Hi everybody
Have been in Bariloche, Argentina (42 degrees south, about same as Launceston) for last 5 days. As you will see from the photos it has a stunning setting, with 7-8 lakes in the vicinity and mountains all atround. The first few days it was 22-23 degrees during the day and 8-10 at night. The last couple of days there´s been a cold snap, and snow has fallen on the mountains and it looks glorious. Before I tell you about my time in Bariloche I will just recap on my 18 hour bus trip from Mendoza.
The trip was not that bad as I had a semi-reclining seat on the upper deck at the front of the bus so I had a magnificent view out of the panoramic windows. However it did make sleeping a bit more difficult and when we set off in the evening and were driving through the leafy streets of Mendoza tree branches kept whipping at the bus and I kept putting my arms up to protect my face. Basically, the trip is 17 hours across the flat, almost treeless pampa, then around an hour out of Bariloche you start seeing mountains and rivers.
Is anyone one of you reading this a dream therapist? I had the funniest dream on the bus - in the dream we stopped at a town with beautiful old stone buildings, got off the bus, then walked through to a large plaza where there a large number of men in uniform and ladies in period dress, as if they were extras in a Russian film (a la Dr Zhivago, for those of that period). On to the scene then came flocks of ducks, with beautiful bright blue feathers on their backs and every few seconds ducks jumped straight up in the air, like gazelles and spring lambs - the description that comes to mind is blue-backed vertical jumping ducks. I then got annoyed with myself as I was slow in getting my camera out to take photos, but eventually did but it was hard to get a photo of one jumping and I was worried there was dust on the camera lens. Then I got worried about missing the bus and went back, but I had to climb these steep stone steps (Maya temple?) and my legs felt very heavy, but some kids behind me pushed me up. When I got to the street the bus was turning in the street, then I realised I was sitting on the bus having a dream. Well, there you go, gives you a glimpse into the inner life of the new caring, sharing me :)
Another funny thing on the bus was that mostly American films were being shown, but the road noise and general hubbub in the bus meant I could barely hear anything so I had to try and read the Spanish sub-titles to understand what was going on.
Anyhow, back to Bariloche - stayed at a very friendly hostel along the lake (Alaska hostel), and I'm afraid the very first night, after a very nice, but overly large parilla (mixed meats cooked over enormous grills), I corrupted a young Israeli guy and Argentinian girl with the offer of sharing one of the bottles of tequila I had brought from Mexico until about 4 in the morning. Next day I got a mountain bike from the hostel and decided to do the "chico circuito" (short circuit). The bike had seen better days - the tyres were half deflated, the gears kept slipping, and the seat was too low, putting a strain on my knees. However, I set off down the narrow lakeside road, which is actually choked with traffic, and there really is barely enough room for a car to get past you, let alone a bus, so they beep you to get off the road, which I was loath to do as the verges were very bumpy, corrugated and dusty and I didn't want to get a flat. I started after 12 so when I went past a small boutique brewery I thought I should stop and have lunch and a half pint of stout, which was very enjoyable (had a mixed plate of smoked meats and cheese - red deer, wild boar, Patagonian lamb, and trout from the lake), then passed this artesanal ice-cream shop, where they gave me this enormous ice-cream. So, loaded up with all this food, and only 10% into the trip, as I found out, and already about 4.30 in the afternoon I continued my mountain bike odyssey. It turned out to be nearly 50kms and I got back around 9pm. Although I was quite tired it was great riding up and down hills and around lakes - the scariest thing was coming fast down hills and being worried that I´d get a tyre blowout and go splat all over the road.
My next trip was to Pampa Linda, a valley about 70kms away, to climb an extinct volcano, Cerro Tronador, 3454m. We got off the bus around midday and the plan was to walk up to a refuge at 2000m, spend the night, go up with a guide next day to the summit if possible, then walk back and catch the bus.
However, as I mentioned before there had been a cold snap and conditions on the mountain were pretty severe, so no-one was allowed up. I protested that I was an Australian and we were tough and could handle these conditions :), etc but all of us had to spend the night in the hostel. You will see the weather conditions in the photos and it would have been useless going up as there was very poor visibility, strong winds, and sleet and hard snow.
Anyhow, I decided to go to a mirador (lookout), which didn´t look very far away on the map, but what I didn´t know was that the track was like the Staircase Spur on Mt Bogong (very accurate description). I was the only person up there and it was just lovely. Shortly after I arrived a condor alighted on a rock on the cliff face only about 20 metres away. I then saw 2 more perched 2-3 metres above it. A couple of minutes later the ones I had seen and several others were soaring around and above me - magical. When I got back to the hostel and told them they were surprised and said I was very lucky seeing so many so close.
That night I had dinner with an Argentinian guy that had come down from the refuge in the bad conditions, and the next day, as the weather was still bad we walked a round trip of 15kms up to the face of one of the glaciers, where ice was breaking off with thunderous sounds, hence the name of the mountain. On the way back we saw a wild hare dart down the path in front of us, so I´ve been very lucky with seeing animals.
After this walk I still felt like doing something so I walked up to nearby waterfall, then continued on through a cane forest for an hour or so. The locals call it cana, but it´s a form of bamboo, as it dies off every 30 years or so, but it looks different to the Asian bamboo we are familiar with. It grows so thickly that I hardly got wet, even though it was raining all the time I was walking. On the way back I took a "short-cut", and we all know what happens with short-cuts, don´t we? This short-cut was along a service road, however this soon petered so I continued along a faint path along the river (or was it my imagination), until that too petered out, and so I started cutting across country until I saw a fence. The first field was swampy and had a large number of ducks (alas not the blue-backed vertical jumping type), which took off and made quite a commotion when I came clomping and splashing along, then I jumped another fence and was making good progress until I noticed a number of extremely large bulls were sharing the space with me, so very smartly found another fence and jumped over, and ended up eventually behind the Hosteria Pampa Linda, the large, expensive hotel next to our backpacker´s hostel.
So, after all that am back in Bariloche, where I have been enjoying gustatory delights - last night had a fantastically creamy stout at Cervecerie Antares (Antares Brewery), where a lovely American couple took pity on me and offered me their cheese platter, and told me about all the good breweries in the Czech Republic, and I told them about all the little breweries along the lake shore (many Swiss and Germans settled in Bariloche at the beginning of the 1900's, hence the beer, smoked food, cheese, etc), then I went off and had a cheese fondue at the Casa Suiza (Swiss House) with the trimmings - chorizo, ham and potato croquettes, after which I needed an espresso and a liqueur to help the huge amount of cholesterol I had just eaten dissolve. Went to my favourite little coffee shop, where the barista makes me a ristretto (most Argentinian espressos I´ve had so far are too watery, halfway between an espresso and a long black), and asked for a grappa to go with it - unfortunately he didn´t have any and when he saw my disappointment he pulled out a bottle of home-made liqueur from under the counter and gave me some. It´s made from a local berry called maqui and was pink and quite delicious. The nightly ritual then is to finish off with some chocolates (of which Bariloche is famous), as a layer over the coffee and liqueur. Think of the stomach having a base of stout, over which is a thick layer of melted cheese and assorted pieces of pork and bread (lightly thinned with white wine), another layer of coffee and liqueur, then covered with chocolate to smooth it all out - what a perfectly balanced meal!
The most serious thing I have to think about now is what to eat tonight - it´s only 7pm so I´ve got lots of time to decide. Will go and have another creamy stout while I mull it over - it´s going to be hard to decide between jabali (wild boar), ciervo (red deer) and cordero patagonica (the local sheep, which is extremely tasty).
Tomorrow afternoon I fly out to El Calafate, at around 50 degrees latitude - will stay there for around 10 days and hope to do lots of trekking (weather permitting).
OK, off now for the stout. Will attach pictures of Bariloche soon.
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