Chocolate mountains

It's been a while since my last blog as I've been so busy here in Mexico, but I'm going to try and catch up over the next few weeks! 

So, from Mendoza, Jen and I boarded a 19 hour bus to Bariloche. I’ll be honest, the prospect of a 19 hour bus wasn’t exactly exciting to me, but as it was significantly cheaper than flying, we decided to bite the bullet and book it. It turned out to be a remarkably enjoyable bus journey, with comfy, fully reclining seats, a hot dinner, wine, and a TV screen for each seat with a decent selection of films and TV shows. The trip was made better still by the glimpses of stunning blue lakes through the mountains as we started to get close to Bariloche. 

One of the many beautiful lakes in Bariloche

On the evening of our arrival, we went and sat by a lake which was near to our hostel and had a beer, before heading to Cerro Campanario on the bus to watch the sunset. It was a beautiful view from the top of the hill, and a great way to start our time in Bariloche. The following morning we set out on a hike to Refugio Frey. We managed to hitch hike to the entrance of the trail, and the guy that picked us up recommended the longer route, as he said it was more scenic. It may have been more scenic, but it was seriously hard work. The 30km round trip did turn out to be worth it when we got to the top and were met by a stunning lake called Laguna Toncek. The surrounding rocks made the lake look like it was on Mars, which was pretty cool. Despite the gorgeous view, I can’t say I’d be willing to do that hike again! When we finally made it down to the bottom again, we hitch hiked back to our hostel (hitch hiking in Bariloche is super common so is relatively safe), before collapsing into bed. 

View from Cerro Campanario

Our final day in Bariloche was spent doing a “chocolate crawl” and attempting to do a bike ride. The chocolate crawl was successful and we managed to get plenty of free chocolate from the many excellent chocolatiers in the town. The bike ride, however, couldn’t have been more unsuccessful. We hitch hiked up to where we had been told the bike shop was, only to discover that it wasn’t actually there and we’d gone way past it. As we were tired from the previous day’s hike anyway, we decided to just take a bus back and chill out by the lake before our bus ride to Pucón in Chile the following day.

Laguna Toncek, Refugio Frey

All in all, our time in Bariloche was a success, however the hostel we stayed in, Alaska Hostel, was probably the worst we stayed in throughout our whole trip. The room itself was comfortable, however the staff were completely unprofessional. Two of the workers seemed to particularly enjoy PDA, and they were often fondling each other on guests’ beds. I’m all for people being in love and whatever, but seriously, can’t you do that on your own bed, in your own room? When we asked to extend a night as all other reasonably priced hostels were full, they moved us from our room to a fold out sofa bed in the living room which collapsed when you lay on it, rather than telling us they had no room.  Despite the bed barely being usable, we were still expected to pay full price for it. When we commented on the fact the bed collapsed and asked if we could have a discount because of this, the staff were rude and unhelpful. I definitely wouldn’t recommend this hostel to anyone staying in Bariloche.

Another stunning view

Un beso,

Lola