Bariloche: Chocolate Paradaise

The first picture is me eating a chocolate giraffe on a mountain in northern Patagonia; the second is of my friend Rachel & I eating chocolate in front of a CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN. (The chocolatería that the fountain is in is called RapaNui, which is the native name for Easter Island. It was one of my favorite chocolate shops because there was ANOTHER chocolate fountain inside, as well as a cafe and ice cream shop.)

Clearly, my weekend in Bariloche was awesome. Not only did I eat more delicious chocolate than I ever have in my life, but I saw some truly breathtaking mountains and had a really fun time exploring the cute little mountain town.

When Jeff, Rachel and I rolled into Bariloche on Thursday afternoon, it was pretty cloudy, but we still had ganas to eat some chocolate. Rachel and I discovered the most delicious chocolate in the world, which only cost 3 Argentinian pesos (around 75 cents). I also bought a book of Pablo Neruda poetry. (In Chile, there's an "entertainment tax" on books, music and movies, so it was a lot cheaper to buy a book in another country.) We also made dinner in our hostel, which made me realize how much I miss cooking, even if all I know how to make is stir fry and grilled cheese.

That night, we attempted to experience the Bariloche nightlife. Our friends had told us about a reggae bar called La Cantina, so we figured we would check it out. Around 11:30 we left our hostel and walked around for an hour in the windy, windy cold night trying to find this elusive bar. We finally did find it an hour later and realized we had actually walked past it at least 3 times during our search, but didn't notice because the whole building (including the sign) is black and there were no lights on. Turns out the bar doesn't even open until one in the morning. We were SO COLD at this point that the thought of being outside for half an hour longer was too much to handle, so we bought some chips at a gas station and walked back to our hostel, where we fell asleep like losers.

The next day (after buying more chocolate, por supuesto) we set out to find a place to hike. We were directed to Nahuel Huapi National Park, so we hopped onto a city bus (the most crowded bus of my life- I could hardly fit both my feet on the ground) and went to Lago Gutierrez, the gorgeous lake that borders the park.
We found this sweet tree to picnic on. I should mention that it was raining the whole morning and at this point it was still drizzling and very foggy. I knew we were surrounded by mountains, but we could hardly see any of them. Still, it was a great view.

Despite the rain, we trekked a little more to the national park. We hiked to a waterfall and then up to a viewpoint. The more we walked, the more the sun came out, so when we got to the summit, it was an awesome view.
There were even two stray dogs that hiked all the way back down with us!

When we got back into town, 5 of our friends had arrived so we all hung around our hostel for awhile and then finally experienced some nightlife. The next day, the 8 of us went to Cerro Campanario to see what National Geographic calls one of the top 10 views in the world.

It was SO COOL. Neither words nor pictures can describe how great the mountains and lakes of northern Patagonia are. Or how windy it is.
Bariloche is the windiest place I have ever been!

The rest of the weekend was spent eating chocolate (como siempre), relaxing in our hostel with other international travelers, chilling by a lake, and eating more chocolate. Basically it was a perfect weekend.

BUT I am very happy to be back in Chile, where I understand the currency and where I feel more direction-savy and where I have more clean clothes.

Yesterday I went with 3 of my friends to the cine to inquire about Harry Potter tickets and received the most exciting news of my life: THERE IS A MIDNIGHT SHOWING OF HP7 IN VALDIVIA AND IT IS A WHOLE 24 HOURS BEFORE THE MIDNIGHT SHOWING IN THE US!!! It gets better: the ticket only cost me around 7 USD and I got a free movie poster when I bought my ticket! I am so nerdy and happy. The theater employee warned us that we would have to show up early to get in line, and when we asked how early, she responded with, "around 40 minutes." Ha! If only she knew that I spent 3.5 hours in line last summer for the 6th movie. I think I might have to watch the trailer now...