Bariloche

After the inner city delights of BA it was time to head over to mountains and lakes of Bariloche. We booked ourselves onto a swanky bus for some more creature comforts - no scrimping for us! An added bonus to the journey was a game of bingo from which I won a lovely bottle of Chardonnay...sweet!...or should that be...dry!

Bariloche is desperately trying to be an alpine village. To be fair it does it quite well. A lot of chalet style houses and more chocolate shops you than you can shake a hiking stick at! It does having some slopes available during their winter but I don't think I will be flying here specially for the white stuff any time soon.

We took it easy the first day but were soon eager for some exercise. It was decided we would cycle around "Circuito Chico" which snakes through some stunning scenery around Lake Moreno and Lake Nahuel Huapi. I don't think there was one flat section which made it quite an exciting ride. We stopped for a hot chocolate and brownie at Colonia Suiza (swiss colony - for the non Spanish speakers ;-P) promptly undoing all the good work we had done!

As I said the scenery was amazing. The weather was great but a little chilly. On some of the downhill sections the fingers nearly froze to the handle bars. If we hadn't had to return the bikes that day we would have been tempted to see more of the area on two wheels.

Next day we took a cable car ride up to Cerro Otto - a lookout point with rotating restaurant. Apparently we could have walked up but only found that out once we had reached the top. Again, stupendous views of the lake and the surrounding mountains. It was still chilly so had to dig out the silly Peruvian hat - comfort over style is my new motto! We avoided the hordes of tourists in the revolving eatery and instead opted for a short hike up to another peak with a packed lunch (Yes, G&C we too can do budget!)

We only had three days in Bariloche but could have spent many more. The area is beautiful and virtually untouched. The fact we only a few days here may have been a blessing in disguise as we managed to scoff some more Argentinian steak on two separate occasions. The first being bife de chorizo (nothing do with the sausage) and the second bife de lomo all washed down with some lovely red wine! The trout fishing is also meant to be superb, unfortunately a little over our budget, definitely a place to stick on the future holiday list - along with about 50 others!