Bariloche, Patagonia!

A gorgeous spot, right on a huge lake surrounded by Patagonian Andes, covered in snow.  We arrived in Bariloche aboard the 22 hour bus ride from Argentina, it was pretty brutal, but amazing scenery the whole way was a pleasant companion.  Our dream of making it to Patagonia has finally happened...Patagonia is gigantic, as it is the entire southern part of Argentina as well as Chile.  We'll see how far south we get!

Spent 5 days at 'Punto Sur' Hostel, which had a grill out back, which we used almost every night, to barbeque some dinner, or "Asado," as the Argentinos call it.  And, yes, Argentinian beef is amazing, like everyone says, and super cheap! 

One of our asado nights...

 Bariloche apparently has a ton of German settlers who ended up there.  The structures look very German, with some other European style, and the town is full of chocolate shops, featuring locally made chocolate, which was delicious.  There's also a ton of breweries, and we found a great one (from Mar de Plata) called "Antares," which had about 9 beers on tap, and a great happy hour (2 for 1 pints)...

During our stay, we walked the town, and finally found a guitar shop willing to repair my acoustic (on the cheap).  We dropped it off, and it was ready the next day about 5pm.  Guy did a great job, fixed the action, tightened the neck rod, and cleaned 'er up with some new strings.  What a relief...I would be pretty bummed if it was beyond repair...

We searched and searched for a volunteer gig in the area, without much luck...It turned out, after our second day at Punto Sur Hostel, we found out they had a listing on HelpX, and we didn't know about it...Would have been a great spot to work for a bit, but another couple, Rachelle and Don, from the States had it planned out.

Met some cool folks there, and decided to head down the road to El Bolson, where we could possibly find work, and definitely find some camping spots...As for our entrance to Patagonia, it was none other than gorgeous, and will probably get even more beautiful as we head south.  The plan as of now is to spend New Years in Ushuaia, aka the bottom of the world!  Booked a hostel for a couple nights there, and now we've got some time to kill!

Paraglider over the lake

Classic 'German' style architecture downtown

This is the lake right in front of the town