Bariloche Part 1: Whrrr!! Problems
Expect the Unexpected
I only had to hear about it once before my bags were packed and ready to go. I decided to take a break and zip down to Bariloche, Argentina to attend a Spanish language immersion program for the month of December. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
I knew practically nothing about the picturesque town in Argentina’s Northern Patagonia region, other than it had an uncanny resemblance to a lakeshore town in the Swiss Alps. And, like déjà vu, Bariloche had an accredited, short-term Spanish immersion program affiliated with a language school I attended on previous immersion trips. That was the sum total of my knowledge of Bariloche, Argentina before I went there.
I really know how to pick ‘em! Breathtaking mountainous scenery. Chocolate Capital of Argentina. Summer equinox in the Andes. Spectacular lakeside view of the crystal-clear waters of Lake Nahuel Huapi – which I never pronounced properly. South American haven to a whole slew of escaped WW II Nazi SS henchmen, including the Big Cheese himself. A hop and a skip from Chile. World-class fly-fishing…
Whoa! Hold on a minute, Lady. What was that? Nazis? The Big Cheese? Naw!
Yup. You bet your sweet noggin it’s true. Had I thoroughly researched my destination, I would have discovered several of the Big Cheese’s gang were nabbed in Bariloche and hauled back to Europe to face the piper. In fact, one man, Erich Priebke, assumed the name Otto Pape and served as the headmaster of Bariloche’s prestigious German School (Colegio Aleman) for over 50 years. Priebke’s cover was blown in 1994 by investigative reporter Sam Donaldson. The brazen Nazi was extradited back to Italy to be tried for ruthless crimes he committed there during WW II. Although Priebke died in Rome at age 100 of natural causes on October 13, 2011, the remainder of his days were spent in captivity contending with court cases and legal issues pertaining to heinous war crimes.
There were more like Priebke aka Otto Pape. I mention him, so you know I’m not just trying to pull a fast one on you.
Ah come on! It’s a huge assumption to conclude the Big Cheese was there simply because a few Cheese Sticks were sniffed out in the area. Everyone knows the Big Cheese and his Squeeze knocked themselves off in an underground bunker in Berlin on April 30, 1945, right?
Uh-huh. That’s the “official” story. Then there’s the “unofficial” story; the story that has conveniently been written off as a conspiracy “theory.” That story claims that for many years after WW II, the Big Cheese and his Squeeze lived at their Bavarian-style estate Inalco, six miles east of Bariloche in a remote area on Lake Nahuel Huapi. The Big Cheese spent the rest of his life there until he passed away on February 13, 1962, at 73 years of age. There is a lot of evidence to substantiate the claim. True or not?
I admit I didn’t put the Bariloche/Cheese Connection together until just a few years ago. Although I spent a month there, I was blissfully naïve about that aspect of the town’s history. In retrospect, it was all around me in plain sight. Following the same pattern as the citizens of Bariloche – I didn’t see what I simply was not looking for.
Furthermore, many of the classified documents pertaining to the fate of the Big Cheese and his henchmen were not declassified until 2014 – 2020. Old narratives are difficult to change. Follow-up investigations are ongoing, using recently declassified information and modern forensic equipment.
Besides that, it’s just not cool to go cruisin’ into town for a month, kick up the dust and poke local folks in the eyeballs by asking if they’ve seen any Führers or Nazi SS officers hanging around lately. And, oh, while I’m on the topic… tell me, is the headmaster of your German school a deranged escaped war criminal with a gruesome past? Ah not to worry, these are standard protocol questions that I always ask when I attend a language school - doesn’t everyone?
Two points of interest before I get back to my Spanish immersion experience.
1. I have added links to websites that will provide videos and LOTS of fascinating thought-provoking backup information on the whole issue of Nazis in Bariloche, including the Big Cheese in the footnotes at the end of this posting. 1
2. I forgot the second point.
Arriving in Bariloche
It was well after 10:00 PM when my flight from Buenos Aires landed in Bariloche. Twenty minutes later I was in a cab and on my way, headed to my Argentine host family’s home. It was dark outside, and aside from the occasional dog barking, all was quiet and still in Bariloche. The taxi curved up a steep hill and stopped in front of an austere, plain cement apartment building. My destination. The driver dumped my suitcase on the curb and drove away.
I hauled my suitcase into the dark lobby of the apartment building. Running my hand along the wall just inside the door, I found a switch and flicked the lights on.
OK. So what apartment number am I looking for? I read the confirmation letter. Apartment 601B Craning my neck, I glanced up a nearby stairwell. The light from the lobby only illuminated the first flight, beyond that - darkness. The sixth floor was somewhere up there in that black oblivion.
Nothing like an invigorating late-night workout lugging a 40-pound dead weight up six flights of stairs after traveling for 18 hours to get the blood pumping and the lungs sucking in some good Andean Mountain air. Yup! Maybe I can scale the stairs two at a time to amp it up!
Groan! For a fleeting moment, I wondered why I place myself in these crazy predicaments.
Then I saw it! I hadn’t seen one of those since I was a kid, at least not one like that. Wow, that brings back a lot of memories! They don’t make ‘em like that anymore.
Just around the corner, on the opposite side of the wall, there was a small ancient elevator with a gate closure on it. In the Dinosaur Age elevators like that were operated by an attendant who would open and close the gate to oversee the safety of the occupants. The ancient contraption promised to spare me from the late-night stairway workout.
I could have kissed it.
I decided I could manage opening and closing the gate without getting my head squashed in the process, or whatever they worried about in the stone age when these antique relics were standard fare.
I pressed the call button at the side of the elevator. Beam me up, Scottie!
Whirrrrr!! Whirrrr!! Whirrrr!! The elevator responded immediately, kicking into action. Judging by the sound coming behind the gate, the elevator was coming down from at least the fifth or sixth floor. Whirrrr! Whirrrrrrrrrrrr! Whir! Wh… W… … .. .
Silence. I pressed the call button again. No response.
Tap! Tap! Tap! Come on elevator…. go Whirrr!! Give me a Whirrr!!
Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap! Give me a Whirrr!! Elevator? Whirrr!! Go Whirrr!!
No response. No Whirrr!! No elevator.
I glared at the blasted elevator. So this is how you roll is it, you old rust box? I thought about kissing you and you just went and lost your Whirr!! when I really need you?
Time to reevaluate the foreboding stairwell.
Wow! At this rate, it will be the middle of the night before I get up there. I’d better call and let them know I’m here. I pulled out my cell phone…. No reception. In fact, it wouldn’t even power up. No Whirrr!! Dead as a doornail. Kaput.
So much for that idea, I guess I’ll…
Click! The lights in the lobby shut off. Darkness.
What the…??!!
It took a second for me to figure out what was going on. Then I recalled that automatic light timers are much more common in foreign countries than in the U.S.
Extending my arms in front of me I slowly inched ahead until I got to the wall. Then I cautiously retraced my way back along the wall to the front door. I flicked the light switch back on.
Let there be light! Again.
Time to get this show on the road. I wheeled my suitcase to the bottom of the stairs and then started the climb.
Heave ho, up we go! Up one, ker thunk. Up two, ker thunk. Up three, ker thunk. Up four, ker thunk. Ker thunk, ker thunk, ker thunk, ker thunk, ker thunk, ker thunk, ker thunk. Ad nauseam. With every ker thunk the suitcase got heavier and heavier. I, too, was running out of Whirrr!!
Click! The lights shut off. Darkness.
Groan! Not again…
I stood one measly stair short of the third floor. The very DARK third floor.
Ever-so-carefully I braced myself and heaved my cargo onto the landing. KKKeeerrr TTTHHhhunk. Whew! I managed to safely navigate my way onto the third floor. Pulling the suitcase into the middle of the floor, I edged forward in the darkness at a snail’s pace. Releasing the suitcase handle, I stretched my arms out and slowly moved toward the wall to search for the light switch. Checking along the wall, I located the switch and flicked it “on”.
Let there be light! Again.
Ok… maybe if I hurry, I can make it to the sixth floor before the lights go out again.
I turned around to get my luggage and continue my sherpa-training journey…
Just in time to catch a glimpse of my sleek purple suitcase rolling backward toward the edge of the landing, on the verge of tumbling tail-over-teakettle right back down the stairs!
Nooooooooo!!!!!!! Stop!!!!!
Taking a leaping dive like a Dallas Cowboys linebacker making a Superbowl tackle, I pinned the purple escape artist to the landing - one back wheel still continued twirling precariously mid-air above the stairs.
Behold! There sits on the third-floor landing of a quasi-dark stairway, in an ominous-looking apartment building in Bariloche, in the late hours of a December evening, a red-headed woman flopped over a snazzy purple suitcase.
What is this….?
Is she laughing, or is she crying?
This obstacle course was getting on my nerves. I just wanted to get to my destination. Between:
The taxi driver that was as helpful as a petrified tree stump.
The decrepit gated crate of an elevator that conked out and gave up its Whirrr!!
My phone that croaked.
And the lights that automatically turned off every 60 seconds…
The adrenaline ROARED through my veins.
Heave ho up we go! I’m headed straight for the top…. NOW!!! I gave the light switch another flick for good measure as I bulldozed passed it and muscled up the next flight of stairs. Up one, ker thunk. Up two, ker thunk. Up three, ker thunk. Up four, ker thunk. Ker thunk, ker thunk, ker thunk, ker thunk, ker thunk, ker thunk, ker thunk. Ad nauseam.
This purple cargo was getting lugged non-stop to the sixth floor and heaven help anything else that tried to stand in this Texan sherpa’s way!
Finally, my destination. I arrived. Apartment 601B.
I rang the bell. No answer. I rang again. No answer.
I knocked on the door. No answer. I knocked again. No answer.
I knocked LOUDER.
No! No, no, no. Tell me this is NOT happening.
I BANGED on the door. 601B. BANG! BANG! BANG!
A man from 601A on the other side of the hallway opened his door. “Hello, hello. Welcome. Come in. You’re Lois, right?” Pointing toward 601B he added, “Oh, don’t pay attention to that. We’re 601 A, not B. I’m Roberto. We’re just sitting down to eat dinner. We’ve been waiting for you.”
To my ear, Roberto’s accent sounded a lot more like that of an English gentleman than a Spanish-speaking Argentinian.
601 B really means 601 A? Eat dinner at midnight? This is different.
I went into the apartment and there were eight people seated around the family dining table. Sure enough, a vacant chair was waiting for me. Roberto’s wife brought several trays from the kitchen and the food was passed around the table. And, as I discovered is customary in that region of Argentina, immediately after dinner everyone bid each other a pleasant goodnight and went to bed.
Day 1: Strange New World
I was expected to suit up and show up at the language school the next morning at 0800. The drill was not new to me, breakfast was on my own while everyone else in the household continued to snooze like toads hibernating in the dead of winter. I got dressed and headed out the door. That is the door to Apartment 601A, not 601B.
Then I heard it…
Whrrrrr!! Whrrrr!! Whrrrr!! The elevator was chugging from one floor to another.
Oh you traitor you! You sneaky trickster! I don’t trust you one bit. You’re not going to dupe me into taking you. No way! You would just give up your Whirrr!! between floors and leave me stranded in the elevator shaft. Nope. I’m taking the stairs you rusty old horse!
Welcome to Bariloche! While walking to the language school that first morning, I noticed two distinct characteristics of the town.
The wind blew around 50 miles per hour, and it was numbingly cold. Some days it didn’t blow quite as hard, some days it blew like a hurricane. Demographics for Bariloche reveal the wind in December blows between 13 to 74 miles per hour. Every day is a bad hair day. I mastered the art of walking with my head tucked down and my body leaning forward at a 45-degree angle to counteract the gale-force winds that relentlessly tried to blow me off my feet.
The world was turned upside down. South was now north, and east was now west. The sun rose in the west and set in the east. Strangest thing phenomenon I ever did see!
This map of Bariloche and the surrounding area clearly shows the town is situated on the southeast shore of Lake Nahuel Huapi. Don’t believe it! I was in Bariloche for an entire month, and I can tell you I saw that lake every day with my very own two eyes and I was looking SOUTH, not North! That was one heck of an optical illusion they pulled off, making the sun appear to come up in the west and go down in the east. Maybe the bitter-cold wind blew so dog-gone hard that the sun got whipped over to the wrong side of the sky every day.
That first full day of my immersion experience was when the “dinner is served late at night deal” really sunk in.
Didn’t they know I was hungry by 6:00 PM? I was growly with rumbly-tumbly by 7:00 PM. I was starvin’ like Marvin by 8:00 PM. I was drooling like Pavlov’s dog by 9:00 PM. I was chewing on my Spanish homework at 10:00 PM. I was devising a plan for an incognito kitchen food heist at 11:00 PM when… I was called for dinner.
Thank glorious goodness!
Note to self: Grab a snack before the sun goes down in the east. Dinner is served late.
This, my faithful readers, concludes Part 1 of the Bariloche Series. More to follow as I share my whacky experiences in the upside-down world of Bariloche. Look for tales about Christmas with mi esposo, fly fishing, trouble on the Chilean border, horse flies, and anything else that tickles my fancy. Oh… and absolutely, do not let don’t me forget to tell you about the wallet and the ATMs.
Hint: if you don’t read Spanish “mi esposo” is “my husband”.
Before you go….
The videos that I mentioned previously about the Nazis living in Bariloche and the CIA’s investigation into the declassified documents about Hitler’s alleged life in Argentina are in the footnote below. Check them out for some interesting info.
Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler by Gerrard Williams was published as a book in 2011 and made into a docudrama in 2014. Grey Wolf was described as a “fringe theory” meaning it was recognized as a viewpoint that differs from the accepted scholarship of the time. Here is a link to the 1 ½ hour docudrama about Hitler’s escape from Germany and his life in Bariloche, Argentina. When you get some time, it is interesting to watch.
As a follow-up note to this video, documents that were declassified on July 14, 2020 are available online as a matter of public record. Some of the information in this video was communicated to the CIA in 1945
Hunting Hitler: In 2015, CIA veteran Bob Baer, and international war crimes investigator John Cencich combined their expertise to unearth the truth. With the upsurge of declassified information about Hitler and the escaped Navi SS Officers in 2014, Baer and Cencich vowed to determine what really happened. Their quest for the truth is documented in the History Chanel’s series Hunting Hitler. The entire series runs for three seasons and there are 26 Episodes. The information is fascinating, especially in view of how modern forensic investigative techniques have been applied to this case. Get out your popcorn.
https://www.history.com/shows/hunting-hitler
https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B019EI0KOE/ref=atv_dp_btf_el_est_sd_tv_wfb_t1ADAAAAAA0wr0?autoplay=1&t=0
Episode 6, Season 1 has a lot of interesting information about Bariloche.