reason three million why i love argentina: the whole country gets a day off for the census survey!! which meant i packed my backpack and headed to bariloche for the weekend (of four days, lol, more like the entire week you could say). a starting point of the enormous mass that is patagonia, bariloche is a favorite among tourists (eeesh, am i a tourist?? or a quasi-porteña?? let's go with the latter for now) and draws huge crowds throughout the year, who flock for the phenomenal chocolate, the stunning mountains and lakes, and the quaint swiss-german feel of the town. 

i set off tuesday afternoon with my georgetown friends paige and deepa on one of the luxury buses that i've surprisingly come to adore about argentine travel (despite the ridiculously jacked-up transportation prices). i had purposely chosen seat number three for this particular twenty hour bus ride (yeah, welcome to argentine travel) for several reasons: 1) the front row = extra leg room for the scandinavian ogre and an even more amazing view of the scenery along the way, and reason 2) seat three is a totally isolated seat all by itself, which meant i would not be trapped by snoring mammoths all night long, and thus not wind up at the end of the ride with swollen feet!! a good move on my part. the ride was utterly relaxing, complete with a stunning sunset and individual bottles of red wine that came with dinner!! woo!!

non-swollen feet!! eeesh, looks like someone needs a pedicure though...

when i woke up from a peaceful sleep on the bus (seat three = best thing ever invented), i checked my cell phone only to find out that ex-president nestor kirchner had unexpectedly died of a heart attack. without having lived in buenos aires these past few months, there's no way i would have been able to understand the overwhelming significance of his death. though at times a controversial politician, you can't possibly deny that nestor finally got argentina back together following years of disastrous presidents and an economic crisis in 2001 that practically ended the country. he brought argentina some much needed stability, making economic development and human rights two of the most important items on his presidential agenda, and helping argentina overcome a foreign debt of $178 billion. no biggie. ohhh, and he was also the husband of current president cristina fernández de kirchner. can you say POWER COUPLE?? beloved and hated here in argentina depending on who you talk to, they are the political powerhouse of all time and have brought a lot of positive change to argentina. he was expected to run for the presidency next year, solidifying the kirchner dynasty once and all. crazy to think that i had seen him in person a little over a month before at the political rally-party in luna park. pretty wild. 

although nestor had only died an hour or two before, when we arrived in the main plaza the flag was already flying at half-mast in his honor. we stopped for a moment of silence, then headed to our cozy 10th floor hostel, which featured breathtaking panoramic views of the mountains and central lake. after dropping off our stuff, we sauntered into town for a little lunch. which turned out to be an epic FAIL. although we knew all argentines would have the day off to complete their census interviews, the reason why we didn't have class on wednesday in the first place, we hadn't exactly realized that literally EVERYTHING would shut down for the day. like, literally. every single restaurant and shop was closed, even the freaking church was locked due to the census!! despite the borderline violent wind that was creating legit whitecaps on the water, we walked down and chilled on the beach for a little bit, then headed back up into town hoping to try our luck again. we encountered one chocolate shop that was open, but unfortunately the two pieces of chocolate we bought and shared tasted 1) like a fish pier and 2) like A1 steak sauce....epic fail number two. we lucked out at the kiosk next door which had just opened, and grabbed a totally balanced lunch of beer, crackers, yogurt, and oreo alfajores. successss finally!!! we then headed back to the hostel to cozy up to quilmes and try subsisting on leftover medialunas from the bus ride. beer in bed was definitely one of the lower moments of my life, but oh well, good times!! 

overall, the week was a relaxing vacation break from the hectic pace of life in buenos aires. i can hardly say the experience was culturally relevant or educational or all that eye-opening in any sense, but the nature was stunning and the three of us enjoyed ourselves to the fullest. for our first full day in the mountains, we had arranged for a horseback riding excursion around one of bariloche's many stunning lakes. despite the biting wind and rain that accompanied us along the way, what better way to explore argentina than by caballo?? our guide ernesto happened to have a couple of "rain outfits" on hand that definitely provided us with unending laughs and much-needed warmth. i looked like a death eater straight out of harry potter. 

the horseback ride was relatively chill, and we visited a smaller but still very pretty waterfall along the way. the best part of the afternoon however was the enormous lunch that greeted us at the end of the excursion. after plopping ourselves by the fireplace to warm up after the rainy ride, we dug into a delicious asado complemented by red wine and the best potatoes ever. in between bites, we periodically returned to the fireplace hoping to get rid of the numbness in our toes and fingers. the word that defined our mini-vacation was vergüenza (embarrassment, also shame. the two are interchangeable in both spanish and in our bariloche trip) mainly because i couldn't stop totally embarrassing myself at every corner. like, for example, when i got a little too close to the flames and the wet bottoms of my blue jeans started vaporing uncontrollably!! i started absolutely freaking out!! and couldn't help but think about my favorite mrs. doubtfire scene when robin williams is running around screaming PUT IT OUT PUT IT OUT!! loves it.

after a successful day of stereotypical argentine activities like horse-back riding and parrilla-ing, we bused back to our hostel and showered up to head into town for a little chocolate shopping and dinner. we found an awesome restaurant on the main strip which eventually became our bariloche hotspot over the next few days and where the waiters would come to know us as the "sangria girls" (whoops). the casual restaurant  reminded me of my hometown haunts of nation's and pizza antica due to the community-friendly and jam-packed atmosphere, and i loved the varied memorabilia, like john lennon and bob marley posters and these totally random mobile contraptions that hung from the ceiling. the waiters got such a kick out of the three of us that they gave us extra wine in our sangria pitcher for free!!! BEST PLACE EVER. 

no real reason why i needed to make this sangria lemon photo so big. i just LOVE digital macro, that's all. 

on friday, we woke up early for our day-long trekking excursion through nahuel huapi national park. as i attempted to get dressed in the pitch black of our hostel room, i missed my pant leg and completely wiped out on the floor, waking up our hostel roommate who had arrived in the middle of the night. typical vergüenza. once i had finally gotten myself together, the van picked us up outside the hostel and we set off for an awesome day in some of bariloche's many mountains. our trekking group featured people from all over the world--spain, el salvador, britain, colombia, canada, italy, united states, to name a few. our tour guide was this adorable little argentine woman who reminded me a ton of my childhood babysitter angela, she was so sweet and friendly!! great mix of people for a great day in nature. 

no idea what this river was called, but it sure was pretty!! 

during our long drive to the national park, we made two different pit stops to enjoy the scenery, the first beside a huge ass lake (typical bariloche) and the second time by a stunning stream with the most crystal clear water i've ever scene, practically caribbean-quality and so transparent that you could easily spot the trout sleeping in the water!! the same trout i probably ate for dinner later that night at the fondue restaurant we went to!!

can you spot the fishies?! (hint: towards the left. and no, not the rocks) 

after bumbling along the dirt roads through the forest for an hour, we arrived at the starting point for our grand "trek". which turned out to be more like a pleasant stroll in the woods and was far from heart-pumping (probably better in my case, considering i haven't set foot inside a gym for the past four months). we walked in strict single-file fashion for about thirty minutes before arriving at a beautiful waterfall, where we stopped to admire the endless greenery and mountain ranges in the distance. waterfalls being right up there with dogs and ice cream in my list of favorite things, i was in my über happy place, to such a point where i couldn't help but break out spontaneously into "colors of the wind" and "just around the river bend" from pocohantas. it seemed like an appropriate setting?? vergüenza. so much vergüenza. i also felt inspired to tell my friends about the epic dream i had as a kid in which i dreamt i WAS pocohantas and i broke my legs jumping off an enormous waterfall JUST like the one we were looking at. good thing my friends understand my occasional quirkiness bouts. yikes!! 

as a california girl with a chronic aversion to anything even resembling long sleeves (fact: i only own two of them), i had grossly underpacked for the weekend, confusing the beach with the mountains. after practically keeling over with hypothermia the night before when i went out wearing a spaghetti strap tank and a thin windbreaker, i decided there was no way i could possibly survive a full day outside with the wardrobe i had packed....so, the night before our trek, i found a little shop and rented a coat for $5! SO GRUNGE and SO WARM. as you can see below, MAN, did i rock that rented jacket. hard core.

hoya saxa!!!

i'm so glad to have friends here that tolerate this crap that i pull!! 

before heading onto the second part of our trekking excursion, we stopped for lunch where i warmed up to veggie soup and realized HOW. FREAKING. AMERICAN. i can be sometimes. we had been allotted an hour for lunch, but after a whopping ten minutes the american restlessness hit me big time and i was getting pissed that we were wasting time in the day eating when we could doing stuff. the lunch break ended up extending to an hour and a half and i was on the verge of really flipping out, wondering out loud why we hadn't just been told to pack a lunch or something instead of idly wasting such precious time. boxed lunches?? yeah, that would never exist here in argentina.  one of the favorite quotes from the weekend was from my friend paige and pretty much summed up our rushed, fast-paced, time-maximizing americannes: "geez, argentines need to learn to pb&j that shit!!". i totally concurred. it was less a case of cultural shock, than a case of cultural epiphany. i've never really thought of myself as an obsessive freak when it comes to spending time, but, well, turns out i totally am. soooo yankee of me!! (that's what they call americans here). 

the next part of the excursion was a visit to the national park's glacier. we climbed a hill to reach the first lookout point, combing our way through foliage and branches, and got psyched up for our first glimpse of the ENORMOUS AND BREATHTAKING AND PHENOMENAL ICE MASS that awaited us at the top......

haha more like we psyched ourselves OUT, right?!?! we had been expecting something a little more impressive and grand than the half-melted glacier that we actually encountered. lol we definitely had a couple good laughs over our misinformed expectations though!! and though we had been hoping for something a little more, ahem, BIG, the glacier actually was kinda cool. it's only one of two black glaciers in the entire world!! and the greenish water that surrounded the melting chunks was a cool color, having mixed with the little seaglass-like stones in the surrounding mountain sediment. my favorite part of our excursion's second half was hiking through the hills and hearing booming avalanches occurring in the mountains right in front of us. my biggest fear in the entire world is being buried alive in an avalanche so it was simultaneously totally terrifying and totally exhilarating. not sure why i was having such disney flashbacks during the day, but between the avalanches and the mountains i couldn't help but think about mulan and the hun scene!! 

another shot of me rocking the rented jacket. tap that. 

thought cities constantly fascinate me and challenge me, i have a soft spot for nature and love any opportunity that lets me get lost in the beauty of our world. overall, super successful day in the mountains!! only wish we had been able to spend a little more time there ("pb&j that shit" next time, i beg you argentina!!). 

that evening, we treated ourselves to a fondue feast at one of the several posh fondue restaurants on the main strip. several decades ago, bariloche was a settlement hotspot for incoming swiss and german immigrants, something that reflects easily in the region's delicious cuisine. the fondue still maintained its own little argentine touch thanks to the spicy chimichurri dipping sauce i love so much!! perfect topping for chicken and meat fondue, definitely gonna be bringing that back to my family's new years fondue tradition. after dinner, we perused a few of the innumerable chocolate shops that line the main road, where i satiated my infamous sweet tooth with a couple bars of raspberry dark chocolate and marzipan-filled truffles, and then wound up back at the same restaurant for the second time in a row for our beloved sangria. the waiters chuckled every time they passed our table. oh well. we ourselves had some good laughs too when we realized that, despite the fact that the restaurant is called "friends" (in english, yeah bariloche is almost excessively tourist-friendly if you can't already tell), each wooden menu features a bizarre suicide-themed comic!! so morbid!!

yeah, we didn't really know what to think about all that!! a little contradictory and depressing, but also kinda hilarious. on our last morning/afternoon in bariloche before catching the 20 hour bus ride home, we enjoyed a lazy breakfast in the hostel and watched kitesurfers braving it out on the white-capped waters, wind chill and all. i was impressed, and asked my friends if they thought kitesurfing was actually as hard as people made it out to be. i didn't think so. i've tried (and failed MISERABLY) at standard windsurfing, but was convinced that kitesurfing must be pretty freaking easy in comparison, and tried to convince my friends of the same. how hard can it possibly be to attach yourself to a kite, stand on a board, and let the wind pull you around?? as we found out on the drive to the bus station, the kitesurfers we had admired from the hostel balcony were in bariloche for the kitesurfing world championship competition. my bad. vergüenza strikes again. 

we returned to the main town for some more shopping, more sangria, and more chocolate. bariloche is truly a glutton's heaven. in the central plaza, i also encountered the cutest bernese mountain dogs and actually paid five dollars to take some pictures with them, the biggest tourist trap of all time and i still feel like a little bit of an animal-rights offender, but they were just too freaking cute and i was about to cry just looking at them. what sweeties!!! overall, very relaxing and pleasant and food-filled few days in bariloche, not the most jam-packed outing of all time but such a nice change of pace from la vida loca of buenos aires!!! some more photos of our time there below....

view from 10th floor hostel. couldn't be a prettier and cheaper place to eat breakfast!! 

the view from our hostel room. 

WALL OF JAM. 

totally worth $5 to hug this little fattie 

i thought i could call myself a quasi-porteña, but here i am 100% YANKEE. yeesh. 

i have this disorder where i can't go anywhere in argentina without falling in love with some stray dog. bariloche was no exception. this sweetie lived outside (and sometimes inside) the lobby of our hostel. if this isn't a dog reincarnation of al pacino well then i don't know WHAT is. such a bad-ass. 

raspberry and plum flavored chocolate mmmmmmmmm