790m
An interesting day to say the least. Started early with my pickup from the hotel at 7am to get to the local airport for my flight to Bariloche. On arrival I did manage to find the desks for all flights heading south, however, two Americans arrived behind me in a bit of a rush trying to get their boarding cards, and the machine wasn’t allowing them to. I suggested using the webpage which is what I had done when I got mine. They thanked me and tried to book theirs, unfortunately, as they soon found out, as they were only 50 minutes from the flight leaving, they were unable to get boarding passes. To make matters worse, they were at the wrong airport. They both left, not in the best of moods.
The flight was fine, and not too long, and I arrived in Bariloche with a mild headache and the temperature considerably cooler than Buenos Aires. On the drive to the hotel the driver handed me the voucher for tomorrow morning’s tour, and I stupidly took out my folder to place it in, leaving this on the seat next to me. We arrived at the hotel, I grabbed my bags and went to check in, without my passport. I did manage to get in touch with my local contact and they dropped the passport and everything off. Headache got worse.
Sitting in the room, I went through the agenda for the next two days, my tour of the area tomorrow and my transfer across the lakes the following day. Firstly, tomorrow was supposed to be for the afternoon and I had no documentation for my crossing. I contacted the local guide again who informed me that tomorrow had changed due to weather conditions but had no information regarding my crossing. They had got in touch with the Argentinian group and asked them to contact me about the transfer. Headache pounding now. Finally, Scenery got in touch with me and cleared up the details of my transfer. I would be picked up from my hotel and not have to walk to some other venue.
The hotel here has an interesting design. Because it is built on the side of the lake, the entrance from the street is on the ‘ground’ floor, with 2 floors above it for accommodation. The restaurant is one floor below this, on the 5th floor, and three more floors below that. I am on the third floor, with an open area outside of my room with a bar and pool table, and a door opening out to an outside sitting area. Dinner was supposed to start at 8 and I hadn’t had anything to eat today, apart from a small muesli bar provided by Aerolineas Argentina and a coffee from Starbucks. Then the live music started from the bar area outside of my room. Headache pounding and can’t really have Neurofen as nothing to eat. At 7:15 I decided to see if there were some snacks at the bar to take the Neurofen and found the restaurant open. However, the menu on the website was completely different than what was presented to me, and it was all in Spanish! A nice waitress did come over to help, and I had a nice meal of shredded pork and couscous and then headed up to the bar as the restaurant doesn’t serve coffee. Odd place.