Bariloche

Bariloche is mostly a "ski resort" town. This technically isn't in Patagonia, its in the Lake District, but its the best place to rent a car from to drive south. This town was a little strong on the cute factor. Swiss-looking stone and wooden buildings around a city center overlooking Lago Nahuel Huapi and the snow-covered Andes in the distance. Large Saint Bernards roaming around in that park with their barrels under their necks - their owners keeping a sharp eye out for tourists wanting their photos taken with their dogs. This reminded me of the llama girls in Cusco - but the men were definitely not dressed to be photographed as well.

The main streets are full of high-end hotels, chocolate shops, heladerias (ice cream) and touristy nick-nacks, postcards and t-shirts. We were able to resist all of the above, except for the ice cream.

Helen got sick during our stay so she and I hung out at the house while Mike and Meghan did the running around (see Meg's blog post below).

On the day Helen felt better we took a little drive on the Circuito Chico. This lead us out to an aerosilla (chairlift) to the top of Cerro Campenario. I can't begin to explain how gorgeous this all was - the pictures just cannot do it justice. We had a clear day but the wind was bitter cold - so we took refuge in the hilltop cafeteria and exchanged photo ops with other tourists.

Once back down, we took a drive through the park at the end of the peninsula. Stopping at a lookout on a boulder outcropping facing the lake and the Andes. The wind, though now not quite as blustery as the hilltop, forced us back into the car after a short lunch here.

The road back into town was gravel, so we took our time winding our way through the low hills back to our cabana.

The next morning it was raining, so we decided to tackle the longer car route - the Circuito Largo. This took us past two small villages - one on a lake of its own and the other on the north side of the same Lago Nahuel Huapi.

The drive to Villa Traful was long and the weather was miserable, but we preservered and were delighted with gorgeous blue lakes surrounded by snow-topped mountains. The road was, again, unpaved, and slightly trecherous in some places. We seldom passed another vehicle but could see that in the summer months there must be hoards of people in the area, for we passed lakefront campground after campground for almost an hour.

Our reward for the long trek was an ice-cream/chocolate stop in Villa Angostura. A cute little village that had plenty of places to stay but seemed more intimate. I think it would have been fun to stay there and stroll around a bit more (as the rain had let up) but we headed back to our place for a quiet dinner and an evening of packing up for our long car trip adventure.