At the top of my wish list for Argentina was going to Patagonia. I originally wanted the quintessential Patagonia – glaciers, snow capped mountains – so I was planning to go to El Calafate in the south. However, flight logistics had us change our plans to go to Bariloche in Northern Patagonia. It wasn’t a hard sell – mountains, lots of lakes, alpine chalets, fondue, top notch chocolate. In fact, it looked so awesome we decided to stay an extra day so we could chill, take in the views, and eat more cheese and chocolate.
Unfortunately Mother Nature intervened and brought cool weather and rain on and off our entire 4 days. And of course it was raining when the weather apps said it would be sunny and sunny when we thought it would rain. I also had no idea how windy it would be – 20mph with higher gusts. Despite this, we still had a really enjoyable time.
We arrived late afternoon from Buenos Aires, picked up our rental car, and checked into our hotel, the Radisson Blu Bariloche. I was still feeling under the weather and started feeling worse after we arrived, so we had dinner at the hotel and I hung out in our room while Chuck went out to explore the little town.
Our hotel:
The next day, we decided to drive the famous Circuito Chico as we were supposed to have a good weather window. It ended up spitting rain and having crazy winds pretty much the entire drive, so we barely spent time at the viewpoints and skipped going up the cable car. It was still very pretty though.
We did see this little guy just chilling by the road. He was adorable!
Then I finally got into town to explore. I think every 3rd shop is a chocolate store!
We also made sure to get some cheese fondue and of course, more dulce de leche! We also got Hungarian goulash a few times – I had no idea how much I liked it.
We had been looking forward to our last day as the weather was supposed to be sunny and gorgeous. Spoiler alert – it wasn’t. But we still drove south about an hour for some nice mountain views and more lakes.
We even saw this fuzzy little guy just chilling at the one stop. I think he’s a juvenile mountain caracara.
The skies did clear up as we returned back to town, so we finally got some great views of the lake.
We were even able to get some good pictures of the view from our balcony on and off during our stay:
And here are a few more pics from our time:
Also, here is a video that shows how windy it was for most of our time. It really sounded and felt like we were at the ocean and not at a calm lake!
Despite the weather, we had a nice time in Bariloche. It was a great place to just relax and enjoy.
