Bariloche - January 19th

We wake up to a much sunnier morning and much better views across the lake, as some of the previous night’s ash cloud has disappeared.  However knowing that the views are still going to be fuzzy in our photos, and also because we have had a lot of hiking already, our plans for today have been changed from a hike up a nearby mountain, to just walking around the town.

The town of Bariloche is the biggest we have been in so far in South America.  It’s also the first to have a bit of a slum on its outskirts.  But the central area is as touristy as anything you could find in Europe.  Being a mountain town with both summer and winter activities it is set up like any Alpine town you could imagine.  And it is not difficult to imagine you are in Switzerland with all the chocolate shops, St Bernard dogs, and other such paraphernalia.  Even the architecture of the main municipal buildings feels Swiss.

The setting of the town has to be its biggest attraction.  If you get a nice enough day, as today was, you can go down and sit on the little lakefront beaches or even go into the water if you are brave enough (we weren’t - it is a bit chilly being glacier fed).

But for all that there is little to do in the town except walk around, go in and out of the many tourist shops, and sit in the various cafes, which is pretty much all we did all day.  We ate at one of the chocolate cafes, two little cakes which turn out to be bigger than they looked on the menu and have 100s of calories each.  Between that and a sneaky trip to McDonalds (for research purposes – to see if the burgers in Argentina are better than elsewhere, and they are better than most, only the Irish ones match in my opinion) we actually ate so much walking around town that in the evening we didn’t bother going out for dinner.