Day 4 – Monday February 28: To Bariloche
On the morning of the last day of February we made seamless connections from Buenos Aires to San Carlos de Bariloche, arriving at the homey Rosas Amarillas motel, about 3 miles from town and across the road from the gigantic Lake Nahuel Huapi. What a beautiful place: settled by Germans and Welsh (and Argentines of course), it exudes the air of a European mountain town crossbred with a national park lodge. A popular ski area, it has lots of alpine buildings, all arranged on a fairly steep hillside. Our suites include kitchenettes – but also breakfast is brought to our room at 8:00 each morning. Roughing it, heh heh.
In the afternoon we scoped out the town, looked for bike shops and maps and returned to meet our guides David and Dario. Easy going and alert, really smart and competent, they are treasures. Unfortunately they had run into trouble getting our bicycles through the customs bureaucracy in Argentina. All the customs forms were in order, but the transportation form was missing. So many forms, so little time. During that evening’s long and meaty/winey dinner we all pondered the question of how we might get the bikes over the border.
The solution was inventive, oh yes; it was certainly legal, and yet (that pesky “and yet”!) – one might hazard that it would push the edge of bureaucratic cheerfulness. We would do it tomorrow.
