Scenic Drive, Waterfall Hike and Mountain Biking

  San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina
Tuesday, November 20, 2007

One advantage of the guest house we stayed in is that is was close to a lot of the incredible vistas and hikes that we wanted to take. Drove the "Circuito Chico" - or little circuit - which was a breathtaking drive along the beautiful Lago Nahuel Huapi, one of the biggest lakes in South America.

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Also breathtaking was the longer than expected hike to a waterfall. The waterfall itself wasn't that impressive, but the view from the top was great: snow-capped peaks reflected in the icy, blue water of the lake below.

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After finishing the circuito, we headed into Bariloche to meet our mountain biking guide, Zach (a gringo from Alpine Village, CA) at his house. I found him online and he set us up with two full-suspension bikes and took us on a four hour ride (the first 90 minutes of which was uphill).

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uphill from hell

Once again, great views but we were dying by the time we got to the top.

almost there

It was totally worth it though as he took us to an OLD ski lodge (1931) which was the first in South America! Here we are at the top of this crazy old ski lodge, complete with skis the locals made themselves back in the day.

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We drank beer and ate brownies and Lisa and I just kept looking at each other not believing where we were.

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Probably the highlight of the trip so far. The only people there were three guys that worked there. Then we got the pay off for the climb: downhill single track.  Lots of jumps and bumps and single track through a dense forest. The locals had built some serious jumps and a wooden burm that I (brad) took a pretty good header on (you'll see the scrape on my forehead, among other places, in every picture after the crash)

We got done with the ride at 8:30 and ate dinner and tried to figure out what our next adventure would be. We decided to get out of Bariloche and explore the rest of the "lakes district," an area of Patagonia where billions of gallons of water are nestled among the Andes near the Chilean border. We finished dinner and popped into a blazing hot internet (sweatshop?) cafe to find a place to stay, on another lake, about an hour's drive northwest of Bariloche. We'll be near a small town called Villa de la Angastura. Looking forward to relaxing and getting a massage.