Brett and Emily in South America: Cruising a Moped in Bariloche

After along 29 hour bus arrived we arrived in Bariloche in the Rio Negro Province of Argentina. The first day we just spent like usual getting to know the town. We instantly noticed (and were previously told) that the town is extremely touristy. The entire downtown area is expensive restuarants, chocolate shops, and touristy gift shops. The town needless to say was extremely expensive, and unlike other towns that we had been to that were also very touristy this one did not seem to have a cheap side to it (or even things really geared for backpackers). Either way, one pleasant thing we did notice was the landscape. Bariloche in the northern part of Patagonia, which in both Argentina and Chile is known as the Lakes District. Surronding the entire town is amazing panoramic views of mountains and lakes, literally every where. And so that is what we did with our time in Bariloche was instead of spending all of our money on the ´touristy´ main street we headed out to the Lakes.

View of the city center and Lago Nahuel Huapi

View of Bariloche from the outskirts of town

The first day we took a tip from some friends we met during our hiking in Torres del Paine and rented a moped/vespa like mobile (in reality it was going to cost $P65 each to rent bikes, or we could just rent one moped for $P140, so we decided to save our legs a bit and pay the extra $P10). So instead of the normal bike tours which drive you 20+km outside of town to this Regional Park we hoped on the moped in town, and once I got my barrings, headed out the 20km to the park. There is a famous bike circuit called Circuito Chico, which we began doing once we hit the park. We stopped a few times, once to do a nice 1:30 loop to a viewpoint where we enjoyed a picnic lunch, next a small but scenic lake (what a surprise a lake in the Lakes District), and last for an amazing overview of the entire area. The views were absolutley amazing and differed so much from Southern Patagonia which is more made up of valleys that have been carved out by glaciers and less green compared to Northern Patagonia. Overall the day was a success, after getting a little lost on a dirt road (which is quite difficult to drive a moped on), we returned the 20km back in to Bariloche and returned the bike. We are proud to say we (more I, Emily sat on the back the whole time) didn´t crash the moped! I probably didn´t help the life of the semi-automatic clutch with my driving skills but all-in-all no problems!

Figuring out directions

View of our lunch spot (and Emily munching away)

Breath taking view near the end of the Municipal Park

View with us on the bike so our mothers can see our smiling faces

Us with helmets on so our mothers can breath better knowing we were taking safety precautions

The next day we decided to head up in to the National Park which is named after the Lake which borders the downtown, Nahuel Huapi National Park. We took a city bus up above the town to Lago Gutiérrez, and just decided to campout for the night, my feet were still in the process of recovering so no major treks. We enjoyed relaxing by the lake (no Brazilian beaches, but still beautiful) for the afternoon and after a repeat performance of our glorious culinary masterpiece of ´camping pizza´ we sat by a nice campfire (with firewood that I dragged a long distance) enjoying our boxed Argentinian wine (much better then you would ever think) and chocolate. The next morning we woke up and made eggs and toast for breakfast (oh the joys of semi-car camping, when you don´t have to carry around 5 days of food with you) and we headed out to do a small little hike to a waterfall (which again is a bit of a let down after seeing Iguazu) and a great outlook of Lago Gutiérrez. When we returned we really wanted to rent a canoe or kayaks, but when we went to the place by the beach they told us they do not rent out individual canoes and kayaks and we had to join a guided group (for a price more then we were willing to pay). So disappointed (Emily was and I quote ´very angry´) we decided to head back down to town a bit early and take care of some errands in town.

View from the rocky beach near our camp site overlooking Lago Guitierrez

Emily got scared when I started to climb up the side of the waterfall, so I came back down

The next day we spent planning our next move. We had heard from some people at the hostel we were staying at that in the Lakes District in Chile there were some cool volcanos and hot springs. So we decided to research it a bit and after visiting the town tourism office, talking to a staff member at the hostel, consulting Lonely Planet and gringo.co.il we decided to go book bus tickets for an overnight at Puyehue National Park in Chile. But that and Pesach seder with almost a thousand Israelis will be talked about in the next post.