Bariloche

Villa Tacul
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So the buses are fine actually .. There is some consistency.

1) the movies in English tend to have the volume turned down.

Water .. Or Ambulance

2) the movies in Spanish have the volume so loud you can hear the movie outside the bus .. And the subtitles are in Spanish!!

View from Cerro Campanerio
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3) the toilets are revolting from the start but I thank carex every day for making travel antibacterial hand gel.

4) the food .... Well they call it food but I have never come across a meat sponge roll before !!!!

5) bedtime is when the lights go out .. Like prison I would imagine .. And morning is when the first person receives a text message. We drove into Bariloche to amazing Scenery .. As i mentioned before its the lake district region of Argentina and bariloche is like arriving into a cross between Switzerland and Canada. The buildings are like alpine lodges and the town is full of chocolate shops and fondue restaurants. The tourist attraction in the main square is to have your photo with a st bernards dog (complete with swiss barrell round its neck ... They make the most adorable puppies). The hostel we had chosen was situated right on the lake shore and The water was blue and clear for the first time yet (everywhere it's been brown so far even on the boat trip to Uraguay).

and another ... doesn´t do it justice though
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Our first trek was to Villa Tacul in llao llao national park which has amazing views in itself but the hike we chose was to a secluded part of lago nahuel huapi. The hike in all was 12km but it was well worth it. Again the views were stunning.

That evening we climbed some large boulders outside our hostel on the lake shore and drank some wine as the sun setted over the lake.

The following morning we decided to visit cerro campanario .. You could take the chair lift there and back but we chose to hike up the mountain approx 1000m with chris our friend who was more like a fitness instructor (approx 55yr) who ran up the mountain shouting words of encouragement back down to us .. None of these words included oxygen .. Water .. Or Ambulance Which we wanted to hear however we made it to the top and were greeted by national geographics top ten views in the world (So we are told). Thankfully we had chosen the best day for it and the view was breathtaking and we could see the 7 lakes that surrounded us.

Anna in the chair lift ... when it stopped mid journey
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As the view had taken our remaining breath we took the Chair lift back down ... Anna didn't complain this time as there was no way we could have walked back down unless we went on our bums. Once again we had to treat ourselves to another Steak dinner. This place was so popular it was full in the first 15min of opening. The grill was in the middle of the restaurant and the chefs prepared the meat in front of us. If you wanted to see the different cuts of meat before ordering they happily entertained your request. It melted in your mouth... and all for GBP15  mmmm On our last day we went Kayaking for the afternoon on another lake down the road. Beautiful and quite shielded as it was a bit blowy. Such good fun, the wind was just strong enough and behind us to produce little waves that carried you. We were flying along and riding the waves in our kayak. So much fun..

Just outside our hostel ...
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3rd Feb we began our journey to the Patagonia district .. Mountains and glaciers etc .. This time it takes 2 days to get there with an overnight stop in a hotel thank goodness .....