Pub crawling the night away
If Argentinos see the dawn, it's because they haven't been to bed. Saturday morning, we encountered this crew as they stumbled out of the bar on the same street as our hotel. A street vendor was preparing hamburgers for them; they seem to have brought the beer themselves.
Waiting for the excursion bus
Maria Noel and Federico, from Uruguay, were sitting outside the hotel Saturday morning, waiting for their excursion bus to take them to see the seven lakes along the route to San Martin of Andes. It's on my list to do before we go, preferably on our own, when Bryan can go with us.
Peligroso means danger, and that's what these chicos were planning
The car rental fell through for the weekend so we didn't have a plan for activities after the sunrise. But while I was blogging in the hotel lobby, R made acquaintances with a Chilean family in Bariloche to celebrate padre Jaime's 50th birthday. I amused them all by wishing Jaime "happy Christmas" and they invited us to go out with them.
Papa Jaime finds time to run his salmon canning factory and heavy construction equipment business and raise up these young men.
Our first stop was for a cable car ride to the top of a nearby peak, but the winds were too high and the operators shut it down before we started. So we went to an alpine slide that the family knew about. The ski-lift style ascent was ok even in the wind, and the view was beautiful over Lake Nahuel Huapi and the Andes.
La familia de Chile: Cristian, that crazy American R, Felipe, Jaime, Paulino and Ana Maria
The chicos speak great English, and Ana Maria can keep up with her boys just fine. R and Jaime got on fine in Spanish with a little help from Cristian, the eldest. Ana Maria made us laugh when she explained through imitation the difference in accents between the Chileans, Spanish and Argentines. R and I both found the Chilean accent very clear to understand.
With the help of Felipe and Paulino's healthy appetites, we managed to eat those entire mounds of fries (or chips, as the chicos are learning in their British-English instruction).
We were sorry we couldn't accept Ana's invitation to their home in Conception for next weekend. But we did go with them to lunch at Boliche de Albierto, a restaurant that Jaime said was famous for its grill. R and I had passed it by several times, not appreciating the treasure within. The Argentine beef is absolutely worthy of its great reputation, and at Albierto's, they cook it on a huge open grill in the center of the restaurant. We conversed and entertained each other immensely while we feasted on our steaks and fries.
Laura La Professora
Here's Laura, pronounced La-oo-ra, our first professora of Spanish. She got us all the way through the present tense of irregular verbs in 20 hours, which felt like lightning speed. Laura moved to Bariloche from Buenos Aires last year with her husband and three children. They like the weather, the outdoor activities, and the relative safety of Bariloche, where the kids can play outside. Laura studied in Denver when she was at university, and she's been to Las Islas Malvinas (before the Falklands war made it impossible for Argentinos) and to the very bottom of Patagonia. She's the one who told us about the penguins and whales on the east coast of Argentina that we won't have time to see.
Gracious Paula
We shifted lodgings on Sunday. I miss the little ski hotel in the center of town. The people who worked there were extremely tolerant of our cultural mistakes and patient with our murdering of their native tongues. Paula helped us when R and I arrived without reservations our first day in Bariloche. I loved coming back in the afternoons when she was working because she always greeted us so warmly. She told us how to arrange our tour to El Tronador, fixed the computer when it broke, negotiated extra nights for us when the hotel was nearly full. These people don't seem to get days off - she was there to check us out yesterday morning. She is the kind of friendly person that can turn a disaster into an adventure.
Inventive uses of underwear
The Hotel Ski Aspen needed our room because they had a load of high school seniors coming in for their end-of-high-school trip. Bariloche is THE destination for students from Buenos Aires even though they ride two days on a bus to get here. We saw these other students entertain themselves with a string of underwear during yesterday's siesta time. Not sure when these kids sleep - maybe while I'm in class, because they are in the shops and on the street during the day and out all night in the clubs. At least the new place has double-paned sound proof windows. I don't think anyone's got much chance of sleeping this week at our little hotel.
Comments (1)
Hola de nuevo Ann y Robert!!!!
Me encantan las fotos y los comentarios!!! Qué bien escuchas a la gente Ann!!! Sabés expresar con detalle las cosas que llevo mís guardadas en mi corazón. Espero que puedas conocer las ballenas muy pronto!!!
Fui al hotel Panamericano a despedirme, pero ya se habían ido (snif) Igual seguramente volveremos a vernos muy pronto.
Un beso
Laura
Posted by Laura | November 2, 2006 5:04 AM
Posted on November 2, 2006 05:04