The Near End of a Journey

I have been here in Bariloche for 3.5 days. It has been different than I thought it was going to be. It does not smell like chocolate even though this is the chocolate capital of Argentina, there is no snow where I can touch it (although that isn't all bad because I am sick again and it's been a challenge to keep warm-even inside-with the clothes I brought). It has been a very beautiful and mostly relaxing experience, however.

On Monday, we reserved a car for using today (Wednesday). We wanted the car for Monday but there were none available and the only one available was the most expensive car but we needed it to be able to do one of the activities which I will touch on shortly. After we worked all that out, we went to find the kiosko that sold the bus tickets we needed for our trip on Christmas, and then we went ice skating. We paid 50 pesos for an 1hr of ice skating in the smallest ice skating rink I have ever seen. We did not stay for an hour. We went to try to grab a quick lunch at McDonalds but it had closed at 4. We got there right after 4. I was disappointed. I wanted a mocha...I wanted Christmas in a cup. We went back towards the hostel and had a late lunch/early dinner at La Alpina; a little Germanish restaurant. It was pretty good, slightly over priced but oh well.

Tuesday (Christmas) we took the bus to a lake, I dont remember the name right now but it started with a G. Near the lake was a waterfall that ended up in the river. We all thought the walk would be longer but it took us maybe an hour to get up to the waterfall, most of that time was to walk down the road to the trailhead. It was a little overcast and very windy so it was pretty cold. We waited for the bus to pick us back up, got on the correct number bus but it apparently took a different route back (explain how that works. I have no clue. Same numbered buses run the same route. I have no clue how that happened). We got kicked off the bus in the middle of no where. We made the bus driver give us the "conductor" part of our tickets since we didnt have other tickets and then we had to wait for 20 min in the cold for the same numbered bus with a different route back to take us where we needed to go. It was the weirdest thing.

 <This is a picture of what is talked about below>

Today we picked up the car and drove out to see the 7 lakes. It was by far the most beautiful drive I have been on in a very long time. We stopped at a lot of really great spots; the best was Punto Panaram. I took some really cool pictures and a few panaramics with my tablet. It was really windy and chilly everywhere we went. We also found this Germanish-looking artesian spot. It was pretty much a tourist trap, cute but over priced. I didnt buy anything.

Tomorrow we're heading back to campus. No more cold, just lots of heat. Hopefully I will survive. I'm planning on buy some chocolate here tonight and I completely forgot about it being super hot up there so I left some chocolate in my room. I will be putting it in the freezer with my name written all over it as soon as I get back to campus.

Anyway, until next time.