San Carlos de Barilouce: Living Inside a Refrigerator

December 7, 2023 by

I’m not going outside until the temperature is above my age.

Spring in Argentina’s San Carlos de Barilouce, makes a fiction entrance some might better describe as blistering, wrathful, diabolical. At least in my eyes. And body.


What this picture doesn’t show you is that it was approximately the same temperature as it would be if I’d been sitting on a glacier. Except colder. 

I know you can’t feel anything from where you are. You just have to believe me. 
At least the risk for mosquito activity is low.

For me, a holiday is best defined as “a woman lies down in the sun with a glass of wine and a book and gets up five to seven days later.”


But enough of that. I take up the burden of my tale. 

I didn’t plan to come here after Buenos Aires. I was supposed to go home. But as good fortune would have it, I have the marvelous? opportunity to go trekking in Patagonia Chile.

So I’m spending a few days of intermediate time here. I’m hoping that when I’m on this infamous Patagonian trek, I’ll be able to tell whether I have sustained an injury or that’s just how I am now. Cause sometimes I get winded just working my way through a bag of Skittles. 

Because of my unexpected detour and inclement weather, I’m wrapping up in my (only) three pairs of pants and five top layers, including raincoat and alpaca wool poncho. My poncho, a very welcome and timely purchase in Buenos Aires. 

They say there’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. Yes, well. 

I listen to the wind moan day and night, battle driving rain outside, I’m chilled to the bones. It’s a consummate shock from the comforting warmth of B.A.  


 A Slice of Switzerland

With its snow-capped peaks and crisp air, this laid-back city in Patagonia makes you question whether you have landed in Switzerland instead of Argentina.

Bariloche is a city surrounded by thousand-year-old forests, mountains covered in snow and crystal clear lakes. Seven to be exact. Each with a unique landscape.  

I have seen quite a few groups of teenagers prowling the streets and have learned it is quite common for high school students in Argentina to take a senior trip to Bariloche.  


To hike or not to hike, that is not a real question.

Those in the know will scoff and say, “What is wrong with you? Bariloche is world famous for its amazing hiking trails, mountain bike trails, zipline, rock climbing, chairlifts up to the top of the mountain…”

You see where I’m going here. And it’s not up. 

I’m not really afraid of heights, just falling from them. I get nervous just standing on a chair. 

 Eat your weight in chocolate.

“What you see before you, my friend, is the result of a lifetime of chocolate.” – Katharine Hepburn

Thankfully, Bariloche is known as the chocolate capital of Argentina. I’ve counted at least eighteen shops on Mitre Street alone. Any self-discipline I may have is tough, because I’m the boss of me and that guy runs a really loose ship. 

Besides chocolate never asks any stupid questions.


“To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.” – Homer Simpson 

And alcohol. Malbec, Pineapple Cider, Fernet, Cerveza artesanal beer, and rum. You can even pose with a Saint Bernard dog with a small barrel of rum around the neck; his neck, not yours.


And lots and lots of travel agencies, since the main goal of Bariloche’s tourists is to leave the city.
But there is a dark side to Bariloche. After WWII, some quite atrocious war criminals found refuge here. The most infamous one is Erich Priebke who lived here undisturbed until, in 1993, German investigators applied for extradition.

Sadly, it was not unusual that Nazi war criminals found a safe house in Argentina. Mr. Perón was very cooperative in this field.


Lately I’ve been thinking about “life reviews.” I first heard the term in an interview Jane Fonda did with Julia Louis Dreyfus on her podcast.

I found that sitting solo freezing in a dingy hotel room gazing at faded botanical prints gives you plenty of time to muse on the subject. As well as the importance of making yourself useful to the reader by solving their life problems, while dispensing with the fantasy that anyone actually cares about your experiences; in other words, generally getting over yourself. 

We of a certain age know what it means to lose things – your looks, your loves, your reading glasses…and to remember that it is simply courtesy to others to give yourself a once-over in the mirror. And that it’s probably too late to take up pole dancing.

I mean, I really don’t look like the woman in the hotel’s magnified bathroom mirror I saw last night. I thought, that can’t be right. And I will never let that happen again. Of course it was scary. Not even God wants to see us that close up. 

Well, I’m just getting ready to not go out, but instead to a late supper of a considerable good Malbec – in my room. 
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