After a free day in Ushuaia, which we spent inside drinking and shopping to avoid the awful freezing rain, we began our trip back home - to the north. After another full 36 hours of driving that once again included the 4 border stops and ferry crossing, we arrived in Bariloche, a party town, renowned for chocolate factories and dance clubs, where it is customary for 'high school' classes to go together upon their completion of their final year and get sickly drunk for 10 consecutive nights. The first night there our entire group went out dancing together - out to the most expensive club I have yet found in Argentina - and 85 pesos cover. It was nice though. I'm not going to say it was worth it, but it was nice. The DJ did his thing from a glass both overlooking the dance floor from high above, there was a laser show, 4 bars, and lounge rooms themed like caves with funky lighting and sofas. I guess it was a necessary experience while in Bariloche...
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| A lake outside Bariloche |
Other days in Bariloche we went on a sightseeing tour of the surrounding area. We saw an old church, and old hotel, and pretty typical stuff like that. In a chocolate factory we were taught the chocolate making process, but most importantly were given samples, and I bought an entire kilo of assorted chocolate to bring back to my family. We had a lot of free time to shop and explore, as Bariloche was as touristy a town as any we would visit the entire time. Then, once again, an early morning and 1 hour bus ride landed us somewhere new.
In Esquel, a town with very little merit other than the fact that it’s on the way back home and has cabins was next. The day we arrived, my friends and I took a taxi to the supermarket and bought food to replace the looming dinner to which we would surely be taken (our guides never really divirsied the meal plan much, so after 14 or 15 days enough was enough). Hence, we 5 stayed behind in our cabin, missing the meal that we had already paid for, while I cooked chili and cornbread and my Swiss friend made sausages on the grill with potatoes and a sweet onion sauce.
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| San Martin de los Andes |
Our final stop, San Martin de los Andes, marked our jumping-off point for the 30 hour drive back home. We had an entire free day, and we chose to spend it at the photo store, where my 4 other friends and I got some group photos of ourselves blown up to about 1 foot by 1.5, more or less. We got some tea, more chocolate, and shopped around for nothing in particular, but it was a hard thought to bear that it as the end of the trip. As we talked about it, it felt a bit odd how normal some things had become over the last 2 weeks, whether it be waking up on a bus to see the worlds largest mountain range looming outside, or just spending 24 hours of every day together in near total freedom - freedom to spend a day walking through the mud to a lake or through the snow up a mountain just because you saw it there and wanted to do so.
Bu regardless, early the next morning we put everything back in the bus for the last time, and headed from the wet and snowy forests nestled by the Andes to the big and empty wheat and soy fields of Córdoba. Then that was that. In March, we're going up north.
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