Once we had spent a sufficient amount of time walking around, we went back into town. There, we got several tastes of Bariloche's chocolate, as we ambled into various stores and sampled the chocolates they had on display. Dan had his fill after three pieces, even though I could probably have gone on a chocolate excursion for the remainder of the day.
After indulging my sweet tooth, Dan and I went to the supermarket to get the ingredients to make a home-cooked dinner. We cooked up a tasty stir-fry that evening, and as we ate, conversed with three people from our hostel: a couple from Northern Ireland and a girl from outside Manchester. Among other topics, we discussed our shared desire to go on a bike trip in the area, and made plans for a joint outing the following day.
Although we had initially planned to be in Bariloche for only three days, we decided to tack on an extra day to make up for our lost snow day. So rather than leaving the next morning, we went with our three new friends on an adventure. First, we went to a recommended viewpoint atop a mountain. We could have gotten to the lookout via chairlift or hiking, so naturally we challenged ourselves to go on the hike. I'm not sure the other two girls were thrilled by this choice, but after some time, we made it to the peak where we had earned some astounding panoramic views.
After traversing back down the mountain, which was made quite difficult by the previous day's snowfall, we went to a nearby bike shop to rent (or as the Brits said, "hire") some bikes. There, the attendant gave us a map on which he showed us the trail and a few good lookout points. What he had failed to mention, however, was just how difficult the course was. Despite the fact that I haven't consistently exercised in over a month, I would consider myself to be in decent shape. Yet the trail was anything but easy. The other couple bowed out after about 5 minutes, and the remaining three of us had to take it quite slow over the rolling hills. The only point at which we gathered a second-wind was when two dogs started chasing our bikes through the street for about 30 yards. Other than that, I struggled mightily to survive our mini Tour de France.
Eventually we made it back to the rental shop, where we happily returned our bikes and then bussed it back to town. For the remainder of the day, I was content with doing nothing other than eating some food (including chocolate), and at night, sitting around and drinking wine with a great group of people from our hostel.
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