Bariloche

After debating whether to visit the Chilean or Argentinean side of the Lakes District, an area known for lots of lakes set in the mountains, we chose Argentina after reading about some of the scenic drives, chocolate shops and famous trout.
A short (somewhat bumpy) flight took us to this biggish town of ~100k people often compared to a “little Switzerland” because of the scenery and focus on chocolate making. The town is set on a lake and is very pretty, but we found it extremely touristy (imagine several streets full of souvenir and chocolate shops).
We had rented a car for two days so spent one day driving most of the famous “7 Lakes Route” which wound around 7 lakes and some small villages and through a stunning desert landscape very much like the US Southwest. Our other day we drove around the Llao Llao Peninsula (another drive highlighting more lakes) and hiked up a mountain to enjoy a nice view of the entire area. The highlight of our time here was finding a small town down a dirt road that was serving up some excellent choripan (grilled chorizo on grilled bread). Delicious!

After a few days walking through the touristy town, we opted to mostly cook for ourselves and did some trip planning with our remaining time. We ended up not trying the trout after learning that all of it is farmed since regulations prohibit restaurants and supermarkets from selling the fresh, natural lake trout – a treat reserved for fisher(wo)men.Read more