San Carlos de Bariloche

If the 23 hour trip from Buenos Aires hadn't been so comfortable, we could have been fooled into believing we'd arrived in Europe. The temperature – freezing cold – was about right, along with the idyllic looking alpine village set on the edge of a lake surrounded by snow capped mountains.

After our grand tour of the ice cream shops of Buenos Aires and the delicious daily desserts made at home, we could probably stand to lose a few kilo's. But if we had hoped that our stay in Bariloche would do the trick, we were sadly wrong.

Every second shop in Bariloche sells gourmet chocolate and as we organised our tours for the coming days, we couldn't resist them. Del Turista was the first stop, where the chocolates were mouthwatering and hot chocolate the best this side of Provincia in Krakow. And that is saying a lot!

Before we'd arrived it had been raining for several days, but we seemed to have struck lucky with the weather. It was sunny and warm, so the following day we escaped the lure of chocolate and went walking in Llao Llao Regional Park.

The forest there was apparently the inspiration for Bambi, thanks to some unique trees that are found only there and in Japan. As if to complete the Asian theme, a type of bamboo also grows there that hung so low over the path at times that we had to duck.

But as we emerged out of the enchanted forest onto the shore of one of the lakes, I was struck by the similarity of the view to those that I had seen in Canada. It had been almost twenty years and yet I was convinced that this view was just like the one I remembered from a family canoe trip.

And at each view point along the trail, of the different lakes I had the same feeling. Jeff thought this was one of the most beautiful places he'd ever seen.

A highlight was the climb up Llao Llao hill, where at each point we had a different view of the lakes and inlets.

The following day we set our sights on getting to some of the snow we could see on the tops of all those mountains. From the ski resort at Catedral Mountain, 25km out of Bariloche we started the alternative route via Arroyo Van Titter hoping to reach the Refugio Frey. The tourist office had directed us to the wrong bus stop where we'd waited for a long time, before finally finding the right spot, so it was already late when we started.

The trail headed up through low scrub around the mountain and along a lake. Delighted about finding “the wild Patagonia” we had to cross several streams, via a single log that spanned from bank to bank.

After and hour or so, we entered the forest where in the cool shade of the trees, patches of snow still lay on the ground. Jeff jumped up and down on them just to say he'd walked through the snow. To our left a river flowed through the valley, the sound of the rushing water echoing off the stone walls that grew narrows.

Further up in the valley after crossing the river on a rickety bridge we spotted a wood pecker, followed by another and another. At first we weren't sure what they were, but just to confirm our suspicions they pecked at the wood and then flew to the next tree. With camera's in hand we followed in hot pursuit, but they seemed to be enjoying the game of follow the woodpecker and kept on moving.

Soon we reached the tree line and at last saw the colourful peaks of the valley we'd been walking through. The warm afternoon sun made the mountains glow and helped melt the snow that still lay everywhere. At last we reached a decent patch where we threw snow balls at each other and took too many photo's before having to turn around without having reached Refugio Frey. But we'd already decided that we would definitely return to Bariloche.