After two fabulous weeks in Chile (posts pending) we FINALLY enterred Argentina by way of el Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi. The national park boundary is actually the official international border although you don´t arrive at the checkpoint for nearly half and hour. The first thing I saw after enterring the park was an enormous and very distinctive mountain peak. ¨Argentina, estoy llegado¨ I said to myself. Note, the bus pictured was something I found at the border crossing station, NOT the bus we took, so no worries. Perhaps someone had their papers seriously out of order... The town of Bariloche itself is amazing, or ¨¡barbaro!¨ as the porteños say. It literally means ¨barbarous¨ as in barbarians, but somehow it´s used to mean cool or excellent. It reminded me quite a bit of San Franscisco (if San Franscisco had a population of 200,000 and were surrounded by ski resorts and ranches). It also had a very Alpine flavor, which is probably due to the massive influx of German imigrants who settled the area in the 1800s. Thanks to them, Bariloche is known as the ¨chocolate capital of Argentina¨ and with good reason! There are chocolate stores lining the main street ranging in size from boutique to chocolate supermarket. We definitely got or groove on with this bit of culture. The best place was called Mamushka and was fittingly adorned with Russian dolls. Note the pic of Christine demonstrating the fine quality of Bariloche chocolates alongside the Lake Nahuel Huapi. To work off all that chocolate, we decided to do something active for Christine´s birthday. In the land of guachos, what could be better than a horseback riding tour of the area. I found a great operation (thank you Lonely Planet) called Carol Jones tours. Carol Jones is a third generation Argentine who´s grandfather emmigrated from Texas in the 1800´s and bought up a huge 10,000+ acre estancia in the Andean foothills of Patagonia. Today the entire estancia is actually within the national park boundaries so we had prime access to some amazing Patagonian views. After about 2.5 hours riding, we were ready for a break and man did we get one! The guides brought us to a little outcropping of trees in the middle of a vast valley and proceeded to cook us a traditional Argentine asado. Needless to say, the beef (which I ate willingly, since it was all from cows that were raised traditionally on the estancia which means no chemicals or antibiotics. You can´t get it more local and free-range than that!) was fantastic and we washed it down with some malbec the guides had brought in nalgene bottles and ice-cold water from the little mountain stream running nearby. Somehow after all the wine and ridiculous amount of meat (sorry, Texas, but everything is WAY bigger in Patagonia), we got back on the horses and enjoyed the spectacular mountain views back to the ranch house where we were treated to cookies and beer (man, they know how to show us a good time). On the ride, we made friends with Cecillia, a 50-something woman from Port Aransas who was travelling by herself and was our only companion on the horseride, or ¨cabalgata¨. She invited us to join her in a car she had rented to tour the surrounding areas the next day, which being Christine´s bday, was perfect! Cecillia is a very nice lady, but couldn´t drive a stickshit for beans so I wound up chauffering for almost the whole day trip. We drove through more of the national park and arrived at a little town/self-described ¨ecological village¨/ex-pat hippie community called El Bolsón. El Bolsón is famous for two things: 1 - the weekly artisan market and 2 - beer. 70% of all the hops in Argentina are grown around this town and they had the produce to prove it. We enjoyed the market and enhanced our experience by trying several of the local varieties. Note the pic of Christine enjoying hers in the town plaza and the pic of my scruptious waffle/cream/strawberry treat! On the way back to Bariloche we stopped at a mountain-fed tuna farm and bought the freshest fish I´ve ever had, which we cooked up into a masterful birthday feast that night at the hostel and downed with further ridiculous amounts of Argentine wine (note the before and after shots).
