Bariloche

Tonight will be my fourth and last night in Bariloche. The city is at the northern tip of Patagonia and sprawls around a bit around one lake and offers easy access to six other lakes surrounded by mountains on all sides - they never seem to end. It's gorgeous. Here's some proof:

Not bad.

It's been a blast - there is so much to do here and I didn't even come close to exploring it all, or even maximizing all of my days, really. But that's OK - I did enough. Day one I arrived late in the afternoon and it was the Superbowl, so I just walked around the city a bit before the game. The next day I walked up to a spot with a beautiful view in every direction and soaked that in for a while and met Ronaldo and Monan from Holland. We hit it off and went over to Colonia Suiza, which was a nice little beach with a view of mountains across the way. The next day I went rafting with two girls from the US. There were 18 rapids, all rated at 3 or 4. It was an absolute blast, despite some Russians on our boat who insisted on complaining the whole time and an Argentine guy who tried to push me off the boat with his paddle but missed and hit me square in the face. That was the first time I've ever yelled at anyone in anger in Spanish - very gratifying. Today I arranged my things for tomorrow - off to El Bolson to try my hand at camping. It's a good place to start slow.