Our last full day in Bariloche we decided to take a trip within a trip. We took a short bus ride to la Villa Angostura, a small town near Bariloche. There is a very rare type of tree there that is protected in a national park on an island there (in the middle of the lake), so we were excited hike around and see what this tree was all about. Unfortunately, when we got there we were informed that the trails were closed for the season and the only way to the zone was by expensive catamaran, so we decided to spend our day doing something else:
Horseback riding! It was my first time ever!
We went out with two gauchos. They say that Gauchos are men of few words, and when they do speak, it’s in the least number of words possible and they don’t open their mouths. Well, I literally could not understand a word this guy said to me! I just smiled and hoped that my horse wasn’t crazy.
The horses came from a Old MacDonald’s farm:
But these guys make me want to be a vegetarian:
We went out in the freezing, windy cold and serenaded by a constant chorus of dogs. There are so many dogs (stray and non) everywhere in Argentina, but here it seemed especially like there were more dogs than humans (that’s what I told one of the Gauchos who simply responded “Sí”. Poetic.)
The dogs were clearly scared of the horses and so they barked and chased us. Luckily, the horses were chill dudes who didn’t take off running. Although my horse was sassy- she kicked some of the dogs.
We were taken to a secret spot (more beautiful vistas!) to have some Mate to thaw our frozen selves.
Upon returning to Bariloche, we were greeted with a surprise:
SNOW!
IN
JUNE!!!
We woke up the next day to these frosted babies. How sad we were to not be able to ski!
Although it was super windy too:
So we just picked up some more chocolate (we had to get “gifts” for the folks back home aka eat more ourselves), took a last awe-inspiring look at the lake, and headed home:
The weekend was (clearly…three posts!) wonderful, even though we didn’t get to ski. At is has been everywhere I’ve gone in Argentina, it was fun to get a sense of the people from the region.
And that fresh air…