So after another 28 hour bus we arrived back in Bariloche at about 9PM. Very tired and very frustrated we just wanted to get to the hostel and bed. Arrive at hostel to find out we are 2 blocks away down a huge hill, thinking we were off to a sister hostel we set off with all our bags on.
Got to the address and looked up at a high rise block of flats, we thought this can’t be right, this is where people live! We opened our flat to find a cockroach infested shithole, I killed 5 cockroaches in the sink 2 minutes after we walked in. Not only was it unsuitable for a pig to roll around in shit in, it also wasn’t what we were paying for. No WiFi (1st world problems I know!), no free breakfast (unless you wanted to make it up the hill every morning) and no mountain view. Had a pizza and a beer then back up the hill to the hostel to complain. Boss not in, come back tomorrow. We had to stay at least 1 night in hell.
Up the hill… again… and as soon as we sat down for breakfast the boss, Martin, came straight over to apologise and say that we could stay there for free. I said I needed WiFi to be able to work so can we move to the hostel, no problems he said but we would have to change rooms again the next day as the room was booked. Dragging the bags down the hall was no problem so off we popped back down the hill (I’m not joking about this hill, the calfs were hurting up it without the bags on!) to say bye to our pet cockroaches.
Yep, you guessed it, back up the hill and when we get to the hostel Martin takes Brogans main bag and says your place is 2 blocks up. Not again we thought but went with it to see what we were doing. So up 2 slightly gentler hills and we open the door to this beautiful apartment. King size bed, brand new furniture and a beautiful view of the lake. I asked how much we would have to pay for this, the response was it’s free!
We had 2 great days in the place but the drama didn’t quite end there…
As it was a flat we needed to hand the keys back in as our bus to Chile left at 7:30AM. No worries Victoria says, I will ring a taxi driver who is a friend and he will take you, just hand the keys to him. Perfect.
7:05AM rolls round and no sign of a taxi. We had to move fast as the Terminal de Omnibus was 15 minutes away. All the bags on we ran down the 2 hills to the hostel and with it not due to open until 8AM I threw the keys onto the hostels balcony and ran down the monster hill to get a hotel to call us a taxi. We made our bus by about 3 minutes and we were on our way to Chile.
Oh and I replaced the £1.50 bag off a Thai market with a nice laptop bag as the straps on the other were about to snap.
Share Bariloche – Take 2, Argentina
← Navigate the gallery by thumbnails, swiping, left & right arrows & enable full screen. →
