San Carlos de Bariloche

Time for a change of pace. Bariloche, situated in the foothills of the Andes, on the shores of beautiful Lago Nahuel Huapi and ringed by lofty mountain peaks, provided a good opportunity for us to take a breather.

While Andy spent the week repairing the bike (removing first the rear and then the front suspension)

I went back to school for another couple of weeks of Spanish lessons. This was made more difficult by the fact that I bluffed my way into a class above my level. I spent the first few days wondering if anyone else knew what was going on and what the teacher was saying, and hoping my intermittent utterances of 'si' and 'bueno' were appropriate. However, after two weeks, I had an idea (in pricinple, at least) of three of the many tenses available, and was happy to try out my new skills on anybody patient enough to listen.

I'd booked to stay with an Argentinian 'family' (which turned out to have as many other students as 'real' family members), an enjoyable expierence: dinnertime (sometime around 11pm, something I never really got used to) was a raucous gabble of fluent and not-so-fluent Spanish.

Andy was in a hostel on the other end of town, and we met every evening for an icecream (one of Argentina's culinary specialities, it really is the best in the world as far as we know), and a salsa lesson (quite a bit of fun, despite our three left feet).

On the weekend, the bike back together, we took it out for test-ride to Los Rapidos, about 50ks away. The Bariloche region has a big name in Argentina and attracts climbers, cyclists, campers, anglers, skiiers in winter, and plenty of families out to barbecue on the lakeshores in summer. We again found our way out to the very end of the very smallest road before sussing out a camping spot on just any old crystal-clear river.

A forest walk, waterfalls and another swim in a magnificant lake on the Sunday and we headed home for another week of Spanish, icecream and salsa. Wow, they do their swimming holes well in these parts!