A Patagonian New Year

As I made my way south to Bariloche the view gradually changed to the typical postcard scenery that I'd imagined the south of Argentina to be. Before I knew it I was looking out the bus window to jagged mountains, which still had a light coating of snow left over from winter. They stood over pristine lakes which were all bordered with sandy beaches. From the bus these places looked very tempting to swim, but I got the feeling that once I got out there I probably wouldn't get much further than getting my toes a little bit wet.

After the bus arrived I got my first feel of the fresh Patagonian wind. Coming from the strong summer heat of Neuquen I wasn't really prepared for it, still wearing my shorts and t shirt, but the fifteen minute walk to the hostel kept me active enough to avoid getting to cold. Up until this point in Argentina I'd spent a lot of time staying with Argentinians. It had been a great experience, and I'd gotten to know a lot of the Argentinian culture because of it, but I decided that for Christmas and New Years I would find a hostel to settle down in to meet a few people to celebrate with.

I arrived in Bariloche on the 23rd, I'd made a reservation a wee while before, thinking that it would surely be booked out at this time of the year. It turned out that in fact there were plenty of spare spaces available. Posted up on the reception desk was a sign advertising the Christmas dinner for the crazy price of 100 pesos (around $33 NZ.) Normally I'm content on spending 10 pesos for a meal, but I decided that because it was Christmas, I'd spend out a wee bit to have a classic Argentinian asado on Christmas eve.

A view Lago Nahuel Huapi

Hanging around in the hostel seemed like the most attractive thing thing to do after I arrived. I wanted to get out and see some of the surroundings but outside it was so cold that it was hardly appropriate to be going on an easy Thursday afternoon stroll. The whole mountain range was covered in clouds which made it difficult to really see anything more than a gray haze. Argentina up until this point had been all sun and shorts, but now I was once again digging deep into my pack to get out the woolly hat.

As Christmas approached it was barely noticeable that we were approaching the festive season. Occasionally there would be decorations up on the shop windows and there was an impressive Christmas tree in the main square, but the main thing it missed was the fanatical people rushing around everywhere to buy presents (which was a good thing.) Another difference here is that all the celebrations are on Christmas eve, then Christmas day is just a simple day of relaxing and recovering from last nights hangover.

On the day of Christmas eve I looked around and it didn't really feel anything like the day before Christmas. After speaking to many of the people in the hostel I found that not many people had signed up for the Christmas dinner because it was too expensive, turned out I was going to be one of the few people who were actually going to do it. The deal was that for 100 pesos we would get the asado dinner with a selection of salads, “free” alcohol (which only turned out to be one of their local beers), and a desert (which was served up as a small piece of ice cream cake, all of which were individually wrapped in plastic.) I realized pretty quickly that the dinner had fallen well short of the money I'd paid, but I enjoyed it never the less, and made the conclusion that it was still better than most of the meals that I'd made for myself.

The remainder of the night was followed by entertainment from a local performer. He used backing tracks for the bass & drums, then he interchanged between guitar and keyboard to fill in the rest, also putting an extra layer over top by singing. He was always encouraging people to get up and jam wherever possible. After a while I decided to join in on the fun, so I got up and played a couple of songs, hoping that everyone would know them. At the end of the night we all went out to some of the local bars. When we arrived to the first one we waited for nearly two hours before we decided to try somewhere else. We got into the second place a lot faster, but then straight away I saw that it was the place to go for all the 18 and 19 year old school graduates, whom had come to Bariloche for their graduation celebrations. It didn't feel like I was in the bar for to long, but by the time I finally got back to the hostel Christmas day had well and truly gotten underway. It was 8am and I even arrived just in time to enjoy the hostel breakfast before going to bed to spend half of Christmas day catching up on sleep. When I finally got out of bed it seemed that everyone else was doing the same thing also. It didn't end up being what I though it would be, but I was adamant that I would redeem it on New Years eve. After finding out about a different hostel on the lake front, I decided to change hostels in the hope of finding a better vibe.

I was very lucky to get a room in the next hostel. This was the beginning of the peak time, so I turned up early in the morning, hoping I could jump in on a room as someone was checking out. She told me that I would have to wait until mid day, but after an hour informed me that I would have the room for the time that I wanted it. This hostel was a lot smaller, but it had a bar which was very popular with the local people in Bariloche. The first night I arrived they had live music and a very relaxed vibe, I felt a lot better about the prospect of spending New Years here than in the other hostel. The parties continued every night, making sleeping early a slightly difficult option, but the party for New Years ended up being a great party.

Another view of the lake, close to Bariloche from a bike ride I did one day

By the time the night came round I'd made a new bunch of friends and it was a great chance to experience the way Argentinians like to party. The funny thing is that here the parties start very late, and then also finish very late. Back at home, the climax of the party is of course the big countdown to the New Year, but in Argentina the countdown is barely even acknowledged. At the stroke of midnight we all did our countdown, but as the locals were still eating dinner they didn't at all seem bothered by it. They decided to do their countdown a few minutes later, which was a pretty lame effort to say the least. If you would have judged the party by the scene at midnight, you would have easily assumed that the party was a sure to be failure. The bar was empty, and there was just a couple of us sitting around on the lawn. The locals insisted that by 2.30am people would start arriving, and by 3.30 the party would be well into full swing. They turned out to be pretty accurate in their predictions, by 3.30 the place was crawling with people, and was a completely different site to what it was a couple of hours earlier. The Argentinians well and truly outnumbered the tourists, so I felt like I had a real local experience. It was great having a bar in the hostel as well because it meant that we never had to leave to go anywhere else. After once again using another whole day up to recover from sleep I decided that it was time to move on to somewhere else. Through my time in the hostel I'd made friends with a coupe of people who had hired a car for six days. They invited me to join in with them and go and explore a nearby national park and some other small towns close by.



One of the glaciers in "Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi" this
was also the park that went camped at.

 The plan was the go to a national park not to far away called "Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi," and spend some time camping, and weather permitting some hiking also. The park ended up being a wee bit harder to find than we'd originally thought, but after asking directions from a passer by, we finally found ourselves in the right direction. The weather also wasn't what we'd originally hoped for. By the time we'd put the tents up the rain had well and truly set in, and we were left with nothing much to do than sit in the kitchen area and drink mate. Later on that night our neighbors noticed that we were sitting in the car to get away from the cold. They were a wee bit more prepared than us, and had their area well covered at away from the rain, and also had a steady fire well underway. They said that we were more than welcome to come over and drink some mate & share some music with them. We gratefully accepted the offer and went over to join them.

The plan was to do a hike up to a Refugio (hut) the following day and stay a night there. But after finding out that it was absurdly overpriced, and also taking the whether into account, we decided to spend the day in the park instead, then drive a wee bit further south to a small hippie town called El Bolson. Throughout the drive down the weather cleared up, and we ended up getting some of the best view of my whole trip. This area had the typical post card views of Patagonia that I'd imagined before I came. It was great to have a car at this stage, we were able to stop wherever we wanted, and it also meant we could take our time when we wanted.

El Bolson was a very different site to Bariloche. Bariloche was a big city and was well built up for tourism, and at this time of the year it was full of tourists both Argentinians, and foreigners. El Bolson on the other hand was a lot smaller, and had much more of a relaxed vibe. Not only is this place known as a hippie town, but also a place which has a great market, where you could find anything from home brewed beer, to all sorts of crafts, to interesting musical instruments. One of the local beer breweries had a very impressive assortment of flavors, from many types of lagers, to various other interesting infusions such as chili, chocolate, and also an extra potent dark beer.

We were originally only going to spend a brief amount of time at this place, but something about it seemed to lure us in a keep us there for a wee bit longer. The time that we were there happened to co-inside with one of the days of the market, which was a great chance to see what the local artisans had to offer. Later in the day there was also a reggae band which made the already chilled out atmosphere an ideal afternoon in which nothing else seemed necessary other than sitting in the sun and listening to music.

Local band in El Bolson

The next step was to make our way back up to Bariloche, then carry on exploring part of the lake district, ending up in a place called Villa la Angostura. This place was a lot smaller than many of the other destinations I'd visited in Patagonia, but it was still very touristy. The main street was stacked up with souvenir shops, and there was also no shortage of bike rental shops either. By this stage the weather had settled into a consistent rhythm of nothing but long hot sunny days, but despite this the water was still very cold. The day that we went to the lake and have a swim ended up being a day where we spent most of the time sitting by the lake, and about five minutes actually swimming. It was the first time that I'd actually gotten into the water this far south, and I also decided that it would probably be one of the last.

From this point I had decided earlier that I would somehow try to get to San Martin de los Andes, following the route of the famous seven lakes road. Originally my idea was to either hire a bike and do it that way, or possibly hitchhike it as well. I'd passed more time over new years than I though I would, so I was now pressing on to get to Chile. In the end I made to decision to take a bus. It perhaps wasn't the most ideal way to pass through the rout, but I'd seen so many amazing lakes and so much other scenery during the time that we had the car, that I was pretty content with seeing this part through the window of a bus. It was also at this point where we split ways with Flor, and Evan came with me to check out the sights of San Martin.

The Patagonian team from left - Me, Flor, Evan

I had always noticed that Patagonia was a lot more expensive than other areas in Patagonia but I was shocked when I arrived in San Martin, only to find that the cheapest hostel was $25 per night. It turned out that this place was a popular destination spot for the slightly wealthier Argentinians. I decided pretty quickly that I couldn't stick around here for to long, so as soon as I checked into the hostel, I went straight back to the bus terminal and bought my ticket to Chile for the following morning at 6am. It was a Friday night, and the hostel had that feeling about it that there mite be a party going down that night. I realized that I had two options, the first was that I didn't do anything, then go to bed early so I made it up on time for the bus, the second was that I didn't go to bed at all, and just partied on through until I had to catch the bus. I decided to take the second option, and in the end after paying all that money I didn't even sleep in the bed, nor did I get to enjoy the complimentary breakfast, as I was leaving a couple of hours before it was served. Never the less I had no regrets, we ended up going to another hostel next door where we had a huge jam/singalong session. By the time I got to know a couple of people I actually started wishing that I'd given myself a day or two longer there. As the night went on we went to a couple of bars, eventually I got to the inevitable time where I had to make to taxi ride to the terminal to take the bus. At least one good thing that came out of that night was that I was now able to sleep well on the bus, making the long journey seem at least a wee bit shorter. I still didn't have a great idea as to exactly where I was going to go in Chile. All I knew was that I was starting in a city called Valdivia, and from there I was going to travel south until I decided it was time for me to cross back over to Argentina.