Bariloche
One-of-a-kind City of the Andes
By: Co-Editor Brian Wood

San Carlos de Bariloche, most often called Bariloche, is a city of 130,000 people nestled in the Andes mountains in the province of Rio Negro in Argentina. In the summer time this city is popular with people who do sight-seeing, water sports, trekking and climbing, most often to do with the famous Nahuel Huapi Lake where the city rests on its shore. In the winter time, the most popular sports for people to do, and some of the only ones to do in the snow bound city, is skiing, and Cerro Cathedral Ski Resort is the most popular area to ski not just in Bariloche, but all of Argentina which brings in good money for the economy during the months of June through September.

A great place for people to stay in Bariloche is the Llao Llao Hotel, situated on a quaint hilltop between Lake Moreno and Nahuel Huapi Lake and has four restaurants, one-hundred-seventy-three rooms and twenty-eight suites situated on three stories for you to enjoy while you are here. After re-opening in 1993 after being closed since 1976 due to budget cuts the hotel went on to win several awards including “The Best Hotel and Resort in the Argentine Hinterland” and became a member of “The Leading Hotels of the World”, so you know they have to be doing something good. This hotel, which has been around since 1940, is definitely a place you can not miss.

Now, if you’re the kind of person who just can’t resist a good mystery of nature, like myself, in Nahuel Huapi Lake, there is said to live a monster called Nahuelito. Basically the South American version of Scotland’s Loch Ness monster, Nahuelito is a large aquatic creature said to resemble the classic Plesiosaur of the Mesozoic era, but expeditions since the 1920s have yet to come up with any conclusive proof that the monster exists. Who knows, maybe if you’re lucky, you might catch a glimpse of this mysterious creature as it swims through this famous lake of the Argentine Andes.

San Carlos de Bariloche has just about everything you want if you’re the kind to go out on an adventure to a foreign country. It’s got trails for hiking, caves for climbing, lakes for water sports, great mountain peaks for sight-seeing, and amazing ski resorts for skiing, plus a mysterious creature for all those monster fans out there. So, for the every day explorer, the city of Bariloche is a must see experience for people who have that all too ticklish travel bug.