Before today's update, I would just like to rectify my first impressions of the Rochester Hotel in Bariloche. The Shining reference was grossly unfair, just because it was empty and overall a bit orange in colour. At USD72 a night, you get an enormous room with a patio that extends into a lush green garden, complete with kitchenette, leather sofa, flat screen TV, a bathroom jacuzzi that could fit four people plus jabba the hut, a lake view, some avian wildlife resembling small pelicans wandering the garden, and a rather pretty receptionist who let us get away with a world-record beating late check-out.
When it's not ski season in Bariloche, there are two things to do, hike or drive. Here, it's Switzerland in Patagonia, one of the biggest holiday retreats for Argentinians. There are no clouds in the sky, making it impossible not to stop every two minutes to take photographs along the 25km lake hugging drive to Llao Llao and back.
Another note to self at this point. Must ensure handbrake is secured when stepping out to take lakeside snaps. So preoccupied was I about capturing that upward angle to magnify the full mejesty of Llao Llao's peak, it took a salvo of 'get the fuck out the way' honks from a passing car for me to turn in eye-popping horror to the sight of my own car coming at me from two yards away. In speed terms, it can't have picked up more than 6mph, but if you go back to that very spot you will see the skid marks my shoes had ground into the dirt as I used all my rugby scrummage brute force to stop 'Christine' from rolling into the lake.
Back at the hotel, Graham who was absent when all this happened, wondered if our insurance policy, explained to us just hours before by the over-conscientious man from Hertz, had a clause covering this sort of situation. Hopefully we won't have to find out.
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