Argentina: Bariloche

From Puerto Madryn we drove to Bariloche, which is a bit nonsensical because Bariloche is a bit further north. However, Bariloche is a good choice because it has the best bus connections on the legendary Ruta 40 road heading south. This road is particularly legendary among travelers who are traveling with cars, trucks, buses, or similar vehicles. You can even buy pins, jewelry, patches, and other things to show the world that you've traveled down Ruta 40. However, why the road is so legendary is absolutely baffling to me because in reality it is just a road. In pretty good condition, I must add. Anyway, we'll come back to this legendary road later, as we'll be spending several hours of our lives on it, although mostly sleeping. First, we went to Bariloche, which took about 15 hours.

Bariloche is located on Lake Nahuel Huapi and is the capital of the lake area of Argentina. It actually looks a bit like Switzerland there. There are lakes and mountains. There are also chairlifts that can take you up the mountains easily. The lake area of Chile and Argentina experienced a strong immigration from Germany and Switzerland, and Bariloche is even known for being a refuge for Nazis after World War II. And the newcomers have greatly influenced the region. The old town of Bariloche looks a bit like a Swiss ski resort. The travel guide says that "the city is characterized by Alpine architecture." In the Civic Center, there are many beautiful stone and wooden buildings. You can have fondue and Rösti here, although at somewhat inflated prices. And as if that wasn't enough, one of the highlights of Bariloche is the chocolate made here. Bariloche is the "chocolate capital" of Argentina, and there are chocolate shops on every corner. Of course, we wanted to try them out and indulged in the famous chocolate shop "Mamuschka". And indeed, the chocolate was quite good for Latin American standards, but it can't compare to Swiss chocolate by far.

But what really gets on my nerves is the local mascot of Bariloche. It's a Saint Bernard dog with a barrel around its neck. Yes, that's right. You can buy Saint Bernard stuffed animals with barrels in the souvenir shops all over Bariloche. And that's not all: in the main square, there are always some dog owners with their huge Saint Bernards waiting to take photos with tourists in exchange for some money. We were told that all these dogs descend from a pair of Saint Bernards that were brought here from Switzerland. We felt sorry for these poor creatures because they spend the whole day tied to a leash in one place, waiting for tourists. There is hardly any movement, and we could only hope that the owners would take them for a long walk after their "workday". Some dogs were better cared for than others.

So the bottom line is: it was just like being at home and that was reason enough to leave quickly. Sure, Switzerland is beautiful, I love Switzerland, but only in Switzerland. I'm not traveling the world to hang out in a cheap imitation of my home country. In fact, there is even a Colonia Suiza near Bariloche, but visiting it would have been too much.

So we only stayed in Bariloche for one day and did the usual typical tourist tour here: the Circuito Chico. To be honest, we chose the organized half-day tour in a minibus out of laziness instead of exploring on our own with public buses. As we found out the next day, it was a good idea because there was a strike by bus operators that day.

After picking up all the participants from their respective hotels early in the morning, we headed to the first stop at Cerro Campanario, the local mountain of Bariloche. We took the chairlift up to the top, where there were 3 lookout points with a truly wonderful panoramic view of the huge lake and the islands in it. Then we continued to the resort town of Llao Llao, where the apparently most famous hotel in Argentina, the Llao Llao, is located. However, we were not allowed to enter the fancy place and could only take photos of what was allegedly the most famous photo motif of Bariloche from another viewpoint. The Argentinians were very excited about this experience, but personally, I liked the beautiful views we had from other viewpoints along the way much better. At each mirador, you could also try something, chocolate, liqueurs, whatever, of course with the hope that tourists would buy the products and the guide would get a commission. We also encountered another little Saint Bernard called Che! Once again, the Commander. When I discreetly took a photo of the dog, the owner immediately rushed towards me and aggressively demanded that I delete the photo, after all, I hadn't paid for it. However, he completely ignored the fact that at that time there were countless people at this public place taking photos from all angles, where Che was definitely also in the frame. Che himself seemed to be completely indifferent to the whole situation. So, as I said, the tour consisted of visiting various viewpoints, and when that was done, we went back to Bariloche. The Circuito Chico seems to be a popular tour for cyclists as well, as we saw some along the way. Funny enough, the route follows the main road where you hardly have a view of the beautiful lake and constantly get overtaken by cars. That's not really fun for biking.

Jörg and I spent the afternoon strolling through the city, walking along the lake, hanging out in the square, eating chocolate, and observing the people and dogs. In the evening, we were looking forward to a cozy dinner at the Italian restaurant. We could have saved our money, though because the spaghetti carbonara we had there were the most awful ones I had ever eaten in my life. Yuck.

The next day, we continued to El Chalten.

We returned to Bariloche again a few weeks later, this time coming from Puerto Montt in Chile, but I'll skip that for now. Argentina has definitely become the country with the most entries, by far.

We came back to buy a souvenir that I fell in love with but then didn't buy and ended up regretting it the whole time because we couldn't find it anywhere else in Argentina. Jörg was also not sad about the short trip from Chile because there was a burger chain in Argentina that he really liked: Mostaza. The last branch of this burger joint that we came across was also in Bariloche. So, in the end, the trip, which only cost us a 6-hour bus ride each way from Puerto Montt, was a win-win situation for both of us. It also gave us the opportunity to quickly go to the pharmacy and buy some things that were much more expensive in Chile.

When we were in that store, I was thinking about buying a second little something, but I was undecided because of the price. The saleswoman wanted to convince me to buy it and said that I should go for it, take advantage of it, it's so easy, I can just pay with a credit card and then forget about it and be happy. Uh-huh. Yes, sure. This is another example of the credit morals of Argentinians and the prevailing economic problems in the country.

After I bought my souvenir and Jörg finished his burger, there wasn't much else to do. So we figured, since we had to spend one more night there, we could at least use the evening to work on the blog.

As luck would have it, there was a carnival parade in the old town of Bariloche that evening. At first, it was just a few drummers passing by our window, and we didn't think much of it. But the drumming didn't stop, and upon closer inspection, we could see the semi-naked dancers hopping through the street from our hotel window. Mind you, it was pretty cold outside, and the spectators were all bundled up in down jackets.

So we went out again, bought some ice cream at the "Mamuschka" ice cream parlor (I had chocolate, chocolate with dulce de leche, and dulce de leche with chocolate... mmmmmhhhhh) and watched the hustle and bustle. I have to say, the carnival in Bariloche was the most pathetic of all our carnival experiences. There were no sets or floats, just a few groups of people who had formed carnival groups and danced half-naked through the streets in the freezing cold, accompanied by a few drummers. Sure, if they enjoy it, good for them, and most of them seemed to have fun, but you don't have to come to Bariloche specifically to witness this carnival. A stage had also been set up in the main square where apparently some more program was going on, but we skipped that and went back to our warm hotel room instead.

The next day, we headed back to Puerto Montt. Goodbye Bariloche!