Luxury Travel

Thursdays 22nd December 2011
Well I never thought I´d sleep so well on a bus, but I have. The seats are so very comfy and it is surprisingly smooth, so used to the worn-out buses of home. Anyway, when we did wake the scenery had changed little it was still very flat and windy! It is really starting to sink in what a good choice this was and how by doing this we can now concentrate on enjoying Patagonia and getting ourselves down to Ushuaia in time for the trip to Antarctica.
Breakfast was served, a little disappointing after last nights meal I was expecting a very nice continental style breakfast. Instead we got some crackers a tiny muffin and a sugar loaded biscuit thing, which even with my sweet tooth could manage.
We still had 7 hours of travel left and in this time the landscape started to change. Part of the reason it had stayed quite flat was due to the route we took had swung away from the mountains, but now we were returning back towards them. The faint shadows of snow peaked mountains could be made out in the distance and they slowly got closer until we were back in the beautiful scenery we had got used to further north.
The closer we got to Bariloche the more I hope of seeing signs of the volcano, but there seemed to be nothing. Until we rounded a corner and had a view of a beautiful lake. The back drop behind was obscured by a creamy yellowish mist, which once we got to was coursed by ash that was being blow up from the ground by the wind. The effects of all this ash made the area look as if it had had a strange coloured snow storm. Everything was covered in this fine dust and the wind created dust devils which moved across the landscape. The sun burnt though the dust every so often and when we finally came into view of Bariloche, we were greeted by a town which was a bathed in the sun.
The bus arrived at the bus station and we started noticing that everyone was walking around in thick jackets and we soon found out why. It so cold! A chilly wind was blowing and the temperature was only 18degC, which after the weeks getting used to 30deg C plus was a bit of a shock to the system and as soon as we got off the bus we started layering up. We got the bikes off the bus and put them back together and pedalled into town (Back into a head wind which was icy cold!) to find a hostel. Once dune we wondered into town for alook around and to buy food for dinner. No sighs of the volcano though, just some piles of ash here and there.