Argentina

November 6-29, 2009

November 18: Campanario, Curanto and Colonia Suiza: Colonia Suiza

As we were waiting for the curanto to get cooked, we decided to take a little walk through the small settlement of Colonia Suiza and to check out the little market.

Colonia Suiza is the last point on the popular circuito chico excursion from Bariloche. The Swiss immigrants settled in this area of the Andean Range just a few kilometers from Bariloche stands at the end of the last century. They were farmers and most of them came to Chile and then crossed the Andes.

At the local market they had lots of artisanal stalls selling crafts, local beers and other products. There were also several food stalls where you could watch the preparation of the food. They even had a giant stall where they were demonstrating a curanto but we were happy we'd found the more local version... the one at the craft market was crowded and not conducive to sitting down and eating a pleasant meal.

Christopher was a bit tired and cranky but Samantha had fun looking at all the different things on display and we enjoyed a pre-lunch snack of fried pastries filled with dulce de leche.

A little gift shop in Colonia Suiza on our way to the market.

A tea house and restaurant with a bike rental shop. All the houses have a slight Swiss flavour to them.

Note the garbage bin made out of recycled bike parts next to the road!

The sign at one of the stalls where they were demonstrating the curanto style of cooking.

It looked like a lot of the stalls (like this parilla) were not yet operational for the season.

The tortas fritas would definitely be fresh... the girl was still making the dough!

Time to fry them up! These tortas fritas were very different from the ones we had at the Cascada los Alerces.

Mmmmm, fresh tortas fritas stuffed with dulce de leche... worth the wait!

While in Colonia Suiza, don't forget to get some swiss empanadas! ;-)

"Valais" is the Swiss canton that the original immigrants of this settlement were from.

Down the stairs there was a large area where all the craft stalls were.

Next to the market, some kids were playing a game of soccer.

First she took a photo of her own creation - pinecones and flower petals.

Then she took lots of pictures of these knitted and crocheted sweaters ("For Grandma! Cause Grandma knits too!")

The ladies who were selling these were quite amused by Samantha's setting up of the shots so I had to explain where we were from and why Samantha was so intent on taking pictures of all the knitted stuff... this was Sam's favourite.