December 30, 2005
Day 93
I had to get up way too early today, at something like 7:00 in the morning. I couldn't even think I was so tired, yet I had already paid for my trip, so I had to go. I was going to Victoria Island, near Bariloche where I am staying.
When I got to the port, I was loaded onto a large, modern-day catamaran with over 100 other tourists. I sat on top of the boat for the two-hour trip. A few minutes after we left, a photographer working for the tour company leaned over the edge of the ship with a saltine cracker in his hand. All of a sudden, a seagull flew up to him and ate the cracker. He gave anyone else who wanted to try a cracker to feed a seagull of their own and photograph them doing it. I realize it was pretty lame, but it was still a clever idea to make some extra money.
Our first stop was a forest of giant trees. There was a designed walkway, so we couldn't roam wherever we wanted. Also, the hundreds of tourists being forced to see the whole thing in less than an hour made it tough to enjoy. Still, the forest was quite beautiful, which made it worth seeing.
After leaving the forest, we took the boat to another part of the island. This area didn't have any walkways like the other one, and it was a lot bigger, so the tourist density was smaller. I walked to the shore on the other side of the island and took in the scenery. The water rushing in with nobody else in sight was quite peaceful, nearly causing me to fall asleep.
I spent the next few hours walking around the rest of the island. There was only one resort and a few houses, so it was mostly a clean and undisturbed place. The blue skies, yellow flowers, green trees, and mountains made for some of the best scenery I had ever seen.
I slept all the way back. It's becoming really difficult for me to get up early again. At the beginning of my trip, it got dark at 6:00 and a lot of the towns I stayed in didn't have electricity, so it was easy for me to go to bed early. Here, however, it doesn't get dark until 10:00 and nobody even goes out at night until 2:00 AM, so getting anything done before noon is nearly impossible.
The photo album for this entry is here.
First time visiting (through Technorati), great blog, keep it up, maybe include some thumbnails of the most interesting pictures on the post itself.
Love reading your experiences about Argentina, Bariloche is beautiful isn't it?. Hope you get to Buenos Aires.
Happy New Year!
Hi Marc,
Thanks for the props. I have thought about putting thumbs in the posts, but I was afraid of chewing up too much bandwidth. If it will make things more interesting, I might give it a try, though. Bariloche was great. I could have easily spent a few more weeks there. Don't worry, I'll get to BsAs eventually, but probably not for another month or so.
Shannon, happy new year to you too. How's the planning going? Or is it more just sitting around watching the clock tick away until February? Don't worry, it'll get here.