Saturday 11th January 2014
Road to Bariloche
Another day, another bus ride. This time the view as we approached Bariloche was unexpected. When you’re on the move for so long and you’ve seen so many places in such a short period of time, there are times when you stop thinking about what’s coming next. We took an overnight bus from Mendoza to Bariloche (within Argentina’s Lake District). Luckily I happened to wake at dawn. There was no sign of the sun but the horizon line was lit up, on fire, it was like no sunrise I had ever seen before. As time went on, we approached Bariloche, passing lake after lake, seeing all manner of shades of blue. The lakes were like mirrors reflecting the hills around them. We were in Patagonia, and this was just the beginning! Included are just a fraction of the snaps I caught on the bus journey that day.
Bariloche
In hindsight we should have known just from the bus journey that Bariloche would possibly be one of the most beautiful places we would see on our trip. We ended up staying for a week after extending our stay three times and I dreamed about the idea of living by a lake. Bariloche has the most beautiful warm summers with crystal clear, fresh water washing up and down the beaches surrounding the lakes which are so plentiful it’s easy to find deserted patches but also great winters with snow, mountains and winter sports.
If you didn’t know it was Bariloche you could be forgiven for thinking you were in Switzerland. The trees in the area are predominantly firs making it feel like it’s slap bang in the middle of an Alpine forrest, and the architecture screams ski resort. The city is on the bank of the vast Lago Nahuel Huapi in the national park with the same name. The air was clean and fresh, the people were friendly, the service great, the sky at dusk bewitching, the weather was wonderful, bright , warm and sunny but not too hot. We were so relaxed here. We spent the week doing nothing other than seeing some of the most breathtaking sites we had ever seen in our lives.
Camino de los Siete Lagos
On one of our days in Bariloche we rented a car and drove the route of the seven lakes. It was great to be on the road by ourselves rather than on a bus. It was a four hundred kilometre round trip through two other cities north of Bariloche, Villa La Angostura and San Martin De Los Andes. The lakes are like huge branching cracks in the earth. In winter some lakes overflow into adjacent ones. We saw some of the most spectacular views on this trip, the pictures speak from themselves.
Cerro Campanario
Our last day in Bariloche was a relaxing one. We visited Cerro Campanario, a hill not far from the city which provides a great vantage point of the lake district with 360 degree panoramas of the region. After depleting the camera battery we took the slow route back to the city. The rest of the day was spent enjoying food, drinks, spectacular skies and the beach under moonlight.
Ramblers Rumblings 