Bariloche, Patagonia, Argentina

Leaving Santiago, Chile to go to Bariloche, Argentina was quite an easy journey. The journey took 22 hours in total. I had to take a night bus most of the way, I had to change buses in Orsorno, at 10.30 in the morning and had about 15 minutes to change between the two buses. I also had a double seat all to myself, which was a real bonus.

When we got to customs the scenery changed quite dramatically, it was full of snow, rivers, lakes and mountains, and continued like this until Bariloche. This area of Argentina is known as the lake district. There are 7 huge lakes that the bus had to pass through, so a beautifully, scenic bus journey.

I did not arrive at Bariloche until 7.30 in the evening, by this time it was fairly dark. I checked in to the hostel, which was lovely and comfortable, and hoped to go to get some rest, but the guests in the hostel were not really letting me and were making me speak Spanish and Portuguese!

Everyone was warm and welcoming. I was sharing a room with four Brazilian girls who were all good fun.

The next morning, the girls all left early to go skiing, and I went to my Spanish class. I was in a class with two Dutch girls. The class was really good. I really enjoyed learning Spanish at the school and got on very well with everyone. In the breaks the school gave us all media lunas, which are really sweet croissants. Delicious!

So school was going really well, and so was the stay in the hostel. During the day the class would all go to lunch together and then evenings I would stay in the hostel with the Brazilians. Most of the people in the hostel were Brazilian. We made dinner for each other and drank a fair bit of red wine. There was a very good bottle of red wine left under my bed from the previous guests that we all decided to drink together. When the girls left a Chilean brother and sister moved in and so did an Austrian brother and sister, who were all so lovely.

The Austrian brother and sister are ski instructors and said they were really happy to take me up on to the mountain and teach me how to ski. Which kind of worked out well. I found it quite hard at first. But I kept at it and managed to do some of the basic moves. I was quite tired by the end of it, so came down a bit earlier then them. Later on, that evening we all shared some food and beer together.

The previous few days I had had a few late nights and had been horse riding too. Which was all fun. We went in to the national park on the horses. My horse was good fun. It did not like to wait for other horses to pass, did not like to be too far behind any one else, and when ever it saw water would trot over and go have a drink. The water contained more ice than water, and were quite deep at times. I was a bit scared I may fall off. The horse would also pick up speed when it was returning back to the stables. It was a good day though. The girls from the Spanish school all went, as did some of the girls from the gap tour I had been on, that I left in Santiago.

It was great to catch up with people from the gap tour.They went further south in Chile and then came in to Argentina. They were in Bariloche for 3 days, before heading up to Buenos Aires.

I then moved on to a home stay. The family were lovely, and made really good evening meals. They made me practice my Spanish a lot. There were two other students in the home stay, they were both students at the same school too. One of the students, Amanda left mid week and Brian moved out the same time I did.

The last three weeks in Bariloche is snowed a lot. We walked to school in the snow most days. The homestay had a beautiful view of the lake and mountains. The weather changed so much every way, that sometimes we could see them and other days you would not know that there was a lake there.

All my days in Bariloche seemed to be very full. The school organised a lot of activities: salsa, voluntary work and we often watched Argentinean films, which were all very good. Over the weekends I went for walks in the mountains. I never made it skiing again, partly because it was such an effort to hire everything, and we had to get up to early to make the most of it. The walks in the mountains were wonderful through. The lakes were a mix of blues and greens and so clear. There were small waterfalls everywhere. The forests had a beautiful pine and cypress aroma. The sounds of the waters surrounding us were tranquil.

On one of the walks a dog decided to follow us. He kinda guided the way for us at times. If he heard another dog he would try to steer them away. The dog stayed with us until two guys passed us carrying some food. I think the dog knew he had more of a chance getting food from them, then us as we had no food on us.

I really had a great time in Bariloche. The town was fairly small and full of chocolate shops, my Spanish really improved, all the students really got on well at the school, we would often meet up in the evenings and did things together at the weekends. It was really relaxing.

The last few days in Bariloche I moved in to a hostel. This was warm and welcoming too. Everyone was so friendly. We played cards together and just hung out together. I was not having any lessons this week, so went on a few more walks.

One of the treks was in the snow. We saw a powerful waterfall, which looked ice cold and a black glacier. It was in an area called 'Pampa Linda' and the glacier was called 'Cerro Tronador'. Tronador means thunder. The glacier is always moving and causes the land to move. When this happens it sounds like thunder. It was a horrible sound to me, but overwhelming too to see the dramatics of nature.

I also made the most of eating all my favorite Argentinian foods: dulce de leche, alforaj biscuits, empanadas, media lunas and ice cream from the best ice cream store I have ever been too.

My last night in Bariloche was fun. We all went out for fondue and ate so much cheese, and tasted the last of the Argentinian red wine.

I made my way back to Santiago airport with no problems at all. The gave us alforajes for all our meals on the buses so I was delighted. At the airport a Mexican guy sat with me as we were waiting for the check in desks to open. I managed to speak to him in very broken Spanish for a couple of hours, so was pleased with myself.

The plane left Santiago quite a bit later than scheduled. The take off was horrible. It was raining really heavily, so there was a bit of turbulence. I was sitting beside a guy from New Zealand who was not helping me to calm down. The plane was shaking for a while and it seemed to take a long time until we were in the air. I think the guy took a lot of pleasure in seeing me scared.

Landing was equally bad. There were noises coming from the airplane that I had never heard before. But we did land safely and I am now in New Zealand. Still a bit confused with the time difference and having lost a day.

I have met up with Gemma and the hostel is good. We went on a free city tour today of Auckland which was fun. We walked under the bridge, where we could have done a bungee jump if we wanted to, but I think the walk was enough for us. It went over the ocean. It has been really cold and wet here. The walk under the bridge really woke us both up. We have both been a bit dazed and confused since we landed. We went to bed yesterday at 7pm and slept through until 6am the next day!

We have booked ourselves on to a coach tour which takes us all over the north and south island. We leave tomorrow at 7.00am. The first two stops are Waitomo- where the caves with the glow worms are and Rotorua- which has thermal springs and lots of volcanoes.

Will let you all know soon how it all goes.