In case anyone was ever wondering, 22 hours on a bus IS a long time. Our FlechaBus left Cordoba at 2pm Thursday and arrived in Bariloche, in the lake district of Argentina, at 12pm Friday. It was surprisingly not that bad (well, for me anyway, it passed by in a mostly gravol-fueled haze). They fed us too! Such a perk of the high-class Argentinian bus system. A snack when we first boarded, tea and cookies at 6pm, dinner at 11pm (??), and breakfast in the morning.

Getting off the bus in Bariloche I think we were all pretty pumped. This city is gorgeous! So happy to be out of the city and into the mountains. The city is situated on the shore of a gorgeous, deep blue lake, Lago Nahuel Huapi. The lake and city are surrounded by mountains, many of which are snow-capped. Again, it is gorgeous!!! We are all reminded of smaller cities in western Canada, like Jasper or Banff. Personally, I can't help but think about Fort William in Scotland. Although the city here is definitely bigger, something about the lake and the mountains behind it, as well as the city being set up the hill. Walking up the hill to our hostel and looking out our big picture window at the lake, I feel like I could be in Scotland! Love it!

Walking around the main square Friday we noticed a few people walking around with masks on. We wondered what the reason was for this, but since not everyone was wearing them, we weren't too concerned. I guess we arrived here on the right day - Friday was clear, sunny, and beautiful. Apparently, the last week the city has been under a cloud of ash from a volcano that erupted in Chile at the beginning of June! When the wind blows over 20km/h from the west, the city gets covered in ash. There is also a warning in place for another possible eruption so we'll see what happens. A very helpful lady at the tourist office said the weather looks good for the next few days (low wind from a different direction) so hopefully it'll stay nice for us!

We had a leisurely breakfast today and made friends with the other people at our hostel - a young couple from Norway, a guy from Holland, and a girl from South Africa. They've all been following a similar route to ours so it was fun to compare stories. And the guy who runs the hostel was making tea and coffee for us all - a really nice, really funny guy with HUGE dredlocks! And he's going to bbq with us tonight! We headed out for the day and grabbed some groceries for lunch, hopped on a bus and headed about 25km outside of the city to one of the many national parks in the area.

We had a great afternoon hiking around the park, checking out the lakes and beaches. It is such a beautiful area, with really deep blue lakes and rocky/snowy mountains in the background. The chain of mountains on the other side of the lake definitely had a thick cover of ash above it but luckily never came our way.

Tomorrow morning we're going to set off to hike one of the small mountains in the area. It is a one day hike up and there is a camping shelter at the top where we'll stay the night and hike down the next day. So happy to be active again!