One Apple A Day #158
Bariloche, January 3rd, 2017
Here we are, on the main street of Bariloche. The cold wind is blowing on our face while we try to understand where to go. This Austral summer looks a lot like the Boreal winter. Anyway, we just drop our bags at the hotel we booked online (the first night hotel and the truck are the only two things we booked in advance), and we left the car in a secured parking.
The first impact with Bariloche is weird. If it weren’t for the Spanish language, we would think this is a small town in the Swiss Alps. It’s cold and windy, mountains surround us on three sides with a lake on the fourth, half of the shops sell chocolate, and the other half sell trekking and climbing gears. After this first shock, we set up for our tasks. We have to find some local currency and the stuff we need for our road trip, like some food, soap, toilet paper, and a SIM card. Just thinking at that make us feel adventurer and shiver. Or maybe it’s just the cold wind.
The centre of the town is quite small, and most of the shops are on the main road. It should be easy to do our errands, but we overestimate our Spanish language skills, so we keep running around misunderstanding the directions given by the locals. After a while we realise that to buy a SIM card we must enter one of the shops with a big Milka sign on top, talking about that Swiss feeling.
When the sun goes down, we go back to the hotel with everything we need.
Our egos are a bit bruised. The first question we are asked anytime we try to speak in Spanish is “¿Eres Italiano?” (Are you Italian?). What best to heal our pride than an Argentinian dinner with two big steaks and a bottle of Malbec?
Here we are, Patagonia. It’s time to get to know each other.