Epic journey to Bariloche.

The bus left on time at 7.30pm from Mendoza. I was in the premium 12 person cabin down the bottom, I’d splashed out for such a long journey. We had movies, blankets, pillows and a man served us dinner like you would get on a plane. He also knew I couldn’t speak Spanish but kept trying to talk to me, instead of the 8 other men in the cabin. The seats were big black leather ones and it was really
comfortable. I listened to music on my iPhone and then around midnight went to sleep.

When I woke it was still dark and I presumed it must be the middle of the night. But it was almost 8am and the sun hadn’t come up yet! At first, I dozed, but then as the scenery appeared I felt more awake. The conductor served us coffee and alfahores.

We passed through a number of towns that were so close together it felt like one really long city. All the men in the cabin got off the bus here. Then we were in the middle of nowhere, Las Pampas. It was flat desert ground as far as the eye could see, with small grey bushes and tussock. I felt so alone but free and happy – alone on a bus somewhere into an 18-hour journey in the middle of Argentina, only
accompanied by a conductor who I couldn’t speak an intelligible word to. That scenery felt like it went for hours before slight rolling hills began to appear, eventually blocking the horizon. Rosehip bushes and rocky crags started appearing on the hills which turned golden from tussock and it looked exactly like Otago. Strange pinnacles appeared on the side of hills, rock climbing routes traced onto them.

Then we turned a corner and we had left Otago – we were now in Banff! Black rock faces, dramatic tall mountains, pine or conifer trees surrounding the foothills and deep turquoise lakes. The landscape
switched between the two alpine colour palettes as Bariloche came into view. It was sitting on a wide
open lake, distant snowcapped peaks circling the water. The bus was running very late, we didn’t arrive until almost 4pm. I could’ve caught a taxi, but I felt like I should stretch my legs after sitting for 21 hours.

It was drizzling and the walk took almost an hour up and down hills and badly paved footpaths. I was
exhausted when I arrived.

I checked into the hostel, it was really nice. The receptionist called Pablo spoke good English and they made vegan meals every night at 8pm for guests. I had a quick look around the town. It was a classic ski-town, fake swiss chalet style buildings, lots of timber and natural rock walls. There were lots of chocolate shops, including this enormous one called Rapa Nui you could smell from down the street. I bought a Bariloche patch for my bag, I could already tell this was going to be one of my favourite places.

There weren’t many people in the hostel, but I had seen a blonde girl checking in who had fluent
Spanish. She sat on the couch next to me and we got chatting. She was actually English and had a strong London accent, swore a lot and was hilarious. She loved skiing and I mentioned that I wanted to go, so we started making plans. We also started drinking wine, polishing off two bottles (one I had brought from Mendoza) over our lentil Shepard’s pie. As the weather looked better for skiing on Wednesday, we planned to meet at 10am in the morning to go biking together.