Food on the Road: Bariloche

Bariloche is a nature-lover's heaven... but if you love ice cream, or chocolate or steak, it's your heaven too.

When we were hanging out in Chile, we talked to a British couple who had just come from Bariloche. They raved about Bariloche's food, and gave us a long list of places we needed to check out while we were in town. Once we got to our hostel (the great La Barraca Suites), we wanted to confirm these rumors, so asked them the three most important questions:

 1. Where can we get the best steak in town?     
 2. What is your favorite ice cream shop?      
 3. Is there a place where we can get amazing chocolate?

Interestingly, our hosts confirmed the locations we'd heard from our British friends, so we set out to enjoy all of the deliciousness.

Waiting in line at Albertos

After our long journey into the woods, we decided we were in great need of a hefty piece of steak. The steak at El Boliche de Albertos was supposed to be the biggest and best piece of meat in town. We got there before the place opened, at 7:50pm. (In Argentina, people eat dinner closer to 9 or 10pm... much later than we can handle!) It's a good thing we got there early; there was a line halfway down the block! Thankfully, we got the 2nd to last table available in the place. The restaurant itself was pretty neat. We were able to walk around and see the guys cooking all of the steaks on huge grill. But, as these things often go, the quality of the food wasn't quite up to the hype. The steaks were huge and delicious, but not nearly as awesome as we'd expected. That didn't stop us from devouring them entirely.

Steak, Malbec and tons of fries

Tom and the remains of his steak

Grill master at work

 We'd also heard great things about Juaja, an Argentinian ice cream shop. We love ice cream, and we love trying out local "cuisine," so we made sure to stop at Juaja two times during our trip to Bariloche. You know, just to be sure we got a good feel for the "menu." We were not disappointed. I think they had something like a dozen different kinds of chocolate ice cream, plus dozens of fruity, cream, and other flavors. My favorite was the Calafate flavor, which was made from a wild Patagonian fruit. [Update: Tiramisu was better.] While the Juaja ice cream was delicious, my vote still goes to the gelato we got in Santiago, where the mint ice cream tasted like the mint had been freshly plucked from someone's backyard. (Sorry guys, can't remember the name... it'll have to remain a secret spot, for now.)

The cones are huge!

Hot chocolate from Jauja's on a day when it was too chilly for ice cream

Ice cream!

And on our last day in town, we realized we hadn't found any of Bariloche's legendary chocolate. [Bariloche was settled by a number of Swiss and German settlers who, thankfully, brought with them incredible chocolate-making abilities.] We headed to Mamushka, one of about a dozen chocolate shops in town. The whole store smells like chocolate, and it's always bustling with people. We decided to suck it up and spend the $12 for chocolates, knowing that we'd regret it if we didn't splurge a little. And... oh man. Mamushka makes the best chocolate I've ever had. It's gooey. And rich. If I could have a piece of this chocolate every day for the rest of my life, I'd live to be 182.

Me, with chocolate

Mmmm

Happy eating!

-R

Camping and Our Second Hike

After our first hike up Cerro Catedral, we limped back to Bariloche and claimed a small area of a campsite called La Selva Negra. It was a perfect place, right off the bus route, not far from town, spacious, quiet, and with Wi-Fi!

We love camping, but being so far from home and our supply of gear, there were a few problems: 1) Mosquitoes, 2) No pots for cooking, 3) High, high up on the hillside (especially for sore legs), and 4) The freezing cold.

That last problem was the worst. See, we didn't really pack for very cold weather. Since we're backpacking mostly through cities and towns, it isn't very efficient to carry all the necessary cold weather camping gear. We'll rent gear in Patagonia when we need it, and we have sleeping bags and mats to keep us off of the ground, but our stuff is for, say, Europe in summer, the beaches of Greece, etc. We didn't think this would be a problem in Bariloche since the days were 65F and sunny... but we were wrong.

I really suffered that night at the campsite. Nothing terrible and nothing life-threatening, but it was cold enough that we didn't sleep very well. We pulled out the emergency blanket and draped it over us in the middle of the night. If you've ever used one before, you know how unpleasant it is. You feel like a tightly-wrapped potato, because really, it's just a blanket of aluminum foil. So I lay there on the hillside awake and turning in the early hours of the morning, my head stuffed under the blanket and the condensation dripping off of it and into my mouth. It was terrible, but since the alternative was being really really cold instead of just really cold, I suffered the taste of my own watered breath. 

By morning, we were damp and tired.

As you might guess, although we were going to spend two or three nights at the campsite, we opted for that one night alone and crawled into town the next day to find a decent bed in a warm room. We spent the day resting, drinking hot chocolate, and filling ourselves with meaty soups. It just took that one day of rest, because by the next, we were ready to hike again.

We caught a bus to a small Swiss colony at the foothills of the mountains. There is a trail right off the stop that leads to Refugio Italia. The hike was beautiful. It winds up along a river and through the forest.

After our camping adventure and another day of hiking, we rewarded ourselves with some locally brewed beer which was conveniently sold in the Swiss colony just as we exited the trail.

- Tom

A Walk in the Woods

For the past week or so, we've been hanging out in San Carlos de Bariloche (or Bariloche for short), a small city a few hours from the Chilean border. Though the town itself is lovely (albeit a bit touristy), the real draw is the great outdoors. Bariloche is pretty much surrounded by the Nahuel Huapi National Park, and every street, hostel, and restaurant has an amazing view of stony mountains and crystal clear lakes.

We went for a long hike one cool, sunny day up the side of Cerro Catedral. Our dialogue for most of the that day went something like this:

"Wow."

"Oh wow!"

"That's gorgeous!"

"Wow!"

And so on.

So, clearly words can't do this hike justice. Instead, here's a picture tour of that walk in the Andes.

The start of the trail

Mountains

Oh look! Furry little flowers!

Yikes. Not flowers. Tom's leg is all prickly now.

Bariloche at Night

Welcome to San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina. This is a view from our hotel tonight. Beautiful, right?