Day: 163
 
Day 163-5.JPG
 
So with my German friends hitting the bus station to head north, I was left alone for a couple more days in Bariloche.  I had made an escape plan to head south along Route 40, the “worst road in South America” as Lonely Planet puts it, but the next bus isn’t until Saturday so I have a few days to spend wandering here.  I had originally wanted to find some other people, rent a car and drive this road, but I asked around for three days and found no one. I booked the non-refundable bus/tour at 5pm yesterday afternoon and at 7:30pm I was having a beer with a Norwegian and a British guy who already had a car and were in need of one more person.  I was crushed, but wasn’t ready to eat the $200 I had already spent for the next six days of hostels/buses/tours.  Kind of a bummer.
 
I meandered over to the hostel desk and talked to Adam (a fellow Southern Californian who works at the hostel), asking him what exciting places in Bariloche I was missing.
 
“Have you been to Cerro Campanario?” he asked.
 
“Nope.”
 
“Yeah, National Geographic listed it as one of the top 10 views in the world.”
 
“Really…” I said doubtfully. “How do I get there?”
 
“Number 20 bus to kilometer 17.3, then there is either a $20 peso chairlift to the top or a 3 kilometer hike.”
 
Sweet, I thought, I haven’t got any hiking in lately so it should be fun.  I headed off to grab a picnic lunch and some water from the market and proceeded to the bus stop to follow Adam’s directions.  Soon I had found the path and was trudging away at an over grown trail going more or less 3 kilometers straight up.  In less than an hour I was at the peak, slightly winded, slamming down one of my bottles of water. As soon as the last drop hit my mouth I looked around, stunned.  It was certainly one of the most spectacular view I had ever seen.  360 degrees of snowy mountain peaks, lakes, rivers, trees and little villages. I don’t normally go speechless for anything (other than solar eclipses) but this left me dumbfounded, and without seeing either extremely large pictures or being there yourselves, my tiny resolution images online show just a meager portion of the view.
 
I spent half an hour or so trying to capture it the best I could, then just found a rock with my lunch and settled in to enjoy it myself for a couple of hours.  I read for a while, every so often peaking over the pages and smiling to myself about where I am. 
 
With my sunblock wearing off and myself so close to the sun, I packed up my camera and headed back down the trail. Getting slightly lost in the woods I emerged on the road about 1/2 a kilometer away from the bus stop. I made my way down just in time to jump on the bus back into town.  I spent the next couple of hours blogging, emailing, and drinking a pint from an Irish pub with free Wi-Fi.  I did get an email from Carrie (from Istanbul, Turkey), who originally put the idea of Patagonia in my head, and she is going to make it down here after all.  She’ll be in Buenos Aires on Sunday and be staying only 10 days, so most likely we won’t actually see each other with me being so far south, but I did want to mention it because I would never have been in this amazing place other than on her suggestion.
 

I finished of my day with a couple of rare pieces of Bife de Loma and a salad, a sunset picture of the lake, an a race back to the hostel before my bladder exploded from the gigantic 1 liter bottle of beer that I drank with my beef.  I called it an early night around midnight and just crashed out.

Day 163-8.JPG