San Carlos de Bariloche

22.06.2008 - 26.06.2008 8 °C
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From Pucon, we drove through a National Park on some not so good roads to get to the Chile-Argentina border. Once in Argentina we continued to drive for 4 hours to get to San Carlos de Bariloche (often referred to as just "Bariloche").

Bariloche is situated at the foothills of the Andes, surrounded by 7 lakes. It is a ski town, home to the largest ski resort in South America (Cerro Catedral). Unfortunatly there hadn't been enough snow and the mountain was closed even though the ski season had started.

Bariloche is also famous for its chocolate and there were chocolate stores everywhere we looked. Our favourite was Mamuschka.

We didn't do a huge amount in Bariloche apart from explore on foot and eat chocolate.

I went out for a day's horse riding. I was the only person from the group to go and was the only English speaking tourist. Even with a severe language barrier, I had a great day. The Estancia (Spanish word for ranch) was about 30km outside of Bariloche and was a sheep farm. They had mainly Merrino for wool, but they also had 1000 sheep for meat. The day started with a mug of mate (a tea like drink they enjoy here), then a quick lesson on stopping and starting the horses and I was given a little pony called Smoking Peter and an argentinian saddle (saddle?)

The morning's ride was up in the hills of the Estancia. We got to see Condors, Deer, Eagles, Hawks and some amazing views of Cerro Catedral.

Towards the end of the ride we were allowed to go for a gallop. Smoking Peter was a super star. He definitely enjoyed the gallop as much as I did and we ended up a long way in front of the others. For lunch we went back to the Estancia for an Argentinian BBQ of beef, lamb and sausage washed down with a few glasses of vino tinto.

In the afternoon we went back out for a two hour ride along the river. The scenery and views were very different than the morning and the ride was a lot faster (maybe the wine!?!?!).