Bariloche
After Mendoza I travelled south to bariloche. A 20 hour bus ride punctured only by a rather amusing game of bingo – the numbers called out by a rather camp bus attendant. Not sure if there was a prize, I was sure that I was absolutely determined not to win it. I hate winning stuff, or at least the act of getting up infront of people and proclaiming my betterness than them at something as inane as bingo.
The Bus pulled into bariloche in the early afternoon. I was relatively well rested as the bus was pretty comfortable but my back was still a little sore from a rather misguided exercise regime I subjected myself to in Mendoza so the prospect of carting my bag around the town was a little short of enticing but fecked if I was to take on one of the towns crowded buses with the backpack n all the gear so I nabbed what leaflets punting accommodation there was to be had and took off towards the town of bariloche on foot.
The first place didn’t seem to exist so I headed for a second place which was on the other end of town, the leaflet looked good and after a bit of searching the place itself seemed fantastic but full. The nearest place by my calculations from looking at a map lay at the top of a rather sizeable hill which would have you panting without the large load. I got there with a thick film of sweat on my back, despite the close to zero temperatures. Lara answered the door with a lovely smile and absolutely ziltch Spanish. I managed to blurt how Tienes un carto par uno por favour? She replied blabble blabble blabble with the hint of a si in there, postive outcome. I checked into Justinas Hostel.
I soon met the other semi permenant residents of the household. Chris from texas, Camilo from Bogota and Tomer the dog. After a couple of days Juan Pablo from Cordoba in northern argentina checked in and I guess you could say that we were the hostel for the next 15 days or so. Without describing any specific instance or events I just really felt at home in Bariloche. Its setting is amazing, the cleanest looking water reflecting these behemoths of snowclad mountains and every day I was there with little exception had the clearest of blue skies.
There weren’t many early mornings in Bariloche it has to be said, each night we cooked for each other and saw the bottoms of a few too many bottles of rum and chatted away about anything that sprung to mind really. More than anything else I guess that my time in BL taught me the lesson that to truely get to know a place better and to see what it ticks you need to spend some time there even if that time is spent in bed or a little less than sober talking about the virtues of Manchester music in the early 80s – I feel like I have gotten to know a bit of bariloche.
Tags: Argentina, Bariloche, south america
Phil Gill
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