For those of you not familiar with Bariloche, it’s kind of like the Whistler of Argentina.  During graduation time it is where students go to party. In the winter there is skiing and snowmobiling and in the summer there is hiking in Llao Llao National Park.  We decided it would be the perfect place to settle into a campsite for a few days and ring in the New Year.  This New Years was somewhat special for us.  For anyone following our posts on instagram on facebook they might have noticed #blc29/30 being used.  We started using it because this trip is the last big trip of Steph’s 20s (she turns 30 this May) and the first big trip of my 30s (I turned 30 in September). Therefore this New Years represented both a beginning and an end for us.  What could be more random for a special New Years than camping like the Argentinians do!

camping at Camp Petunia in Bariloche

We arrived at the campsite around noon and began scouting out people we could celebrate New Years with.   Aside from two large overland tour groups of foreigners, which looked brutal to hang out with, we were the only none Argentinian campers in the park.  Most of the Argentinians were also couples or traveling with kids.  We debated heading into the city for midnight, but it seemed like too much work since our campsite was 14km outside of the main city centre and we were still getting to know the local bus system. In the end we decided to make use of our campsite’s BBQ and have a quiet night.

Proud to have built a fire

Because it was New Year’s Eve not many stores were open, just a few kioskos.  In order to put a meal together we had to visit 10 of these little shops on the side of the road. We sourced bread from one, eggplant from another, whisky from a different one…the list goes on.  We managed to get the last piece of seasoned meat from a Rotisserie that seemed a bit sketchy, but you can’t have an Argentinian BBQ without meat! We decided to skip buying sparkling wine from the kioskos since the campsite had cold ones in the fridge for 100 pesos ($10).  I had promised Steph that I would buy the sparkling wine for New Years as a Christmas gift so I was happy to know it would be easy to get a cold bottle when we would be ready for it.

Later in the evening, as we were preparing our meal, Steph informed me that the guy from the neighbouring tent (which had been set up in the past hour) kept looking over at us. Despite a pair of unfortunate Hawaiian shorts he seemed nice enough, looked about our age and was not traveling with kids.  After 20 minutes of less than subtle curious stares, his friend Francisco finally screwed up the courage to say hello to us. The two were on vacation from Buenos Aires and meeting up with a group of friends the next day for a week long kayaking trip.   They told us that they were planning to go into town for dinner, but wouldn’t be long and suggested that maybe we could hang out when they got back.  We had to laugh since turning in early in Argentina means around 2 or 3am. We told them the chances were slim that we would still be awake, but if we were we could hang out.

So not quite a meal at the Merchant Tavern, but at least I had their matches to light the BBQ

Once they left we set up a game of cards, but within minutes the guys reappeared claiming that getting a ride into town had proven to be impossible.  It turns out that hanging out with Canadian girls butchering the Spanish language was a far more entertaining prospect than watching a few minutes of fireworks.  In fact, most  of our conversation centered around our inability to understand their accent which completely omitted the letter “s” from words. Francisco kept insisting his name was Francico and they kept referring to our bad wiki.  We scratched our heads over what our wiki was.  They finally pointed to our bottle of Vat 69 Whisky and things started to make sense. Since that night we have meet multiple travels with the same story of trying to figure out what on earth Argentinians were going on about when they talked about wiki.

With a few minutes left to midnight I went to the front desk to buy the bottle of sparkling wine and was informed that the bottles in the fridge were no longer for sale.  10 kioskos (or kioko as they probably called it) we had passed with sparkling wine and now we couldn’t get any!  It was never explained to me why it was no longer for sale, the fridge was full of them calling my name, but the guy at the front desk tried his best to convince me to buy a left over bottle of 4% apple wine for a similar price. Frustrated, I refused and returned sans bubbly to Steph and the guys. When the clock struck midnight we toasted each other with our Vat 69 Wiki.  Here’s to the adventures of 2016 and wondering where we will find ourselves next year on January 31st!

Can you spot the empty bottle of Wiki by the tent the next morning?