San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina

Bariloche is even more beautiful than what people were telling us it will be. It’s Spring here now so we can’t ski, but it’s still “muchos frio.”(very cold)

The town has a real ‘European ski-resort village’ feel to it with its icy air and little restaurants all around selling warm food and beer. Marc agrees and he has actually been to Europe. The surrounding mountains are still sprinkled with snow and the freezing wind makes waves in the big lake. It’s really picturesque!

When we arrived here on Monday afternoon we hopped onto a local bus to get to our hostel. We didn’t know this but we needed a special bus-card to pay and couldn’t use cash. A random stranger swiped his card to pay for both of us and he didn’t want to accept any money in return! That was so nice of him!

It was our 2 year wedding anniversary yesterday and we really had a good day. We went to Cerro Campanaro with the local bus (we paid for ourselves this time). You ride to the top of the view point on gondolas which is lots of fun. At the top there’s a stunning view of Bariloche with its surrounding mountains and lakes. We spoilt ourselves that night with a cheese fondue and nice bottle of wine at a fancy restaurant. It is quite funny that the name of their local wine is Marcus!

I couldn’t believe all the huge chocolate shops here! I have never seen so much chocolate in one place in my life. Not even in my dreams! It is too amazing! We also walked into the one chocolate factory shop at the right time because we got free hot chocolate and the “chef” made us chocolate flakes to taste and gave us other free testers! As you can imagine this was really exciting for me.

Oh, and it’s my “skoonpa’s”, Marc’s dad, birthday today. Happy birthday Lionel!