Bbbbbbbbariloche, Bert and dulce de leche!

Bariloche is a swiss german style town in the 'lake district' of southern argentina. Nestled on the shore of one of 7 lakes, if this scenery doesn't blow u away, u are officially dead inside. The hostel we went to (logan and i went together) is in the only block of towers in this lovely town. Built in some phase of madness when for the briefest period, the building laws dictating building hieight were lifted (in the 60s of course), Bariloche's only concrete tower block stands right next to it's quaint little square. Someone has bought up 3 suites of the hostel on the side over looking the lake, and turned it into hostel 1004. It's the best hostel i've stayed in.

view from the hostel lounge

There's no TV for one thing, thank goodness, and there just a feeling of being home, which creates a wonderful atmosphere. Warm rugs and comfy sofas, huge kitchen and big sociable dining tables. And everyone who was there absorbs the vibe and enjoys the mellow style. We sat around drinking and talking, playing cards and listening to this huge argentinian red haired finnish looking rock giant delicately strumming the guitar with a local who always wore a cravat (jealous much, bruce?) We couldn't believe the giant was argentinian it was strange hearing him speak spanish when u expected him to always speak with at least a scottish accent. What a sweetheart.

And then i met chris. Oh christopher. English, soon to be army nutter who loves dulce de leche and hiking up hills with at least 20kg on his back and can eat more than anone i've ever met, he's literally my dustbin. I've had one io pretty much each city. Nils in BA, Toby in Bolivia, Will in Peru, but Chris is far and away the winner.( The most irritating thing, is all these guys are skinny as! Bastards! Clear male-oriented metabolic favouritism, cheers god. Grrrr.) Love him to bits, but absolutely mental. On a similar note, he never took a taxi in south america till he started hanging out with me.What? (I may have gone a bit nuts with the taxis though, cos they're soooo cheap, love it.)

We hired a car one day and 5 of us went driving all around the lakes. I'll be honest, by lake 5 i was pretty much done, but logan and chris took about a million photos, while miriam bert and i chilled out in the car. That's the other thing, chris has an abundant supply of energy...like a 6ft puppy...nutter. So while we lazed in the car, he was running all over the place. Gonna steal his photos on fb :) Miriam is a gorgeous dutch girl, with the cutest accent, the boys must go nuts for her. She tried to teach us this ridiculous dutch card game called tuper (spelling?) which was unecessarily complicated for a wine drinking session, but it trurns out i'm brilliant at it, even though i do not understand the rules at all. Brill. And then there's Bert. Such a character. He's a 40 something liberal catholic bostonian living in san fran, 1 of 11 siblings, pot-smoking, soon-to-be bar owner. He sold his house to pay for his travels, but instaed of selling all his furniture, TV etc, he just put it all out on the porch and put up a sign saying 'free stuff' ...what!?! Damn hippy city : ) PLus, he's taken so much pot, and more i imagine, he finds sitting still for too long quite hard, i think the car ride was quite tough on him, though he kept a constant flow of stories going the whole way. Funny guy.

Bert and Chris...nuff said

: )

I had a brilliant time here, had my first fondue ever (yum), and loved everyone i met. There was a party at the hostel for the mysterious owner who lives in the mountain, and we happened to have a proffesional chef staying at the hostel, travelling with his gf, double yum, and of course there was copious amounts of wine and cheese and limbo, naturally. I really didn't want to leave, but i[d already spent nearly 2 months in argentina at this point, it was getting ridiculous, so off i went, further north, to Mendoza, wine country...

(I must also mention that the skies and sunsets in patagonia and around are unbelieavable. There[s so much fklat land and i guess because we[re so far south, the skies...oh the skies. There's something special about the clouds too, u see feathery flurries draped across the sky and can be so transparent, yet catch the light in unexpected ways. Sunsets can seperate suddenly into blues and pinks and golds. Wow. )