Argentina- San Carlos de Bariloche - Bumper Cars and Pricey Chocolate

We drove through guess what?



That´s right, more desert (and deserted) mountains in making our way south from Mendoza to Bariloche in the Lakes Region. Bariloche is known as the gateway to Patagonia, so technically we made it to Patagonia on our trip. Very technically. To be fair, as we neared our destination, lakes started appearing in the desert around us, but the trees were shy and only really showed up once we were in town.

Bariloche itself is a postcard ski resort town. It sits picturesquely on a lake ringed with mountains (with the slightest dusting of snow on toop). Its streets are lined with flowery trees, chocolate and ice cream parlours and outdoor sport stores. It took Mick and I all of 5 seconds to decide we were going to get bored here pretty quick, so our first afternoon activity was booking a bus elsewhere. While Bariloche was central to the Lakes region and some spectacular hiking in national parks, in order to get to said parks, more bus transportation was required. And that was just not in the cards. And since this leg of the trip is winding down, we´ve become a bit more budget conscious. Plus, it was cold. Not Canada cold, but coming out of 30+ Mendoza to 10 degree Bariloche was a bit harsh. Know what destination came to mind for us? The beach. So we booked tickets to Mar del Plata, a big oceanside resort city on the Argentina coastline.

In the mean time in Bariloche, we figured we should try some of this legendary chocolate of the region, seeing as there was literally a chocolate factory or shop on every block in the town. And then we looked at the price tags. The record holder was Mamuschka chocolate at $50 per kilo! No joke.

My other favourite incident was watching the locals parallel park on rather steep hills. One guy had gotten a bit boxed in and was doing a seventeen point escape from his parallel parking spot. However due to the incline and his obviously standard car with rollback complications, it was inevitable that he hit one of the other two cars. Much to my amazement, he shamelessly backed up into the car behind him, bumping it back up the hill to gain the space he needed to exit. This explains so much about the scratched up bumpers on all the cars in Argentina...