Overcoming the bus cancellation trouble & one day of delay, we finally got on the long-distance bus (Andesmar) in early morning, heading towards our 1st destination in Argentina — Bariloche!!
===== From Wikipeida =====
San Carlos de Bariloche, usually known as Bariloche, is a city in the province of Río Negro, Argentina, situated in the foothills of the Andes on the southern shores of Nahuel Huapi Lake. It is located within the Nahuel Huapi National Park.
The 2-layer bus was quite luxury and comfortable inside, completed with soft fabric seats, curtains around the windows and toilet. Also, it was not crowded at all. There were quite many empty seats.
Not long after we took off, we already started to climb up the hilly wavy roads, and started to see snow around.
Before we noticed, we were already at the middle of snow mountains. There were only palm trees, farm houses, lake, and snow around.
The driver stopped the car, and took us all to get off, because we have already reached the Chile-Argentina border. The immigration office building is right at the middle of the snow mountain.
We just took out our passport, filled in a form, and lined up to wait for the stamp. Maybe they knew that we cannot speak Spanish? or because we came by a bus? The immigration officer just accepted our form, and stamped on our passport, without a word.
Then, we continued our journey…
By that time, it was already about noon. The driver passed out some lunchboxes and tiny bottled water to us. It was just some regular paperbox, with a small sandwich, with some crackers and cookies inside. I didn’t even bother to take a photo.
When we looked out the windows, since when, the snow mountains had already turned into desert!? I could see some huge yellow rocks along the roads, some dry brushes, and nothing else. This is how I pictured Utah or Texas looks like.
Funny thing is, not far from the “desert”, we saw huge lake!!
The lake kept going on and on… yet we could not have enough of it! My friend and I continued to snap photos.
As the bus moves on, the lake and the scenery continued to change shapes. The landscapes continued to change, and the reflection on the water also continued to change… We saw the clouds and the sun on the water. It looked like a totally different world — there were only sky and water!! The view was amazing!!
To be honest, I have no word for these… You have to see it with your own eyes!!
At one point, we saw a white pickup truck, parked in front of the lake. It was picture perfect!! I was so jealous of the owner/driver of that truck. I wanted to stay there with him…
The view was simply magnificent!! We continued to see the Andes around us, in all directions, all the windows on the bus…
I think, we just had forgotten time. Because, I saw the sun start to set… from tip of the mountains.
Lake turned into river…
This was a quickiest sunset I have ever seen! It was also the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen in my life!
It is unforgettable.
When we arrived Bariloche, it was already dark. The town was a quite far from the bus station, but we couldn’t find any taxi, so we just walked with our 20kg backpack for 30min. in the dark…
We did passed by some church and other buildings. Also, there were some cars on the streets, it wasn’t so scary, just heavy & tired.
Eventually, we reached the town and our hotel — the nice hotel that we were supposed to stay for 2 nights, now reduced to 1 night only, unfortunately.
So, we wasted no time. As soon as we dropped us our heavy backpacks, we immediately headed out to look for shops & restaurant for dinner!
Indeed, this is a popular town. Even after dark, still many tourists wandering on the streets. We found some cute gift shops and chocolate stores…
We found a nice restaurant that we really wanted to go. It was crowded inside, but luckily we didn’t wait too long, they already made table for us. By that time, it was already close to 10PM, but there were still plenty of people dinning inside noisily. There were even some musicians playing around each table to make tips.
It was such a long day, so we ordered the most gorgeous and expensive dishes. We ordered wines too. Whatever!
Next morning, unfortunately, we had to take an early flight to Buenos Aires. So, we had to take breakfast super early before sunrise.
This was the view from the hotel restaurant window. The restaurant was at the top floor, so we could see the church outside. It was beautiful even in the dark. And then, we took a taxi to airport. We could only enjoyed the sunrise from the taxi window and from the airport window…
Oh, sadly we had to say goodbye to the Andes.
We could still see it from the plane, endless of snow mountain, amazing landscapes… I really hope that I could return again.
Next time, I want to spend more time in the Andes, see it more closely, more slowly…