time we’re told we actually can’t go back in and to head back to our car-park.

Some more time passes, and eventually we are let back in the building, but not after having to all funnel through the single stairwell back to departures. We make the wrong call thinking we can just go back through security, as eventually we get to the front and are told our flight is not allowed through. We realise after too many others that we need to go back to the check-in desks, and join the end of an already long queue. There’s one lady fielding individual questions, but no-one to just announce the situation. We hear murmours that the delay to the flight has meant they can’t use the same crew, so they’re figuring out if they have to cancel it or not. Wait in line.

We wait, and eventually the news makes it to us that the flight has indeed been cancelled. American James makes his way further up the queue by joining some other “friends” he made. The gentleman behind us tells a story of this happening in Ushuaia and they wouldn’t put on a new plane, so it took 3 days to get on a flight out as they just filled the empty seats of what was already booked. Oh good. Two older ladies get allowed to the front of the queue, to jeers and shouts from equally older people behind us in the queue. Everyone has been pretty civilised until this point, but there’s only so long you can keep people in the dark before something tips them over the edge. Thankfully the jeers die down, as more a release of frustration at the whole situation, but no-one else attempts the same trick.

We eventually see American James the third, along with some others, rushing through to departures to get on a plane out tonight, there is hope! Unfortunately for us, the queue suddenly stops moving so quickly, and so do the passengers, as they stand at the desks clearly factoring in options. This is confirmed by the time we make it to the front, that all the planes are full until tomorrow evening. It’s time for me to practice my new mantra of accepting the knocks and changes of plan. Our only option is to fly tomorrow on the 19:20, and because it’s not the airline’s fault, they have no responsibility to help us with anything. No accommodation, no food or drink vouchers, not even a way to get back to town.

Having run the Sube card empty getting here, of course, there’s nowhere to charge the Sube in the airport. It is still beyond me how somewhere can enforce a digital card system but have no way to load them up at the bus or plane terminals that tourists will arrive from. Remember our Ubers are also blocking us from using them. Cabify refuses to let me create an account. We don’t have enough cash for a taxi who don’t accept cards. Up to this point, I’ve managed to keep my spirits up, but I’ll be honest that at this point, realising I’m not going to spend the day with Daniel and his family in La Plata, and wondering how on earth we’re going to get out of this airport, I start to break. But that’s not the airline’s problem, our man behind the desk still has people to disappoint.

We glumly go and get our backpacks from the carousel, and I ask a guy under a collectivo sign if we can pay by card. He says something incredibly quickly and all I catch is that there isn’t another one for over an hour, or we can wait an hour and a half for a bus, or something. Sensing some kind of scam, we head outside to see the carpark lit up like a Christmas Market. Sadly, these are the flashing lights of all the emergency vehicles that eventually showed up, and have now blocked the entrance and exit to the airport. No-one is coming in or out of the airport, except by foot.

Now I asked a couple of different people, and I asked them to speak slowly, and they explained to me the situation, and whilst I understood the words, I did not understand the logic behind trapping an airport full (that is closing by the way) of abandoned people in a location being searched for bombs. But there we were. Apparently, what the guy was explaining, was that the collectivos are the only thing being let in, for who knows what reason, but because of the nature of collectivo there’s no way to know when the next one will be back. We’re stumped. We sit. We commiserate with Daniel over whatsapp. And we find online somewhere cheap to spend the night.

The information lady I spoke to earlier comes over to me and quickly says if we want to get on a bus, we need to go. NOW. We follow the crowd that’s now lugging all their gear, on foot, over the unpaved road, out of the airport. We enjoy the ease of our backpacks over suitcases for the first time as we get onto the bus and just hope our card has one paid journey left on it, and an emergency one. Seemingly we only have enough pesos for one person. We look at each other in panic, and speak in English, and feign to not understand that there’s no credit on the card, and just walk on the bus. The driver doesn’t stop us. As we wedge ourselves into some seats with out gear, the hordes arrive. It seems not having cash on your Sube is not a unique situation to be in. But for some reason, we seem to be the only ones to get away with it, as the driver asks others to pay for the journeys of these unfortunate souls. This is common practice it seems, and at 15p (or 45p at official rate) not too much an ask, but for a now bus full of people I think the generous lady is regretting her offer. Again, it’s beyond me how a bus driver can insist a bunch of abandoned people, who have literally no other way of getting anywhere, and no way to top up these cards, should refuse the journey, but here we are. The hordes cram on the bus more and more as this is the only bus back now. A group of older guys are squashed around us, and we find out they were also due to be on our flight, they were behind us in the queue. They’re incredibly jovial still and laugh and joke with the others, and then help us to extricate ourselves at our stop.

We go to our hostel and look blankly at each other as the hostel charges us just £14 instead of £40, but say nothing. We realise that booking.com shows the USD rate at the blue dollar rate, and so instead of paying $49 USD, we pay the actual Argentinian price. This is all the more reassuring when we get to the room and it very much resembles a £14 a night room!

As the dust settles, it’s time to take stock of the situation and practice the new mantra. We’re exhausted, it’s late, we defer figuring out next moves until the morning, and crawl into our creaky, saggy, camp beds, as I note my new approach seems to be doing the trick.

Second Chance Sunday

As per, I’ve slept poorly, and am up early. Attempts to find somewhere to stay in BA tonight are proving complicated, as there’s no way to know if the hostel will charge the blue dollar rate or the official rate. A mediocre hotel can go from being aptly priced to being hugely overpriced, and we thankfully find this out before booking a £90 a night hovel. Airbnb it is! We decide to spend our extra day in Bariloche in the place we enjoyed the most… the Patagonia Brewery! We debate visiting the seemingly renowned Colonia Suiza, but I practice a new approach of not over-complicating a situation when trying to make up for something we’ve missed out on. Today we will just drink beer and enjoy views and eat, and that’s fine.

As is the way now, easier said than done though. To get there, we need to use rhe Sube card. That one we already maxed out yesterday. I try and create an account to top it up online, but you need an Argentine national ID (foreigners can get their support team to work around this, but they only work Monday to Friday).

So, James goes out to try and top it up in person at a kiosco with the few pesos we have left. No dice. It’s Sunday, and so everywhere is shut. We are fast running out of time to get the one bus that runs every two hours, and also check-out. Time is ticking.

I manage to get my Argentinian friend Daniel to create an account with his Argentina details for our Sube card. But I can’t load any cash on because you need to use a separate app to load money on, and none are available to non-Argentinians. Daniel saves the day again as he loads some cash on there… except he can’t verify the topup to apply it to the card in my hand. Something he doesn’t understand either. Time ticks away. We need to check-out.

Daniel calls a friend to figure out how to get the money he’s paid to be recognised by the card in my hand. We check out and decide to try and make it into town where we hope to be more likely to find a kiosco open and hopefully beat the bus there. As we leave we realise the kiosco out front has now opened up. But it doesn’t do top-ups, she points us to the one 2 blocks down. Time ticks away.

As we hop back across the road, Daniel has figured out I need to tap my card to my phone when logged into his account to ‘verify’ the money he’s put on it. I get this message just as James has handed over the card and cash to the kiosco. We now have more than enough money on the damn card. Time slows back down. The bus arrives. The card works. We make it to the Brewery. We revel in the joy of two sheepdogs. And enjoy the absolute peace and tranquility once more of the Patagonia Brewery.

Beers acquired (2 for 1 too!). Views taken in. More beers drunk. Burgers and steaks consumed. (Further stressing over the accommodation problem in BA). Debates over whether there’s any way this view could be any better, and coming up blank. We run off to get the bus back and try this leaving Bariloche lark again. But not before a stop to do one last thing Bariloche is known for… enjoy some ice cream from one of the renowned chocolate shops, Rapa Nui.

The rest of the journey goes as smoothly as it should have all the other times, and I am finally finishing this post on the plane, in the air, now taking in the last glimpses of the gorgeous snowy peaks we won’t be seeing again on this trip.

Bariloche has given us physical and emotional ups and downs, but that’s backpacking! My brother helps me realise that part of my frustration is about these wastes of time feeling like we’re wasting this amazing opportunity we have if we aren’t making the most of every moment. James reminds us that we’re backpacking, we’re not on holiday, the weather can’t always be good, and we can’t do everything. It’s given me the opportunity to really reflect and take stock of how to manage myself better, and really practice doing so! As the saying goes, it’s the failures you learn the most from, and I’ve learnt a lot that I hope will put me in better stead for whatever challenges face us next, because there will be more.

Despite the difficulties this week brought our way, we’ve had the most amazing experiences too, eaten the best steak, drunk the best wine, found probably our most favourite place yet, and for the first time on this trip, found somewhere we would actually want to come to again… but probably with a wedge of USD and pesos in cash!

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Adventure: trying to bake brownies in a gas oven with no temperature markings, great success! Almost getting out of an escape room we decided to do at the last minute. Food challenges. Changing Chilean pesos from some dodgy gang of street urchins and their dad. Getting my first haircut of the trip by an adolescent that didn’t speak a word of English and kept asking me questions, then worrying they’d charged me £40 for the experience… it was actually £4! (James)

Excitement: eating the juiciest steak and drinking the smoothest wine. Seeing “snow” fall. Cycling around fairytale landscapes.

Trauma: trying to get a Sube card loaded to travel on public buses, trying to buy a voucher for the spa and getting generic errors, Uber blocking our accounts, being evacuated from and then trapped at the airport. Taking our bikes for a walk.