AKA A Holiday from my Holiday
It has been wet in Bariloche. Raining. Bucketing down on occasion. Which
has been, in retrospect, quite wonderful. I had come to Bariloche to hike in
Nahuel Haupi National Park but instead I have
been lounging in a hostel. A friend from Deep River recommended I go to Mt.
Tronador which is close by. It’s a volcano with 9 glaciers coming down from
it. It looked great on the map and on google earth. I thought it an excellent
suggestion but when I went to see the park rangers to get some info they said, ‘Please
don’t go.’ I’ve never heard park rangers say that. ‘It is wetter there than
here,’ they said. ‘It’s so wet that the buses aren’t running, the lower level
connecting trails are 2 feet deep in water, and the clouds are down so low that
you can’t see anything anyway.’ So instead I have had a holiday from my holiday
and loved every minute.
I am staying in the Penthouse 1004 (that's a link btw, how do I make it look like a link?) and the views, when the clouds lift for a few minutes, are as lovely as shown in the link. I have had delightful respite: I have slept in, showered, done laundry, gone window shopping, chatted with my kids online, sent an e-mail or two to friends back home, napped, piddled around on my laptop, watched the latest episodes of Castle and The Good Wife, gone out to dinner with friends I met on the ferry three weeks ago, started to read my way through the eclectic selection of books on the shelf in the living room here… and just taken it easy. Each afternoon the hostel has a pot-luck tea-time which anyone is welcome to attend, and, given the weather, most of us gather in the dining room and then sit and chat or play cards for hours. It is very congenial. Bariloche itself feels Swiss. It has a huge ski-hill and consequently is a resort town with lots of good shops and restaurants. It is also the chocolate capital of Argentina. It has a huge lake for sailing, great rivers for kayaking, hills galore for hiking in when it’s not quite so wet... I like it here. If the hostel had an opening for an employee I might well consider staying, here, right here, putting down roots, learning Spanish, starting over. Instead, assuming the clouds do lift a wee bit, I will head off into the hills for a short 2 night trek and then catch the bus back into Chile where “my” boat is. Hopefully it will be dryer there.
I am staying in the Penthouse 1004 (that's a link btw, how do I make it look like a link?) and the views, when the clouds lift for a few minutes, are as lovely as shown in the link. I have had delightful respite: I have slept in, showered, done laundry, gone window shopping, chatted with my kids online, sent an e-mail or two to friends back home, napped, piddled around on my laptop, watched the latest episodes of Castle and The Good Wife, gone out to dinner with friends I met on the ferry three weeks ago, started to read my way through the eclectic selection of books on the shelf in the living room here… and just taken it easy. Each afternoon the hostel has a pot-luck tea-time which anyone is welcome to attend, and, given the weather, most of us gather in the dining room and then sit and chat or play cards for hours. It is very congenial. Bariloche itself feels Swiss. It has a huge ski-hill and consequently is a resort town with lots of good shops and restaurants. It is also the chocolate capital of Argentina. It has a huge lake for sailing, great rivers for kayaking, hills galore for hiking in when it’s not quite so wet... I like it here. If the hostel had an opening for an employee I might well consider staying, here, right here, putting down roots, learning Spanish, starting over. Instead, assuming the clouds do lift a wee bit, I will head off into the hills for a short 2 night trek and then catch the bus back into Chile where “my” boat is. Hopefully it will be dryer there.
