Biking in Bariloche and San Martin de los Andes

Bariloche is a ritzy ski and mountain town on the shores of the beautiful Lago Nahuel Huapi in the Lakes District of Argentina. We arrived to a terrible view however because of a nearby fire but that didn't get in the way of chocolate and ice cream shopping downtown.  They're supposedly famous for both and had quite a colorful selection to choose from. The most interesting part was running in to 2 of the 6 Israelis from TDP at the chocolate shop and they seemed much happier than they were at the end of the hike. 

Preparations for Semana Santa

Bariloche really wishes it was a European ski town based on the hotel names of Edelweiss and Chamonix but the downtown was nothing special. Our amazing hostel 4 km outside of town though was awesome. They picked us up at the bus station, upgraded us for the same price to a private room (especially fabulous after our 11 bed room in El Bolson) and had a fabulous kitchen and common area. While the hiking here is supposedly superb, we are hiked out so biking the Circuito Chico was a great compromise on our goal to see the national park while not hiking. After a late night chatting with our other awesome hostel guests, it was hard to leave early but soon we were on our rental bikes (mine was horrible and clucked up every hill) in the beautiful sunny and clear day. 

There were plenty of steep hills that forced others to walk but I was determined to bike up, even after my bike stopped working to get into the bottom 8 gears. We had amazing vistas, fast downhills and bridges over crystal clear streams.  

My favorite part was finding a hidden beach off a side dirt road. Here we ate lunch and relaxed under the sun on some rocks by the lake. The trip ended just after the beautiful Llao Llao Hotel, a super fancy resort and golf course. 

As it was St Patrick's Day, about 12 of us from the hostel ventured downtown for the festivities. We met up with Fio from El Bolson as well. However, we didn't want to be out too late and it was still dinner time (11 pm...so we could only get a drink if we were seated at a table...weird) so we only tried one local beer each.  We walked around with Fio for a while and then returned by 12 though I'm sure the others partied quite late since no one was up for breakfast when we left at 830 for the bus station. 

To get to San Martin de los Andes (and back to Chile), we road the scenic bus through the cute town of Villa La Angostura where we had a few hours to enjoy a cute cup of tea.  

Then we rode past the famous 7 Lakes which were beautiful before arriving in the equally cute town of San Martin on the shore of Lago Lanin.  

Here we planned to bike more and relax and thankfully, we had a beautifully sunny day to bike up and up the mountains flaking the town and the lake and then zipped down the backside before circling around the side of the lake again.  

Beautiful!  Helado (we're suckers), cheap Mendoza wine ($4 for 1.5L!), hostel-cooked meals and kitchen conversations with Argentinian travelers capped off a fun day!

Enjoying our hostel salads, steak (yes, even I will eat steak in meat-centric Argentina) and vino!

The wine aisles are amazing here!  Almost all are from Argentina and very affordable!