Restaurants
In Bariloche, because of the schedules
of my tours, I pretty much snacked along the way during the day, and
only have one formal meal in the evening, There are actually a lot of
restaurants in Bariloche, but mostly targeted to tourists in al
centro area, and be aware that they might have added service charges
on the bill already. I did try a Parrilla (steak grill house), the
ribs (asada) and chorizo were extremely tasty, the portion was big.
For another two nights, I tried some locally caught fishes, trouts
seemed to be a common item on the menu, the other fish I had started
with M in Spanish. I should have written it down. It was stuffed in a
ravioli. For some reasons, I have been eating ravioli a lot in
Argentina, even though sometimes I didn’t expect to be ravioli, but
it arrived at my table as a ravioli, like this last fish dish. They
must have a different way to call it, other than ravioliones. It was
good, the sauce was kind of a herb, olive oil and infused with other
stuff, very tasty. One afternoon, I did go into one of the local
dives, and had a hamburger, other than the beef, they did add a ham
in there to fulfill the name “Ham”-burger. On the day I took the
bus to Buenos Aires, I had a Milanesa Completa at the bus terminal
cafe, it was an overly cooked breaded pork sandwiches, I thought it
was pork anyway, or was it a fish, it was as rough and dry as pork
anyway. It was pretty bad, you might as well have crackers. Not worth
a try.
La Parrilla de Julian
Address: Mitre 458, San Carlos de
Bariloche
Website:
http://www.laparrilladejulian.com/
There are two La Parrilla de Julian in
Bariloche, the other one is in Av. San Martin 590
Linguini Restaurane Italiano
Address: Mitre 370, San Carlos de
Bariloche.
This one is pretty touristy and they
sure added service charges, but at least the food was pretty good and
service was good. Just a few stores from La Parrilla de Julian.
Tours
As I mentioned one of my other posts,
in Bariloche, it seems a lot of tours are in Spanish only, if you are
lucky the guide may speak a few English words to you, especially
about the important information like when you are supposed to get
back to the bus. That being said, the so-called “english” tour is
also useless, since they might not be able to get all the English
tourists to join the same tours the same times, end up they might
throw you in one of the local Spanish tours anyway and have the
driver or guide to put you in the front of car, and give you some
handicap’s attentions. Definitely avoid booking those English tours
online (for instance, viator.com), I did that and didn’t think the
tour was worth what you pay for. Ideally if you know a little bit of
Spanish it helps, just join the Spanish tours, you will be able to
get by. If you do not speak Spanish at all, I would recommend you to
go to the tourist office (there is one in Centro Civico) and ask them how to get around the
Bariloche areas by local bus, and do it yourself. If you do that, you
might want to check the bus schedule ahead of time so you don’t
miss a bus, the time between bus can be long. Otherwise, you might
need to hitchhike back, which is not uncommon here too.
Here are a few personal comments about
various point of interests:
Cerro Otto: Nice cable car ride, and
have a good view of the lake. But I would skip it if you are going to
do Circuito Chico tour.
Circuito Chico: this half day tour
includes a few sightseeing spots along the lakeside head to the
peninsula where the famous hotel Llao Llao is located. This tour
included a chairlift to the Cerro Campanario, the chairlift fee is
usually not included. The view on Cerro Campanario is better than
Cerro Otto, to me anyway. They would also make a few stops at the
overlooks along the way. They said the view on Villa Cathedal was
even better, but I didn’t go so I cannot comment.
7 Lake Route: It should be a beautiful
ride if it is on a sunny day. I recommended to do it yourself, rent a
car and drive along Route 40. There are many spots you can and
possibly would to snap a pictures. If you join a tour, likely they
would make less stops at the overlook and would bring you to Villa la
Angostura and San Martin de los Andes, both extremely man-made
tourist town like, I would avoid if possible.
Parapente en Barilloche: I totally
recommend to do paragliding in Bariloche, but during the autumn (the
time I went), the weather can be uncertain, if it is too windy, you
cannot take off. If it is not enough sun or winds, you might not be
staying on the air very long. I did it anyway since I have wanted to
experience that. With the lakes and snow mountains around Bariloche,
it is undoubtedly an amazing place to do paragliding. I went with
Ernesto Gutierrez for the tandem flight, he is a local guy, very
experienced, been paragliding for over 21 years at the time he took
me to take the flight. I am usually afraid of height, especially when
I stand at the edges, but to be honest, I don’t even feel the fear
with this paragliding experience, because the take off were only in a
split second, the wind just lifted you up flawlessly after you run
two and three steps. The view and experience are simply
extraordinary. Ernesto speaks very good English and he explained to
me about the paragliding, the wind, and also about the animals around
the area. A good guy, all in all.
Email: parapente@bariloche.com.ar
Telephone: +54 0294 15 4413037 or
(locally) 15 4413037.
La Trochita (The Patagonian Express): Another highlight I did in my trip. It is not exactly in Bariloche, but it is nearby. There are two possibility to take a ride on La Trochita, one is from El Maiten which is closer to Bariloche, but they have less scheduled tourist train. The other is from Esquel, which is where I took a ride on La Trochita. Esquel is 4 hours bus ride away, also surrounded by mountains and nearby a national park. If you have some spare time, I think it worth to check Esquel out. The only problem with La Trochita is that you cannot really buy the ticket online, lucky me, I bumped Jorge, a local guy who runs a B&B in Esquel, and he was very kind and helped me to reserve a ticket ahead. He is just really friendly, gave me lot of explanation about the train and even gave me a quick tour of Esquel in his car. I really appreciated his help.
Hosteria Canela, Los Notros 1440,
Esquel 9200 Chubut, Argentina
Telephone: +54 (0) 2945 453890
Accommodations
There are a lot of options, you can
stay in a local hotel, there are abundant, but also check out Airbnb.
This is the first time I use Airbnb and I have found a studio
apartment on a nice location, it is clean, modern, comfortable and
with a lake view. It is US$48 a night during time I went, it was
Easter holiday, but the price varies from season to season. It can be
as low as 30 some dollars or even less. I am more than happy to have
stayed where I was. Ana was the host. She was very helpful, when I
first landed in Bariloche, my luggage was delayed, and she asked the
airline to call her if they cannot locate me when the luggage arrive.
On the last day, when I dropped off her key, she took me to bus
terminal too. That is very kind of her.
Ana Alquilar
Airbnb Profile:
https://www.airbnb.com/users/show/511775
