Bariloche, Argentina

Have you ever been sleeping at night and then suddenly woke up with a sudden memory of something you have forgotten or something you need to do rather urgently? That is what happened to David one night, about a week before our cruise. As Canadians, we are allowed to stay 90 consecutive days in Chile. Somehow, in the middle of the night, David came to the conclusion that we might run out of our 90 days while on our cruise. Since we were unsure if the days on the cruise would count, we decided to quickly cross the border of Argentina to reset our days allowed in Chile. The closest Argentinian town to us was Bariloche, so that is where we headed.

While on the bus, we read up on the town in our Lonely Planet book, only to find the words “make reservations from late December to February”. Being early January, we were going to Bariloche at high season, and little did we know how busy it was during high season! Up until now, we didn’t plan more than a couple days in advance, and since we just needed to make a quick stop here, we didn’t make any plans. When we arrived at the bus station, we had a very serious “uh oh” moment. The bus station was completely packed with backpackers everywhere! Most looked like they had been sitting there a long time. We didn’t know if this meant that they came and couldn’t find accommodation so they had to come back to the bus station to keep moving on, or maybe, hopefully, there was some bus trouble and there were lots of people waiting for their buses. When we got to the city centre, our concerns became quite realistic. We couldn’t find accommodation (at least on our budget) anywhere! Eventually we found some free wifi and went onto Booking.com and found a hotel that wasn’t too far out of our budget, and since breakfast was included, we took it! It was only for a couple of nights.

The beautiful mountains and lakes of Bariloche.

It was easy to understand why Bariloche was so busy. It is amongst beautiful rugged mountains on a beautiful crystal clear blue lake. Walking in the city centre, there was a definite Swiss influence with the wooden and stone architecture and chocolate shops everywhere!! The city was hopping! With a large pedestrian street (or mostly pedestrian street. - some cars were allowed through), it was busy with people and performers; bands, 4 string quartets and street games put on my McDonalds, it was busy and it was fun!

There were lots of interesting trees in Bariloche!

For the one full day that we were in Bariloche, we took full advantage of the beautiful mountains and went on a wonderful hike along the “Circuto Chico” just outside of town. It was an easy walk with amazing views! Pictures and words cannot describe the amazing nature we were lucky to explore. We finished our hike early in the day, so we ventured further to a beach close to the end of our trail. It was a rocky beach, but it was filled with driftwood, and being at the base of a few tall beautiful mountains, we ended up spending the rest of our day there. The children got lost in their imaginations and the parents basked in the beauty of the beach.

There is so much fun to be had in nature!

We were a little bit disappointed that we didn’t think about coming to Bariloche earlier. It was so beautiful. Exactly where we wanted to be. But we had to hurry back to Chile to catch our cruise! So we decided that we had to come back.

Four weeks later, after disembarking from our two week cruise, spending a few more days with our parents in Buenos Aires and spending a few more days on the beach for Charlie and David to go surfing again, and there we were, back in Bariloche. This time we booked our accommodation early and made a list of what we wanted to do while we were there.

This time, we stayed for a week and made plans to do more hiking and adventuring in and around the water. Unfortunately the first day we were there, the buses were on strike, so it was hard to get around. But we did find an interesting alpine slide that the kids enjoyed. It was a bit expensive for a rather short ride, but at least it got us moving for the day.

The next day we went on a very short, but very steep hike to an amazing lookout of the wilderness around Bariloche. Surprisingly, it was very sandy, so we all got very dusty and dirty!

A beautiful view of the area surrounding Bariloche.

After the two week cruise, the kids were really starting to feel homesick and many of our conversations revolved around them wanting to go home, so we wanted to make sure we were doing things that were exciting and rewarding for them. Both of the kids are great athletes, but unfortunately Adeline does not really enjoy hiking so much, and after the hike the previous day, she was not so happy with us, so we decided to have a fun day exploring the local aerial course. EUCA Bariloche, is a super fun aerial course build amongst beautiful pine trees. 

Can you spot all three Havixbeck’s?

There were 5 levels of the course. Depending on your height, you could explore different levels of the course. Adeline was tall enough for the first level, Charlie was tall enough for the first 3 levels. **Enter dark angry music here**. The first level was a blast. 

Cargo nets on level 1. 

We got to walk through cargo nets, walk across swinging balance beams, climb through tunnels and glide across zip lines, all about 5 metres off the ground. It was daring and it was fun. 

Swinging balance beams on level 1.

But level 2 and level 3 were much more challenging and was probably 10 to 15 metres off the ground, and Adeline was not allowed to do it while Charlie was. I think Adeline was trying to make it explicitly clear that the company was very wrong not allowing her to progress to the higher levels and she would sprint through the course and try her hardest to pass any other participants in front of her, and when she couldn’t because we were all strapped in for the whole course, she made it painfully obvious that she wanted to pass with her sighs and groans and rolling eyes that were fit for a grumpy 15 year old, let alone an 8 year old.

David, high up in the trees! 

Charlie, on the other hand, had the time of his life! David explored the upper levels while Amanda took pictures from below and stuck with Adeline the best she could.

Charlie on level 2.

It was very hard to keep up as Adeline sprinted through. Actually, the only time I was able to catch up was when Adeline got stuck behind another participant. When our two hours that we were allowed turned into 2 hours and 30 minutes and maybe even 3 hours, we decided to call it quits, especially since, every time Adeline would complete another lap, she would get more and more worked up that by the end she was full of tears and shooting darts out of her eyes at the workers that wouldn’t allow her to progress. At least our attempt to have a super fun day for the kids worked for one….

EUCA Bariloche was located at the top of a ski hill just outside of town. We took a very unwilling taxi up a windy gravel road to get to the aerial course, but there certainly weren’t any taxis to hail on our way down, so we walked. It was great to walk down actually. 

Blowing thistle seeds! 

We explored and played with thistles that were bursting with seeds and Adeline found a climbing rock. 

Adeline’s climbing rock! Success! 

She recognized that it would be a challenge to climb and maybe not the safest choice, but was thrilled when we told her to go for it. So she spent some time finding the best way to go up and pushing herself the best she could, and was satisfied climbing most of the way up, and once she got down she was proud and happy and declared it the best part of her day! Hooray!

The other most exciting thing that we did in Bariloche was our kayaking adventure. We spent a day hanging out at a beach trying to find a way to go kayaking on the beautiful lake, but could only find previously booked tours or rental kayaks that weren’t allowed to leave the small bay to explore the lake. So we booked a tour for the next day. 

We had a beautiful day for kayaking!

Our family were the only ones on the tour, so the owners brought their kids (ages 8 and 10) along. It was a beautiful clear day. No clouds and no waves! The family took us to a secluded sandy beach where we played all afternoon. The water was so clear and it was also very very cold! 

The water was so clear! 

But how could we not swim when we were surrounded by such beautiful water! The water was so clear that Charlie could watch as Amanda lost yet another pair of sunglasses as they slowly sunk lower and lower to the bottom of the lake. Too deep and too cold to save.

We were so lucky to get back to Bariloche! But we were excited to continue our adventures even further south! Back to Patagonia!