La Semana Santa in Bariloche!

Bariloche was an amazing place to spend my Easter Break!

Last Wednesday night after tango class, Amy, Jessie, and I went out to dinner with Amy's Mom, Dad, and Sister at an amazing parilla (steak house) in Palermo. After stuffing ourselves full of amazing food, we headed back to the Sheration in Buenos Aires where Amy's parents were staying because we were going to spend the night there as our flight was at 7:00am the next morning. Bright and early Thursday morning we got picked up from the hotel and headed off to the Buenos Aires domestic airport to get on our plane to Bariloche! After a three hour flight, we were there! Upon arriving, we were met by two guides from the tour company who were going to take us to our hotel. The drive was about 30 minutes, and along the way they gave us a brief overview of our activities for the week and told us a bit about Bariloche (they spoke English). I was really excited to get to our hotel and settle into our rooms, and I was very happy to see that our hotel was AMAZING. It was five star and pretty new, and Jessie and I got our own room! (Amy shared another room with her sister, and her parents had a larger suite). We quickly changed clothes, as it was significantly colder than it had been in Buenos Aires, and headed off to the down town area to have lunch. After a short cab ride, we ended up at a restaurant called Crocodrilos where we had pizza and fries. After lunch, we went to the Centro Civico, which is the main square in the town, and went to a craft fair. The town of Bariloche is very much a ski town - it looks like Whistler or Leavenworth and has a very Swiss feel to it. We then walked up and down the main street to do some shopping and to look in all the chocolate shops. Bariloche is famous for its chocolate, and just about every other store is a chocolate shop or factory. After exploring the town, we took a bus out of town to a place where we were going to take a gondola ride up the mountain called Cerro Otto. The views from the top were amazing, and there was a spinning restaurant at the top where we sat for awhile and had a coffee. A popular tourist thing in Bariloche is to have your picture taken with giant St. Bernard dogs. The dog owners sit around all day with the dogs mostly in the main square of the town, but there were some at the top of Cerro Otto. You pay them to be in pictures with these giant dogs - it was the funniest thing to watch. None of us wanted to pay to have our picture taken, but we did enjoy petting the dogs because they were so cute. After Cerro Otto, we headed back to our hotel for a swim in the amazing infinity pool that overlooked the lake. Then we got ready and headed back to town for dinner. We went to this amazing Italian restaurant and then went back to the hotel and spent the evening watching movies.

The next morning we were picked up at 8:30am after having breakfast in the hotel. It was a nice and sunny day, just a bit cold. We drove for about 30 minutes out of town to a port where we were getting on a boat to go on a tour. Bariloche has tons of lakes, so the excursion we had planned for the day was the visit some places around them. We went to Puerto Blest and spent a good portion of the day hiking around and walking along the beach. We also had lunch there - I had trout, which is very popular in Bariloche. After Puerto Blest, we continued on the boat to Lago Fria, which also had some gorgeous views. Then the boat took us a place where we got to hike up to some waterfalls - it was no Iguazu, but still very pretty. After the tour they dropped us off downtown and we headed to a parilla for dinner. It was some amazing steak! Afterwards, while walking to get some ice cream, we bumped into or friend Mikey from Pepperdine who was also in Bariloche for break. We were really tired from our long day, so declined his invitation to stay out that night, but made plans to hang out the next day.

On Saturday morning we were picked up at 8:00am after breakfast and headed out for the Seven Lakes drive. There were about 15 people total on this tour, so we made up about half of the group. We were in a mini-bus for the whole day, and we drove for many hours. The tour was entirely in Spanish, so we did a lot of translating. After about 5 hours of scenic driving and stops, we were in San Martin de los Andes, a tourist town on the border of Chile and Argentina. We spent the afternoon there, and then headed back towards Bariloche. After stopping at our hotel to change, we headed to town for dinner where we met our friend Mikey. We all ate at an amazing Fondue restaurant and then Amy, Jessie, Mikey, Amy's Sister, and I went out afterwards. The next day we got to sleep in, and then Amy and I went swimming. After getting ready, Amy, Jessie, and I had lunch at the hotel restaurant, and it was so good! Then we were picked up for our next excursion and headed off to La Isla Victoria and the Bambi forest (the forest that the movie Bambi was inspired by sort of). This was another boat ride, and was also entirely in Spanish. We got to spend some time at the beach, which was really nice. We also had an Easter Egg Hunt that Amy's mom planned for us! :) She also gave us Easter baskets that morning that she brought from the U.S. which was really fun. After returning to Bariloche we had dinner at a Brewery outside of town. It was a really cool place, and had coasters all over the wall that people who had eaten at the restaurant got to write on and pin up, so I wrote one for our group! After dinner we watched movies at the hotel for the rest of the evening.

Monday, the next day we were leaving. We got up and went for a walk down to the beach before Amy, Jessie, Amy's Mom, and I headed to the airport. (Amy's Dad and Sister went on to travel to other places; Amy's Mom had to back home). After a three hour flight, we were back in BA! We hung out with Amy's Mom for awhile before she left for the international airport to catch her flight. Overall, the trip was FANTASTIC and one of the best I have ever been on. The food in Bariloche was the best I have ever eaten, especially in Argentina, and I got to practice my Spanish a whole bunch on this trip, which was great!

PICTURES:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2049275&l=c31d0&id=8506204