Our Great Adventure: Circuito Chico Day 202 08/04/2015

We planned to hire bikes and get out to see a bit of the surrounding area today. The Circuito Chico is a 60km loop from Bariloche along Lago Nahuel Huapi and around Lago Moreno Oeste. You can hire bikes at km 18.6, avoid the busier stretch of road and take advantage of the loop's more scenic sections. We had breakfast at the guesthouse, borrowed a bus card from the owner and headed down the hill to get provisions and load the bus card before setting off. The weather was a bit mixed but looked good enough to get out and about in. The bus arrived fairly quickly and we set off down Avenue Bustillo. The lakeshore road is lined with accommodation of all types, a lot of which looked very expensive. We were amazed at how many places there are to stay here. Kilometre marks are shown on the roadside which helped us to find where to get off at km 18.2. The bike hire shop is just across the road and it wasn't long before we were kitted out, including cycling vests given we were going to be on a sealed road, and ready to go. It just started to drizzle as we were about to set off. The loop from here is a hilly 27km (although we did a bit more as we were trying to find somewhere to load more money our on bus card) passing a number of small lakes and along the south shore of Lago Moreno Oeste before reaching Lago Nahuel Huapi. The views were lovely despite the weather and the smell of the pine trees as we cycled by was so refreshing. We stopped at a number of lookouts before reaching Puerto Panuelos where we had our lunch by the lake shore with the sun shining. From here it was a relatively short cycle back to the hire shop. Despite going back to one shop we hadn't managed to find anywhere to load money onto our bus card. We had initially put AR$24 on which we'd been told was enough but the one way fare was AR$9 each. The buses don't take cash so we had the option of hitch hiking, which we weren't keen on, or hoping that a passenger on the bus would use they card and we could give them the cash. We got on the bus, tried to use the card which clearly failed, had the driver tell us something that we didn't understand and then a very nice lady at the front of the bus offered for us to use her card - saved! Back in Bariloche we headed to the cafe we'd been to yesterday to sample their ice creams. There were huge but we thought we deserved them after our cycle. Full of sugar we walked up the hill to the b&b. It started to rain as we set off and by the time we arrived it was a torrential downpour. It continued to rain for most of the evening, so much so that we decided to go to a pizzeria nearby to avoid getting soaked. We ordered two different pizzas although they came together as half pizzas on one plate. Both had enormous quantities of cheese (they'd have given Pizza Hut's cheese feast a run for their money) and despite best efforts we only managed to eat just over half, taking the remaining slices away with us for lunch tomorrow. It had stopped raining when we walked back to the guesthouse and we sat in their lovely lounge area chilling out. We laughed when we saw an article on the bbc website about how the major of Pucon had come under criticism after setting off the siren on Sunday, confusing locals and tourists alike including us!