Bariloche

23 hours later and we had definitely turned into zombies. Actually the bus ride wasn't that bad, we left late at night and we were already pretty tired so we pretty well fell asleep immediately, although we woke up when the paved road ran out and it suddenly got very bumpy but I managed to doze of again. We were only in semi-cama, half beds so they reclined a little bit and had sort of a leg rest because the really big comfy seats were sold out, although we were told they were excellent and fully compatible to a full and restful night sleep. On the other hand we had a not very restful sleep and woke up a bit stiff, but with nothing to do for another 13hours there was lots of time to rest. We were even fed slightly stale food. Luckily we had packed our empanadas along with a lot of other snacks so we passed the time watching films and snacking. Once you’ve resigned yourself to being on a bus for that long it becomes easy in a weird way.
We arrived in Bariloche around 9pm and got a taxi to our hostel. We sat down in lounge and an Irish couple immediately gave us wine to congratulate us for being on a bus for so long. We then convinced them it was a fantastic bus ride and that they must do it so they left today. I hope someone gives them wine because it really helped.
The hostel was amazing, it had a hippy vegan community vibe going on with free homemade vegan breakfasts including porridge and homemade bread, and a really cheap communal dinner. It was small enough that everyone fitted around one big table in the lounge area and discussed plans for the following days and gave tips on things to do. It was the kind of hostel were everyone was friends and when we left it was gut wrenching with lots of hugs and that feeling like you're leaving your best friends. Plus I will miss the porridge, I could hike for hours on the energy from porridge.
Our first full day we went out for a bike ride around a municipal park, almost but not quite national park status, on the advice of our Irish friends. It was gorgeous but somehow uphill the whole way despite being a loop. Its a little different now that we are further North, no desert in sight, but also no glaciers. There is lots of smaller lakes here with dense forests and its not quite as Autumn-y. Apparently it was also full of pumas which I was glad I found out after and not while I wandered into the bush for a nature wee.
James knee was still giving him grief so he refused my idea of a hike for the following day. Luckily at dinner that night I overheard two women from England talking about doing it so I invited myself along. Turns out they were invited to do it by a couple of Argentinean guys

they'd met, who wanted to practise their mountain guiding skills. Or we were going to be murdered/sold for prostitution. Or it was a double date and I was going to be a 5th wheel. Turns out it was the latter, but unfortunately one of the girls was sick and couldn't make it, and as it turns out I don't make a good substitute for a bubbly 20 year old who speaks fluent Spanish. But these guys or “mountain men" as they liked to call themselves were lovely! The younger one, as well as studying some kind of outdoor education and working as a snowboard instructor and lift operator. He was my kind of people. I'm not sure what the older one did as he spoke about as much English as I knew Spanish, turns out they also teach useless phrases like ‘when is your birthday?’ in Argentinean schools. But he knew his outdoor shit, loaned me his hiking pole and seemed to love that I knew we were on an “aventura". The trail was amazing, it started at the bottom of a ski field and for the first few hours went up so slowly that I didn’t think we would make it to the top in 4 hours, we past

round the side of a mountain occasionally scrambling over mountain streams then rounded a corner into a lush valley with a forest of native trees. It still felt very flat and I was lulled into a false sense of insecurity so when the last hour turned out to be nearly vertical it felt like a struggle and, maybe its my bad karma for not being supportive of James knee issues, but knees were not loving it. Is this what getting old feels like.

We made it to the hut at the top, next to a mountain lake and surrounding by cliffs on three sides it was definitely worth it. We had lunch and mate, which I'm obliged to say was delicious. Then our mountain men guides said we would go even higher, I thought it was just for a look so I scrambled to the top of a saddle between two mountains. I was a bit concerned when we started going down the other side which was a scree slope with patches of snow and ice and I was pretty sure I would not make it back up again. Luckily I found

out they were taking us a different route back, a little used climbers track. And by climbers track I mean swamp with some slightly trampled down areas that may have been a track, we had to stop at least twice to find ourselves on GPS as we scrambled through stream crossings and swamp with mud puddles that were thigh deep, luckily I wasn’t one of the 50% of our little party that found this out that hard way. That was definitely an “aventura" and there’s nothing like the feeling of being in an amazing glacier carved valley on top of a mountain with no one else around.

We had originally planned to cross into Chile from Bariloche and head north through the Chilean lake district but between James bad knee and our rapidly decreasing timeline we decided to head north to Mendoza instead. After all nothing heals like sunshine and red wine!
Take us to wine country...

P.S after 3 days of plant based diet #bowelcancerwatch is much improved