Bariloche

Last weekend COPA, my study abroad program, took half of the students from this semester to Bariloche, Argentina. Bariloche is like a Swiss city in Argentina and is famous for its chocolate. There are chocolate stores on every corner in Bariloche and I wouldn't be surprised if the city melted if the weather was warm. We left for Bariloche last Saturday morning and flew out to the city, a plane ride of 2 hours. When we arrived we got on a tour bus and began to travel around Bariloche and ended up on top of a mountain where we could view the lakes and mountains from above. It was a great view on top of the mountain and was very windy. The lake water had a cold look to it but was very clear. All of the people that live near the lakes receive their water from the lakes and drink it unfiltered.

Later on that day we went out to eat at Blest and had a huge dinner, buffet style, with a large platter of meats and cheeses, some meatballs, pizzas, nachos, bread, some sort of meat stew, salad and chicken. I took full advantage of this "free" meal and ate everything that came within three feet of me. haha.

The next day we went out on another tour to see the desert area of Bariloche. We got to see different rock formations that looked like various animals or people. I have one photo of a rock that looks like a side view of Jesus with the crown of thorns. We also went to a park and saw a waterfall, miniature when compared to Iguazu, which was from the snow melting in the mountains. We didnt do too much Sunday because Monday was the big hike.

We woke up early on Monday and set out on an optional climb up a mountain, and boy did I not know what I was going to get myself into. As you all know, other than walking I get very little exercise here. There are no such things as intramural sports or anywhere I can go and just play some bball with people at any time of the day here. Because of this, the hike up the mountain was not only breathtaking because of the view we had. haha. We got about an hour into the hike and the tour guide pointed up to the snowy part of the mountain and told us we would be going there, we thought he was joking but about 45 min later we were in a meter of snow! It wouldnt have been so bad if the list for clothes to bring that COPA gave us didnt include items such as sunscreen, bathing suits and shorts, items for WARM weather. We got about 30 minutes into the snow and stopped for a while. The tour guides then told us to turn around because there was a lot of fresh snow and little shrubbery on the path we would have to take to the top and they were afraid of possibly starting an avalanche. We turned around and began the hardest part of the hike for me which was to climb down. I dont know why, but I felt like the ascent was much easier than climbing down. We got to the bottom, had lunch, then drove to the airport, two hours later we were back in the nice and warm city of BsAs!

Pix are already up, the videos will come shortly!