Yesterday we left the tropical jungle and flew back to the bustling Buenos Aires. I t was like homecoming to the noise, people, movement and frantic tempo. We transferred by taxi to the main bus terminal with a two hour wait before boarding our doubledecker bus for our 22 hour, 900 mile trip across Argentina. As usual the bus terminal was a seething mass of people all going somewhere. There were some tourists, some well dressed , lots of youth with backpacks and many families either kissing babies goodbye or smothering the babies with hello kisses. Argentines do a lot of cheek kissing, either hello or goodby, and the men do this as much as the women to each other. It is a warm gesture and makes you feel accepted. Below is a photo of Chris in front of the double decker bus

We boarded our bus at 2:30 in the afternoon. The bus had big seats, which laid back almost flat. We opted for the lower deck to minimize swaying and were glad we did! We headed out from Buenos Aires into the pampas with miles and miles of green flat grazing land. Only saw one gaucho, with his sheepskin covered saddle, but it got dark about 10pm and we were still going through the pampas. Pampas photo below.

We were served 2 meals in boxes before our hot dinner at 11pm. This meal was begun with some type of liquor in small glasses- very chique! and then everyone who wasn’t watching the movie went to sleep. PreDinner toast photo

There were several police stops during the night, once when a policewoman entered the bus with a flashlight looking for something. We finally dozed and when it got light in early morning, the terrain had changed to Arizona type landscape; dry, flat with scrub plants. All the passengers had changed as well in an early, early morning stop
About 9am we got breakfast and thelandscape changed to Tahoe/Rocky Mountains type scenery. About 10:00A.M., we pulled into the bus station at Bariloche, we clearly had entered young hiker, biker paradise. The place was filled with semi grunge young people all with the latest hiking paraphernalia and backpacks everywhere. Alan lined up for the bus.

Bariloche is on a huge high mountain lake, Nahuel Huapi, with german architecture everywhere. It is a ski resort in the winter and a hiker paradise in the summer. Town is a mass of younger backpacker types with a blend of high end tourists from around the world, but most from Argentina. Not many from the US, but English is spoken in most restaurants and hotels because all the Europeans speak some English.

The next morning, we relaxed and boarded a midday ride for the port area west of town. We were in time for a half day tour to Victoria Island and Arrelanes Peninsula in the middle of the lake, all part of the Argentine Nation Park System. A photo of the boat and from the stern looking back towards Bariloche. it was built in Holland in 1936 and has been used for touring of transporting passengers on htis lake for its entire life.

Chris with Arrleanes trees, red bark and similar looking to a Manzanita.

We had plenty of company as the boat was full of tourists doing the same thing. All an all a great day and we returned to the port about 7:00 P.M. and rode the bus back to town.

Chris on the island waiting for the boat to pick us up

Ciao from Bariloche, Alan & Chris