Beautiful Bariloche! ~ Dreaming of CO

Hey Everyone! So another week...epic fail to get caught up on these posts... I'm still trying I promise. :) So...we continue with the last leg of the spring break adventure.

We decided to have lunch our final day in Calafate at an AMAZING pizza restaurant in town before living. The thought was that if we ate a big lunch and packed some snacks we wouldn't be as hungry at dinner. So Louisa and I split an AMAZING pizza that was essentially the equivalent of a hawaiian pizza in the US. It was DELICIOUS! Everyone was really excited about their lunch and we made it to the bus station with happy bellies and time to spare... The bus was actually late getting to the terminal, so we didn't even come close to leaving on time and it wasn't actually the bus that had been advertised either... Instead of being semi-cama (half-bed) seats on the top level it was all full bed. As a result, there were seats "missing" cause only 3 would fit across instead of 4. I certainly was fine with that! They were super comfy! Everyone settled out into their own space and the homework/studying began again. This bus will be nominated the bus of AWFUL and unnecessarily violent movies... We started with a Jackie Chan kung-fu movie (looking back this one was actually the best, although stupid). The next was a Wild Wild West movie with some sort of conspiracy over land....the final scene was a giant shootout as well. Third was a movie called the Silent Assassin...about some sort of bio-terrorism. A man gets infected and then ends up killing everyone he touches... Finally, as everyone was trying to go to sleep, was about the Aztec Empire and how it got destroyed. There were people dying every 2 minutes as tribes fought each other etc. What a weird sequence to watch!

Everyone slept relatively well (thanks to the big comfy seats) and the next morning we all enjoyed the short stop in the middle of nowhere to stretch our legs. Only ... 10 more hours to go! When we finally pulled into the terminal in Bariloche at 7pm EVERYONE was ready to be off the bus. 29hours....it was our longest one. We quickly found taxis and went to the hostel to settle in. Our other friends and long lost companions were staying at the same hostel and we couldn't wait to see them. After arriving and checking in, we started to think about plans for the evening... a walk? Tour the town? Dinner? Eventually we decided to walk to town in search of the world famous chocolate! Bariloche is rumored to have the best chocolate in Argentina, so of course we couldn't miss out on that! The ice cream is also rumored to be REALLY good, so that was also on the list. As we walked into the center, we easily spotted one of the larger chocolate shops called Tourista (tourist...how fitting) and decided to stop to see about hours. We also encountered ice cream...and it was the BEST ice cream I think I have ever had! Usually I'm not a huge fan of strawberry, but it looked too good to turn down and I still dream about that ice cream! It was like heaven! With ice cream in hand, we wandered down the street and eventually encountered Mamuska - the most famous chocolate shop (and the one that Sole had recommended to me). So we spent a good 20 minutes just looking around. I decided to wait before buying anything in order to think about what exactly I wanted and what I could bring back to Sole and Paola. There were just entirely too many options! After everyone was ready, we headed back to the hostel. Our long lost friends had arrived and were happily relaxing in the living room. We all exchanged excited hellos and sat down to a lovely dinner of soup and leftover stew from the night before. It was so exciting to see everyone again. We all contemplated going out for a bit since it was our last night on vacation, but in the end everyone was far too tired and we crashed on the dorm floor with the last of the peanut butter and some sweet bread. It was nice to just relax and talk for a bit. As we were getting ready to turn the lights out, Louisa practically screamed and we all jumped wondering what was wrong! She had found 2 ticks on her pillow... we had thought the one earlier was just a fluke, but when she found 2 more, everyone was frantically searching their beds as well... No one else found anything, but everyone had that icky creepy crawly feeling on their skin...

The next morning Louisa and I had made plans to head out early back to the chocolate shops to buy our presents and to get ice cream before we left. However things did not go as planned.... When we were all eating, people started asking what everyone had planned and pretty soon 3 more friends wanted to tag along with us into town... However, when we were all ready, we ended up waiting another 25 minutes on other people! It wasn't that we minded waiting, but when our bus is leaving at 1pm and its already 9:30, we don't have time to waste! So we started to leave and at that point everyone caught up. This of course caused tension because people felt like they were being left behind. I felt like our group had separation anxiety or something! Like if one person goes somewhere all 9 of us have to go or feelings get hurt. All of us had spent so much time with each other in such close quarters that we were starting to have passive aggressive issues. It was definitely time to go home. None the less, we started out for town and Louisa and I headed to the chocolate store. Then it was off to the chocolate museum! We had heard great things about it from our friends since they went the day before and we wanted to check it out! However, by the time it opened at 11am, the first tour wasn't until 11:20 and at an hour/tour, we didn't have time to go and make our bus. So we decided to walk back to town for ice cream. Louisa and I had planned on eating ice cream for lunch and I was looking forward to more strawberry cream! However we met others on the way and decided to try another different store. This one is more famous than Tourista, and slightly more expensive, but not nearly as good! I was slightly disappointed, but at the same time excited because they had peanut butter ice cream!!! That DOES NOT happen here! So I had peanut butter and dark chocolate. Reeses anyone?! Walking back with very little time left, Louisa and I were still hungry! So we quickly grabbed our stuff, called a taxi and asked him to take us to a restaurant where we could grab a quick lunch. We decided to split an order and I almost forgot when we ordered! Lucky Louisa reminded me, cause when we got the food, it was HUGE!!! I could have easily fed 3 people! Happily we grabbed our food and rode to the terminal. On the bus with food we were quite content and ready to be going home.

I was bummed we couldn't spend more time in Bariloche! It was hands down my favorite location, possibly because it reminded me so much of CO! The hostel was right on the edge of a lake and looking over the water to the hills and mountains of the side we could've been in Summit county around Lake Dillon (without the beetle kill). It was absolutely gorgeous! Hopefully I'll get another chance to go back there. I wouldn't stay at the same hostel again, but I would LOVE to go back.

Everyone settled in for the ride. Louisa and I slowly ate through our gigantic meal and then both started on hw again. She is such a wonderful influence for me. All throughout the trip when we weren't busy she was studiously working on reading or studying or other assignments. We've also gotten some good time to talk over the last week and I'm super excited that she only lives an hour away in the states, so we'll see each other all the time! A short 2 hours into the drive I had finished all my reading that I had brought with me. 40 pages of sociology and more than 100 pages of political theory (mostly a critique of Plato and Socrates) all in spanish of course. I was pretty proud of myself! I spent the rest of the ride relaxing with music and a book for fun! When I woke to someone tapping my head the next morning it took a minute for me to figure out what was going on! Deven was waking me up to tell me we were back! and 10 minutes early! We quickly grabbed our bags and hurried out to grab a cab. We only had an hour before class, so time was of the essence. As much as I just wanted to go home and sleep, I didn't have time for a nap. I rushed up to the door, snuck to my room, changed clothes, grabbed a granola bar for breakfast, and was off to class. Spring break over in a flash!

I still can't believe all the travel we did in a simple 10 days. 3 cities, 3 amazing excursions, 64 hours of transportation, and amazing time with friends. It was certainly the whirlwind tour of Patagonia, but I absolutely fell in love! Especially with Bariloche! Now its back to the grind: classes, hw, partials (mid-term exams), and studying. What an experience! I'm certainly happy to be 'home', but I'll never forget the amazing sights from break. I still find myself without the adequate words to describe the places we went. However, thanks to yesterday's discovery you can now see all the pictures! They are linked the blog over on the left under Argentine Albums. :) Hope you enjoy them!

All my love!