Bariloche, Patagonia, Argentina

The other day I was catching up with a friend and they asked me how our trip to Patagonia was. And I realized that I had mostly blacked it out of memory because we had SO much going on during / afterwards. Oops. But I’m catching up now!

Our 24 hour travel day

My last project had wrapped up a few days before we were slotted to leave, so I had a few days to pack our apartment up since we were closing on our house only a few days after we would get back from our trip. We were also in the middle of interviewing au pairs (for those who are unfamiliar, there is a matching process where you are only allowed to connect with 3 potential candidates at a time, and you wait for them to match back, then have an interview), and since childcare is the #1 potential stressor in our house, that was huge undertaking. And since we thought we were getting an au pair, coupled with the fact that I’m due in May, we wanted to get the house set up ASAP before I got too tired to do anything, so there was a lot of online furniture shopping happening.

ADD ONTO THIS the typical joys of traveling with a toddler….plus being 5 months pregnant! While I felt better during my second trimester, I still didn’t get that surge of energy so many people supposedly get. I was in fact very tired the whole time and had to take it much slower and easier than usual. As we were planning this trip we were very tempted to pivot into a resort-type of vacation in the Carribbean; finally, I understood why people with families always do the “boring” all-inclusive resorts! To actually relax on vacation!

Alas, we are not those people (yet). I had 2 full weeks off, and we figured it will only get harder to travel with 2+ kids + S doesn’t really understand Christmas yet, so might as well do a longer trip one last time – at least in the foreseeable future. So we embarked on our 12+ hour flight to Argentina, with plans on hitting Patagonia, Buenos Aires, and Uruguay.

Originally our plan was for us to close on our home and move the majority of our stuff to the new house ASAP while I set it up, with M and S staying in our apartment with the necessities for another month. I had transferred to the NY office already, but M still had another month of finishing up his thesis – which he technically could’ve done in NY, but we wanted to keep S in daycare (again, the reliability of childcare cannot be underscored). BUT when we got back from our trip our apartment building was infested with roaches (UGH) so we needed to move out ASAP, and temporarily find an Airbnb for M & S to live in. So we very chaotically packed up EVERYTHING in our apartment, found a place to live, coordinated with movers, then drove down to NY a few days later to close on our house. I then stayed in NY while M returned to Boston to meet the movers, and I received all our stuff on my own the next day in NY.

And because it’s a house, there were a thousand things to do, and a thousand things to buy since we were upgrading from a 2 BR 2 BD apartment to a full house! Of course, I was then 6 months pregnant, so could barely do anything and got tired all the time….but I managed to make the house somewhat functional, at least. Then we had to celebrate Lunar New Year with my family, I went on a long work trip, M and S got kicked out of the original Airbnb and had to find a new place to live (long story, for another time), M was trying to focus on finishing up his thesis, I kicked off a new project in a new office, we still had to take care of the children, and I very slowly attempted to unpack all our boxes and move our furniture……

It. Was. Tiring.

But then M successfully defended his thesis, we had a lovely farewell party at the Hampshire House in Boston (which, by the way, I had to plan), we packed up our car one final time, and we settled into our (mostly) functional house in New York! Yay!

Also we ended up getting a nanny instead of an au pair, in case you were wondering. She and S are already best buds! I think S is just happy to settle down with her whole family after a month of chaos.

So that’s the very abridged version of what’s been going on with me the last few weeks. Today, I am ramping down a project, the house is mostly functional, and it feels like we’ve hit some sort of equilibrium for now, so I am taking advantage of the down time to finally catch up on all my random to-dos….like update this blog 🙂

So without further ado, enjoy our pictures and quick itinerary from Bariloche!

Our cute cabin in Patagonia with views and a pool!

We had a 24 hour travel day to arrive to Bariloche, but S did an amazing job. We had to take a connecting flight through Atlanta to get to Buenos Aires, then transferred airports and had to kill half a day in the airport while waiting for our flight to Bariloche. We did set up the Slumberpod in the middle of the airport so that S could nap, and definitely needed an extra seat for her on the overnight flight (we didn’t pay this time, but this was the last time we didn’t buy her seat). And we made in right in time for Christmas!

We stayed at a very quaint cabin complex with its own fireplace – since we were in the Southern Hemisphere, it was much warmer than at home, but it was still very cozy to celebrate Christmas together.

Once we settled in, we did some casual hikes / strolls around the area. S enjoyed playing on the banks of lakes – this area of Patagonia is more like “Lake Country”. We chose not to go to more intense parts of Patagonia (the long glacial hikes, for example) since S was too young + I was too pregnant! We figured we’d make it back when the kids are grown and do proper hiking in Patagonia.

The insane pool and grounds at Hotel Llao Llao

One day we spent the day at Hotel Llao LLao, one of the best resorts in South America with the MOST INSANE pool. Bariloche is also (slightly touristy, but) cute, with plenty of little chocolate shops and restaurants to keep you entertained. Out of all the places in Patagonia to travel to with very young kids, this area was probably the best situated.

We took the chairlift up Cerro Campanario one day; the ski lift apparently takes you to a better location on the mountain, but we didn’t want to risk and open-air ski lift while S was still a squirmy toddler. Otherwise, every afternoon we drove around to a different part of the area to do some toddler-friendly hikes to some beautiful lakes where S really loved throwing rocks!