I woke up very early today, the winds
were so strong, and it sounded like a hurricane outside the window.
By the time I arrived at the meeting place for the tour, the sky was
just about to get brighter, it was 8am in the morning. I was greeted
by the guide, sat me down on the first row, and then we headed out to
pick up other tour mates. Of course, at the end, I was the only one
who didn’t speak Spanish again. I think the problem here is that
there are not enough demand for English tours, so end up they would
just throw you in one of the other Spanish tours, with a guide giving
you some special attention. So, the Bariloche mama from the tour agency
yesterday was right, it was a waste of money to go to an so-called
“English” tour, which you would pay almost 2-3 times as much.
There is really no difference. Well, ok there is a tiny little
difference, at least the guide today did tell me what time I should
return to the bus. And occasionally he would translate some names of
the lakes for me, like Lago Villarino, he would tell me this is Lake
Villarino. No kidding! :)
We were supposed to ride along the 7
lakes route and visited two towns. It was pretty much raining all
morning, so the marble green lakes were not as pretty in the
pictures. But I have to say, this 7 lake routes kind of reminded of
the road to Hana in Hawaii, or the Big Sur (route 1) in California,
with some sections turning into the winding roads in Vermont during
the Falls, because of the Fall foliages here I guess. It would have been very
pretty if the weather is better today. And if anyone is interested, I
would even recommend to rent a car to drive along this route, instead
of joining this tour. This tour seemed to focus more in getting you
to the two towns, which were a big disappointment to me. They were
kind of plastic to me, very man-made tourist town with many shops and
restaurants. They had no character whatsoever. I would probably enjoy
more if they made more stops on the overlooks along the way. But with
the rains, so I guess it is understandable that they skipped some
overlooks.
Not much else to report about the tour
today. Been there done that. Now I am looking forward to my
Patagonian Express train ride tomorrow. I need to get up really early
to take a bus down to a small town called Esquel, meeting a person
named Jorge whom I actually got to know on Tripadvisor. He will be
giving me the ticket and tell me the taxi driver name who will be
taking me back. I only hope the weather will be better tomorrow.
Oh another interesting observation
here, like Ushuaia, there are a lot of stray dogs everywhere here as
well, I think it might be an Argentinean thing or a Catholic thing, I
don’t know. But there are also mucho mucho hitchhikers on the
roads, a lot of them are not even solo, but a whole family (a dad
with two little girls dressed in cute outfits). I was like, mmm, that
looks kind of odds. But maybe because these small towns by the Andes
are so remote, and the only public transportations are mini buses,
and they are not as frequent as one hopes. So, perhaps it is more
common to hitchhike. I don’t know if I can ever do that though.
Also, another observation, in the US,
we usually wait to be seated by the door after you entered. Here it
is definitely not the case. Everytime I go in a restaurant and try to
ask for a table from a server. He or she would be like oh sit
anywhere you want. From what I see, usually you would grab a free
table and then they would come giving the menu. Speaking of
restaurant, today I had Ravoliones de Espinaca (some kind of
preserved vegetables in the Ravoli or something) and dinner I had
Trucha con Salsa de Hongos y Papas Espanolas (I think it is Trout in
mushroom sauce, looked bad but tasted good actually.)
