Bariloche - A magic lantern full of chimeras

San Carlos de Bariloche (Argentina)
19 OCT - 23 OCT 2010

Over the last week or so I've taken to reviewing Patagonian real estate, particularly in Bariloche. Why? Perhaps due to the fact that I was consciously anticipating doing this write up, perhaps due to the fact that aesthetically this was one of the most stunning places that I'd had the fortune of intruding on in my months away, or perhaps because there is a real desire for me to acquire myself a little piece of this Andean dream scape.

Venturing through the Rio Negro province - Patagonia - Argentina

Venturing through the Rio Negro province - Patagonia - Argentina

What's the deal with the chimera then? Well these days the term has come to mean, more generally, an impossible or foolish fantasy. Perhaps my quest to carve out ownership in this little city on the southern shores of Nahuel Huapi lake is just that, but I still like the thought of it. Then there's the fact that a chimera in Greek mythology is a bit of a 'bitsa', a creature made up of the oddest animals parts that just also happens to breathe fire, like all good mythological creatures should do. In my view, San Carlos de Bariloche is a little like that, it suffers from multiple personality disorder. Wholly sitting within the land of Argentina, having close economic ties with the Chilean town of Port Montt, settled by a wandering German and inhabited by a number of his brethren as well a handful of Austrians, Slovenes and Chileans, this is a Spanish speaking multicultural cocktail of people nicely tucked in at the base of one of the greatest mountain ranges on earth. There's all that plus the fact that the mountains made be realise that I hadn't been snowboarding in something close to four years, damn you Andes and your snow capped peaks over a pristine cobalt blue lake, damn you hard!

View from the hostel - San Carlos de Bariloche - Patagonia - Argentina

View from the hostel - San Carlos de Bariloche - Patagonia - Argentina

Arriving in Bariloche via an 18 hour run on our double decker four wheeled Argentinian chariot of backpacking conquest, hermana de la sol (aka Sister Sunshine) woke us from our Mendozon malbec induced haze somewhere on the desolate roads of Patagonia with Señor Hugo somehow still basking fondly in the sunshine of our memories. Bariloche was again one of those places that I had intuitively felt that I needed to see but couldn't quite develop the right 'sell strategy' by which I could convince travelling partner, other than the fact that I assured D that the place looked dynamite and that I had a fondness for mountains which at this point I wanted to indulge in a little. Somewhere inside me I hoped that we'd escape another tragedy of  Montevideo proportions as we'd travelled a significant distance south and it put us much further out of the Parque Ambue Ari range that we'd really intended and our time of arrival to the park was nigh.

Yeah, does this car make my bum look big?

Dude, where's my owner?

Riding into Bariloche beneath a blanket of cloud, irritating rain and a wind that had a familiar mountain style bite to it  I immediately got suckered in by the dynamic surroundings . Dramatic mountains standing tall, over what on this day was a tempestuous lake, little San Carlos already had that familiar atmosphere and a mood that I acquainted to mountainous areas. How strange it was therefore that I was already feeling a sizable slice of  regret on arrival as I knew that our initial schedule would have us moving out of town in under two days time. An issue that would come to a head the following day when D and I had our greatest day of tension in the two months that we spent on the road. With that said though, considering that there wasn't any hand to hand combat, no name calling and that we were quite civil about the whole thing, our moments of anxiety riddled tension were conquered swiftly with margarita chasers the following evening, but I'm getting a little ahead of the game here.

Lake Nahuel Huapi - Bariloche - Argentina

Lake Nahuel Huapi - Bariloche - Argentina

Our abode in Bariloche was a fantastic little hostel that had great views out onto the lake and to the mountains beyond. As much as I knew that when I arrived that I'd find it difficult to leave after just two days, the accommodation that we had acquired kind of sealed the deal for me. Somewhere along the line within the next 36hours, diverging schedules, either real or imagined, were going to come to a head and in turn it was going to force me to actually entertain the idea of be defaulting to the now fabled Plan B. I'm not sure if D and I had actually discussed our respective Plan B's up until this point but somewhere during our time in Bariloche our conversation stumbled onto a bunch of hypotheticals, or more pointendly, what if scenarios. The obvious question being, what if this travelling partnership hadn't worked out? I explained to D that I had formulated a speech in my ahead, akin to a break up speech, something like, 'Yeah, it's been fun, but you know, there's things that I need to do and obviously things that you need to do and perhaps its time for us both to travel solo for a while, maybe we'll catch up along the way' . That was going to be my 'go to' line if I needed it, thankfully there was never a time when it needed to be used because everything worked out swimmingly, but again, that's me getting ahead of the game a little.

Our first night in Bariloche involved a little bit of a foot patrol and discovering a place that Willy Wonker obviously worked over pretty hard in his time off from the chocolate factory. It's like Cadbury and Nestle both had a nuclear meltdown in Bariloche and the fallout manifested itself into a town filled with 101 chocolaterias. It really was kind of nuts in down town Bariloche, it was a cacophany of milk chocolate, white chocolate, dark chocolate, chocolate with dulce de leche, chocolate fountains, rum chocolate,  Kahlua chocolate, hoboken madness chocolate, Spanish oompa loompas, it was simply a chaotic chocolate induced delirium that you could only absolve yourself from by looking out onto the surrounding mountains and convincing yourself that you'd hike it all off, on one of these random days (whenever that day may eventuate). This chocolate mind bend di such a number on us that we almost forgot to drink that night, almost...

Cerro Campanario - Bariloche - Argentina

Cerro Campanario - Bariloche - Argentina

View from Cerro Campanario - Bariloche - Argentina

Now the next day in Bariloche was where the tension rating was dialled up to a solid 8 on the 'acceptometer'. It kind of went something like this. D and I had taken to sleeping in during the mornings, I mean a decent sleep in that had us stirring into some sort of movement close to midday. On this day I remember jumping on the net in the reception area of the hostel and hearing this song [Carlos Varela - fotos de familia], it was one of those moments when I really felt present, you know, those rare moments where you kind of feel mildly euphoric and particularly appreciate the situation you're in. I mean here I was in South America, a place that I'd wanted to travel to for years, was in a fantastic town and I was doing it, living the dream so to speak. The problem on this day however was that we needed to find ourselves bus tickets north to Bolivia for the very next day, something which I assumed would be relatively easy. It wasn't. Dina and I battled for 4-5 hours online to try and secure cheap transport up to Sucre and with each passing minute of travel failure the tension rose palpably and in turn each missing minute meant that the light of day dropped away behind the 'hills', a day that would inevitably become one that was lost. Our bus failure for the afternoon then translated into us virtually missing out on only day available that we had to see what Bariloche and the surrounding area had to offer and in turn involved us making our way out to the bus station in order to secure tickets.

View from Cerro Campanario - Bariloche - Argentina

View from Cerro Campanario - Bariloche - Argentina

Jumping in a cab and riding out to the bus station I felt angry, disappointed and just plain dumb. Here we were, planning to leave a fantastic place and all we'd seen was the inside of the hostel virtually, it was simply stupid. I turned over a thousand thoughts in my head on that 10 min drive, all of which caused me to be more than a little introverted. I don't think I said a word to D on the way out to the station other than 'This is really stupid'. At the bus station it was more than obvious that we were ticked with the situation and the schedule that we'd put ourselves on and that translated into a couple terse, curt exchanges. At the point where we were standing in line to purchase tickets and just about to pay I had my little flip out, I took D aside and just said, 'I can't do this'. From there I think the conversation went a little like this;

'You can't do what exactly?'

'I can't leave, it's just stupid. We haven't even seen the place and now we're leaving. I don't think I can leave tomorrow'

'Ok, so when do you think you can go?'

'I need another two days at least'

I think that was close to what we said. At that very instant my mind was racing, trying to reconcile leaving with the fact that I'd simply be having another adventure elsewhere, plus there was also the fact that I'd already committed to walking puma's in Bolivia with D and usually when I make a commitment to do something  I stick to it, even if the other person isn't depending on it. Then the question from D was presented, and man, I think I answered it quickly enough but my mind wavered  and I was scrambling somewhat, it went something like this;

'Ok, then we'll stay another couple of days, no problem, but you're still OK to come up to the park aren't you?' - I think that was pretty close to what D said.

In the second it took me to answer my head raced. I wasn't sure at that point. I really wanted to stay in Bariloche for a while, in fact, in that instant I had it in my mind to travel south and make my way down as far as I could go. There's just something about snow capped peaks that gets me each and every time. I almost defaulted to my Plan B and not through any fault by either of us, just that I felt at that point that my heart was saying something different to my head. Still, my response came out in this form;

'Yes, still OK to go'

And that was it. Crisis resolved, travel itinerary put back in its place. That evening after the tension of the afternoon had sailed away on the breeze we had ourselves a few margaritas and laughed at how absolutely idiotic we'd been. It really hadn't been anywhere near the big deal that we had imagined it to have been a few hours earlier. We settled on a few more days in San Carlos and decided that we'd pull a 60hr + bus ride into Bolivia another day, and that was that. Case closed.

Your explorer on the road - something about 'it' being over there?

Quilmes - synonymous with getting pissed in Argentina

The next few days in Bariloche were outstanding. Picture perfect blue bird days made for some excellent sightseeing. We spent one of those days up on Cerro Campanario with what we were advised were 'world class' views, and of course they were. The other day we spent walking through the town and hanging out by the lake, it was just the tonic that I needed.

Moonrise - Bariloche - Argentina

Two days after we had originally intended to leave we actually did make our way out of Bariloche and I think both of us were satisfied with the outcome. It's a place that I of course have mentally checked on the 'To do again' list, especially knowing the fact that one of the best ski areas in South America, Cerro Catedral, is just a 45 min ride out of town. Who knows though, maybe one day I'll look out onto the lake from my own little joint on one of these hills, you'll all be welcome of course, just look out for the welcome sign that says Chimera.

JJ bombed once again - random Italian restaurant - Bariloche - Argentina