Day 7 - She said: Today was just awesome all around. First of all, it was gorgeous out all day long. Second, I got to see a former colleague / fellow corporate escapee. We also did a better job of speaking Spanish than we have on any other day so far, and had an unexpected adventure that led to the most amazing view I've ever seen, with a possible exception of the Cinque Terre hike.

So, we had an early start and took the local bus into the bus depot. I managed to get our tickets to Bariloche without speaking a word of English, which made me proud. The bus itself took us along a stunning route with such an amazing lake view that Andy and I got tired of poking each other to look every time we saw something pretty.

When we arrived at Bariloche, I wasn't quite sure what we were in for. Like many bus stations, Bariloche's does not give travellers the best first impression of the city. We figured as much, grabbed a local map (having asked in Spanish - woohoo!), and made our way into town on foot to change some money over before heading out to meet Brendan, who lives another 45 minute bus ride or so away from town.

There's a gorgeous walkway along Lago Nahuel Huapi (the same lake our resort's on) into town, so we took that. We saw a lovely cathedral, and then went about our business. We found out that the local bus in Bariloche requires tickets as opposed to the cash that's accepted on our local bus, so we found a place that sold them and waited.

Brendan and Sofia have an AMAZING place on a hillside with an incredible view of the lake. Getting there required directions something like, "get off the bus at km 9, walk past two gnomes and over a little foot bridge, and voila, you're at our place". That's not actually how you get there…I'm not giving away their location - geez. I just thought it was charming.

With a two week old, Brendan and Sofia are still working on sleep and when that might happen, so Sofia stayed back with the little one while Brendan joined the two of us for lunch at Chiaddo. We had a great visit, tried out the local Antares beer, and enjoyed a great meal and awesome service.

Brendan pointed us in the direction of Campanario, which is a mountain you can either climb or ascend on a chair lift. My recommendation? Climb it. It's an awesome experience, and you get to see great views along the way that the chair lift folks never get to. NOT my recommendation? Doing the climb in a skirt and Toms. It wasn't pretty. I did a lot of sliding, a bit of falling on my bum. But, I did it. And I proved that REALLY tough girls climb mountains in their dress clothes. Anyone can do it in hiking boots and zip off pants. Also, in my defence, it hadn't been on the itinerary when we left in the morning.

Once we got down the mountain, we made our way back to town and got our return tickets for the return trip to Villa La Angostura. We were going to go back into town from the Bariloche bus station while we waited for our return bus (I wanted some helado), but we were both exhausted and didn't feel up to the trip. So, we took a short walk and just sat on a wall overlooking the lake, where a couple of dogs adopted us. One walked right up and jumped on us, then he and his friend jumped up on the wall and curled up beside us to keep us company. It was really something.

One man walked by that they didn't like the look of, and one of them barked at him. Perhaps he was protecting us. When we got up to make our way back to the bus station, the dogs escorted us most of the way. Our "protector" even barked at every car that looked as though it might impede our journey. He had eyes like Flounder, so perhaps there's a connection. Regardless, it was pretty interesting and, dog person that I am, I loved every second!

Our trip back was uneventful, aside from a woman across the aisle from us who literally talked for the entire trip. I honestly do NOT know when she breathed. So, that got in the way of the nap we were supposed to have before our nice dinner out (hence the nicer clothing choice I made today). In our registry, our nice dinner out was meant to be in Bariloche. That was when we thought we were flying in and out of Bariloche, which isn't how things turned out. And the bus schedule back to Villa La Angostura doesn't work for us to have a nice dinner out there, so we decided to do it here.

Well, we arrived back and found that the restaurant we'd selected here was closed. Oh, well. We kept walking along until we found a reasonable alternative and decided to move our "fancy" dinner to tomorrow night.

We settled on Pioneros, where we both had bife de chorizo, which was so delicious (especially after our hike) that I believe it was marinated in unicorn tears. Along with it we had the first greens we'd eaten since we got here (they're just not typically found around these parts), and they were heavenly! But back to the steaks. They were cooked perfectly rare, probably about the size of my face, and proof that I could never be a full vegetarian. Unless I'm a "Jane" vegetarian, in that I know vegetarians and we tend to like the same films.

Oh, and to go along with dinner, we had my favourite wine so far! I asked (in Spanish!), what red wine the server recommended from the region. She pointed out a couple we'd already had, as well as the Humberto Canale winery, so we had the latter. I picked the mid-range Malbec (Intimo), and sort of kicked my self for not picking the top end (it was the equivalent of $20). It was exactly what I was looking for in a wine - big, smooth, with a hint of spice, and it had that earthy smell that really makes me happy. It went nicely with the beef, too, not that I stopped eating long enough to take a sip very often.

By the time we got a cab back, we were so exhausted that our Spanish had become, once again, atrocious. But, we arrived home ready to crash, and that's where I leave you.

Ciao!