22 hours & a lot of rain!

Our Patagonian adventure has finally begun! We are camped out in a Locatorio in Bariloche, finally catching up on some of our correspondence. We had a greasy Christmas breakfast of empanada y papas fritas (french fries) at one of the open spots in town and are gearing up for a 5 PM departure from Bariloche to El Bolson, a small town 2 hours south, where there is supposed to be some amazing views and hiking spots, and a canyon azul (blue) that is supposed to be amazing.

We arrived in Bariloche, the heart of the Argentine lake district, on Wednesday morning after a 22 hour bus ride from Buenos Aires. The bus was surprisingly comfortable, with wide, deep reclining seats with a foot rest, blanket and pillow and 3 meals (gross food!). The countryside was so different than the city, with small shrubs and endless flatness. Around midnight there was a lightning storm that lit up the sky but did not make any noise, and it was not raining where we were.

Around 10 AM we pulled into Bariloche, booked our next 2 bus rides to El Bolson and Puerto Madryn and then grabbed a taxi (by now it was raining) to our hostel, Pudu. Pudu, which is named after the smallest deer in the world - apparently only as tall as a human´s knee, is a cute spot up a steep hill. Our 4 bunk shared room had an amazing view of the mountains, but we didn´t know that upon arrival because it was so rainy and overcast! We talked to the person at the front desk about renting a car the following day (unfortunately the cheaper company was all booked up but we did secure a car from another rental company) to tour the lakes and then set off into town (via taxi again because it was actually pouring by then - very sad!) for some much needed coffee and food.

We ate at a cute Mexican restaurant in town where the waitress was rude but the food was really good but then headed further into town to find a place we could relax for a while (the heat wasn´t on in the Mexican restaurant and it was too cold!) and go through our Lonely Planet guidebook to map out some ideas for the following day. We ended up shopping around for a few hours, stopping for a coffee and to pick up some chocolate from the best shop in town (according to Lonely Planet and our hostel!), and then later to dinner at a vegetarian restaurant. This was extra exciting because it is really hard to find good veg spots in Argentina (and Ab is a vegetarian)!

When we got back to the hostel, we spoke to the front desk again to find out what rental company we booked with and to see what they thought the best plan for the day was (in the morning they booked the car for us but just told us to come back in the evening to get the details), but no one knew about the reservation and it was too late to call the woman who booked it earlier in the day. This made us a little uneasy because we were planning to pick up the rental car as soon as they opened at 9:30 AM because it needed to be returned at 5 PM the same day (they were closing early because it was Christmas Eve). But they promised they would call for us bright and early so we grabbed a shower and hit the sack for a few hours with hopes of sunshine and a shiny rental car in the morning.

(Are you sensing the potential for drama here?)