Days 169, 170 & 171 - Tuesday 7th, Wednesday 8th & Thursday 9th March 2006

I wanted to do some hiking in the area but the weather took a turn for the worse. Not having a lot of waterproof gear I decided to put back the day I started from Tuesday to Wednesday. That left me with little to do but enjoy the warmth inside and not really venture out until after I had watched Chelsea go out to Barcelona in the Champions League.

After enjoying a beer during the game myself another English lad and a Kiwi went out some some food, and ended up staying out until pretty late on one of those impromptu drinking evenings. Something about drinking in Bariloche made me want to do exercise the following day, so myself and the other British lad hired bikes (the weather was still pretty bad so I put off the hike again) and set off on one of the many trails around the town. Biking, Bariloche and me just didn’t seem to get on. No sooner had we got out of town than the wind really picked up, to the point where I was going down a steep Having to fight against the wind and literally having to peddle as hard as I could because the wind was blowing me back up the hill.

Having to fight against the wind took it out of us but we tried to continue up to the top of a ski mountain but half way up the wind was blowing us over and it wasn’t working. We went back down and tried to get the ski lift up to the top but it was closed due to the high winds. In the end it was too dangerous to cycle on the road as we were being blown about, we couldn’t get up to the mountain so there was little to do but cycle around town for a bit and then give up. In the end we went out at about 11am and came back around 3pm so we were riding around for a while, but we didn’t actually get anywhere!

The evening started out with Arsenal knocking Real Madrid out of the Champions League, then it was a quiet dinner and some drinks in the hostel before out to Wilkenny’s for a few hours. It wasn’t such a great night even though we didn’t rock back into the hostel until early morning. But thats just the way it is in Argentina. Even midweek the locals stay out until 5am and then get up at 7am to go to work. Mind you they do have about 4 hours break at lunchtime to sleep.

I however didn’t have to get up at 7am, so I most certainly did not. It was closer to the time when those people who had started work at 7am were just starting their lunch break. There wasn’t really much I could be bothered to do, I was long past thinking about going hiking in Bariloche, it was just a town that I couldn’t motivate myself to do anything in, so in order not to waste any more time I booked a bus ticket out for the following morning. It was a combination of not wanting to get caught for any longer in Bariloche and the necessity of getting to Santiago. Leaving Friday morning meant I would be able to get to the Chilean capital in plenty of time and see some of the city as well.

Once I had booked my bus I basically did nothing! I was reading a quality book (Ken Follett - Pillars of the Earth) which I really couldn’t put down. Anyone who can get their hands on it, do so as its a great read.