By Brent
After leaving Lago Rupanco, we headed east to Bariloche, Argentina to meet my brother, Kyle. After a rather uneventful busride, we found our hostel and headed to the airport.
We were debating whether to steal his passport and wallet and leave him stranded somewhere in a small town in Argentina, but he showed up with all the goodies Dana had asked him to bring, so we decided to let him keep his wallet.
Lucky for him, the Reese's and Dove chocolate didn't get confiscated at customs.
The next morning we decided to walk into town along the lake.
We spent the day wandering around Bariloche, figuring out which hikes we wanted to go on, looking for samples in the various chocolate company stores, and possibly buying a large quantity of ice cream.
It turns out Argentina does ice cream much better than Chile.
While we were wandering through the city, we found out it was International Women's Day. Apparently Argentinians celebrate it by decorating cars with streamers, balloons, and pieces of paper.
This was one of the better ones we saw.
That night Kyle introduced a new tradition for us - "Bro Sunsets" - where you basically split a bottle or two of wine with people at sunset. If you're really lucky, you celebrate it on the beach, and if you're really unlucky, you celebrate it with Kyle. The tradition has received mixed reviews.
The next morning we headed out to Cerro Catedral (Cathedral Hill) to hike to a refugio near the summit. Kyle chose to test his luck by leaving his warm coat and his rain jacket at the hostel.
Kyle sang "I'm a Little Teapot" for a solid hour on the hike up. It was super obnoxious.
At the lake by the refugio - the building in the background is the refugio and has a small restaurant/hostel.
Just outside the refugio is a rock face that is well-known in the Argentinian rock climbing community. Here you can see a few of the more popular routes.
There was also another lake further up on the mountainside above the refugio. We (especially Kyle) got lucky and other than it being very windy, our weather held for us.
On the way back down the mountain, we stopped at a lower refugio for a couple pictures. This one was built into a boulder and had a small wood stove to keep it warm when it got really cold out.
At the bottom of the mountain we noticed these crazy clouds while waiting for our bus.
For dinner we shared our first sub-par bottle of wine (we fortunately only had two of these the entire trip). This one was called Aberdeen Angus, and I think that's also what they squeezed to make the wine. At least we had classy glasses to drink it out of.
The next day we headed to El Bolson for a break from the super-touristy town of Bariloche. Our first dinner was at a delicious pizza place where we also ordered a pitcher of local beer.
Dana almost broke a tooth on the wooden pizza plate. She's more patient when food comes out of the kitchen now.
The next morning Dana found a couple companions for our hike to Mirador Cerro Amigo. She decided to name them Osito (Little Bear) and Ratoncita (Little Mouse). They ended up following us all day, including waiting for us outside the grocery store while we bought food.
At the mirador, Dana tested out her Lisa-picture taking abilities. Lisa, what would you rate this one? We realize it's not black and white, so it's not quite as potent with the death imagery and the sadness, but I think it would at least merit a solid B.
Dana playing with Ocito and Ratoncita.
Kyle decided they looked thirsty, so he gave them a bit of his water in a disc.
We found this and noticed that it was from Lincoln. We assumed Nebraska, but the technology seems a little advanced for them, so we're not sure.
Our friends followed us all day. This is how they killed time for a few minutes in the afternoon.
This is how we killed time.
We also had to get ice cream at a different place. Kyle dropped his.
The next day we took a bus to Lago Puelo, which sits on the border with Chile. Our hike took us up into the mountains on the side of the lake where we occasionally were treated to amazing views of the lake in between areas of lush forests.
There's no proof Kyle stayed awake the whole time.
This was from the highest (and windiest) part of the trail. You could see into Chile in one direction and into the northern parts of Argentinian Patagonia in the other.
That night, Kyle made us wear his Sock Club socks (sockclub.com) that showed the Austin, TX skyline in public. It was awful. Walking back was much better because at least then it was dark...
Dana was "cold," so she wore pants.
View of the mountains over El Bolson as we were walking to dinner.
Dinner! We ate with some guys Dana had run into at our hostel. It turned out they were from Minnesota, which was cool. It also turned out they were from the University of Minnesota, which was not cool. I suggested we kick them out of our table, but Dana thought that would be rude.
We ate a parrillada (traditionally a dozen courses of meat of improving quality) that was rather disappointing... Looks like we'll just have to try again somewhere else.
We walked out to a waterfall after giving up our attempt to climb to the 'blue ball' (Cajon del Azul). Dana managed to sneak a picture of Kyle taking a picture.
We may have picked a few blackberries on the way back to the hostel.
While walking back from the waterfall, we noticed that a truck had recently gone by, dropping a lot of hop plants. Dana and Kyle got to try their first ever hop cones. They came to the conclusion that hop cones are bitter.
Here's Kyle taking credit for the work Dana and I did getting dinner ready. All he contributed was the idea to soak some blackberries in white wine before drinking it. The jumbalaya turned out amazing, and the salads with blackberries were pretty tasty as well.
Obviously, any good meal has to have an equally good desert.
It should also have an equally good beverage, and in this respect, the meal fell quite short. We had a bottle of Toro Viejo ("Old Bull") wine, and again, I think that's what they squeezed to make this wine. It was awful. If you're ever in the grocery store and noticed a cheap bottle with "Toro Viejo" on it, spend the extra $0.50 to get something palatable.
That was our final night in El Bolson before heading west to Valdivia for a trip to Chile's beer capital (same place we went with my parents). The dawn sky as we were leaving town was gorgeous.
Plus, look who we found on our way to the bus station! Ratoncita and Ocito!
Eating lunch in an alley behind the Bariloche bus station. And yes, it did smell like stale urine.
When we made it to Valdivia, we stopped at the Airesbuenos Hostel just to see if Mac had any plans for the weekend. It turned out Mac was leaving the next afternoon, so we happened to meet him on his last night in town. They threw a going away party for him, and we enjoyed some delicious seafood, sangria, and wonderful company for the evening.
Kyle's first Chilean seafood experience - mussels, octopus, and other random unlucky sea critters.
We had to improvise on marshmellow cooking utensils...
But then we got to make these! It's manjar instead of Hershey's chocolate, so it wasn't exactly the same, but it was dang good.
The following morning we saw this in Niebla. The beach that had been absolutely packed with people only a few weeks earlier was completely deserted, and the small beach stands selling beer were being dismantled.
We stopped at the Kunstmann brewery on our way back towards town and found this mannequin showcasing what has to be the most amazing facial hair I've ever seen spray-painted onto a plastic face. I'm trying to convince Kyle he should start shaving like this - if you see him, please give him a little encouragement.
This is what 2.5L of bock looks like in Valdivia.
Then we got a meal of nothing but Chilean specialties - pisco sour, terremoto, jugo natural, empanadas, completo, and chorrillana (heart attack on a plate - fries smothered in fried meat with fried eggs and fried onion on top).
Chorrillana - not good for your health.
We also got to watch a Chilean futbol game - Universidad Catolica de Chile against some overmatched team - where many people fell, grabbed their legs and rolled in pain, looked up, realized no one was watching, and then were magically healed.
Dinner the next night was quite exciting for Kyle. We had chili in Chile. The next day, we would enjoy chilly chili in Chile during our bus ride back into Argentina.
That meant we had time for one more good bro sunset in Argentina before Kyle left.
We took full advantage by also buying some chalkolate to go with our awesome wine...
And headed back down to a quiet spot on the beach.
Kyle's last full day included a hike around Bariloche that took us to a crazy tree...
...a beautiful little beach...
...an awesome spot for lunch...
...a not-so-hidden Lago Escondido (Hidden Lake)...
...and an awesome overlook facing mountains on the far side of a beautiful lake.
Obviously we had to try some of the Barilochean chocolate - it is the chocolate capital of Argentina. Dana said she didn't want any, but after twisting her arm a little bit, I convinced her we should definitely get some before we leave.
We also enjoyed this fantastic dinner on Kyle's last night. It was perfectly cooked steak (about 1.5" thick) with a side of mashed potatoes and salad. But let's get real, who eats salad when they go to Argentinean steak houses (answer: not Kyle or Brent).
