A Serene Boat Ride to Victoria Island and Fun Hike in Bariloche, Argentina |

Today we got on a boat, traveled to Victoria Island, went on an amazing two-hour hike and ate fresh brook trout for lunch.

First, we went on a boat ride, which was amazing. We were walking on the path to get to the boat and I looked down and thought, Wow! I had never before seen water this clean and clear before.I could see straight to the bottom of the lake, as far as ten feet down! When we got on the boat we got comfy in the seats and looked around. The landscape was beautiful. It reminded me a little of Tahoe. Mom and Dad said it reminded them a little of Lake Como in Italy, where they got married. There were many rock formations and snow on top of mountains. I wanted to run up the mountain’s that were covered with snow and make snowballs and throw them at Brayden and Dad and have a snowball fight. So, we went out around the lake and stopped at a spot where an abandoned ship lay right under our boat. Our guide, Nahuel, said that you could go inside of it if you where snorkeling. He also said, that when it was abandoned and still above water people would go inside of it and walk around and stuff. It sounded quite scary and really creepy.

From that cove where the abandoned ship was, we headed to Victoria Island to explore the Arrayanes Forest. Our guide and his family once lived on Victoria Island. His Mom was the teacher of the school there. He was one of 16 students when he was there.It made me think of Creekside and how fun that is going to be. We then took a long, but super fun, hike around the island. We saw many interesting trees, and one of them was a funny looking pine tree from the Jurassic period, called an araucaria. The female version of the tree was tall and had a skinny trunk compared to a redwood tree, it had branches that squiggled outward in every direction, it was also very prickly so if you wanted to touch it you had to use this method: You had to find a spot to put you hand, curve it into a fist around the leaves and pull your hand away from the trunk, and then, you’ve done it!The male version of the tree has the female’s trunk but it’s branches would stay a bit more inward than the female’s branches would spread out wider. Now you try to tell the difference!

Lunchtime! When we came down from the trail we saw a beautiful lunch area ready for us! We sat down and tried some wild berry nectar that our cook/guide’s mother made. We were so curious to see what the “kitchen” looked like, because they said we were having brook trout and quinoa.Hmmm…how were they going to do this out in the middle of nowhere? I wish I had a kitchen like that! The kitchen was on the same sandy beachy spot that our table was. It had a small rectangular metal platform, that was the grill and a stove, and a little spot full ofwood for putting things that weren’t needed right then. There were a few hot pots for cooking the quinoa and the rest was just food she had brought with her, like cheese, salamis, nuts, wine and beer for Mom and Dad and a tasty, traditional dessert of rice pudding and delicious dulce de leche (caramel) filled crepes…yummy! They were so sweet that my Mom and Dad couldn’t even finish theirs.

After lunch, my brother and Dad decided to keep exploring. The next thing we knew, we saw them standing on a rock kind of far away from thebeach where we were standing. Dad was asking our guide what they temperature was of the water below. His response was 13 degrees, which meant it was only 55 degrees fahrenheit! Two seconds later, my Dad was in his underwear jumping into the lake and swimming towards me. It was so cool to see him jump and I thought he was so brave for jumping and for jumping into 55 degree water. Way to go, Dad.