Bariloche Circuito Chico
I blame Newton and his silly laws for the malaise that has taken over here, and seeking the external force that will put these bodies in motion, we have rented a car today for the short drive that will take us in a loop around a few of the lakes in the area (the so called “small circuit”). It has been some time since I last drove a stick shift, but with only some minor grinding of the transmission, our lawn tractor/car is on it’s way.
Our first stop is Campanario Hill, where a chairlift takes you up to a panoramic viewpoint. We’ve done a number of these love the years, but this one is easily the most magnificent. It is an absolutely gorgeous day, and the combination of blues and greens and whites is breathtaking.
From there, we leisurely make our way past a number of sights noted on the map, stopping in at the Hotel Llao Llao, which to this point I have never heard of, but is apparently quite famous around these parts. It’s a bit stuffy for my tastes, and the beer doesn’t taste three times better than it does it town, but if location is everything, it’s hard to argue this place doesn’t have that in spades.
We finish our tour with a drive down a dusty, gravel road, that takes us to a trailhead for a short hike to a waterfall. People here are a bit spoiled I think by the massive falls at Iguazu, so when the rental car agent marked them on the map but said they were just so-so, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Granted, it’s not what we’re scheduled to see in another week or so, but I’m a bit of a sucker for waterfalls and in my book, these are pretty good.
Since we have the car for the evening, we’re a bit more flexible in our dinner choices, and I pick out a place in our guide book that speaks of a football sized steak. At the restaurant we picked last light, after our meals were already served, they brought out a big slab of beef on a sizzling platter, and this seems like my opportunity to one-up even that. Angela figures she isn’t that hungry and that we’ll just split it, but half a football still sounds pretty good, so I’m like a kid at Christmas waiting for this thing to show up.
Cue the sad music. It’s a hearty meal pretty much anywhere else on the planet, but no football, even before they cut it in half. Your $11 steak being too small is pretty classic when it comes to first world problem, but it’s personal now. Fortunately, we have one more night here in Bariloche and I know where the elusive, giant, sizzling steak is served. It shall be mine!