Bariloche
Trip Start
Nov 18, 2008
1
21
55
Trip End
Nov 17, 2009
Bariloche,
Argentina
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Next day we headed straight to the campsite which was more in our budget! We pitched up at Camping Selva Negra where we had our own BBQ, picnic bench and power sockets on the tree!
Heading into town we were wondering how we would get in touch with James who Pete knows from work, as he and his girlfriend Carol were in town too. Luckily we bumped into them within about 10 mins!
They gave us a quick tour of town and then we spent the afternoon chatting having a picnic in the park followed by an evening BBQ of some very tender Argentinian steak and 3 bottles of particularly tasty red wine! They then headed back to their tent on the other side of town.
The following day we'd arranged to meet James and Carol out of town so we were surprised when they turned up at our campsite first thing in the morning -it turned out that they'd returned to their tent the previous evening to discover almost all their stuff had been stolen including all the climbing gear and most of their clothes. So James went straight to the police station to make a report.
There wasn't much we could do to help so Pete and I went for a walk along the lakeshores of Bariloche. This would be a cool place to emigrate to if we ever considered living in Argentina! There's rock climbing, skiing, trekking, golf courses, sailing on the lake and plenty of other sports as well as the tastiest ice-cream we've had so far! Luckily the tale of the stolen stuff took a strange twist and once James had spent 5 hours in the police station, he and Carol went back for one last look around and discovered everything hidden under some bushes! The only thing missing was a pair of James's shoes!! Strange!
Next day we headed off on a trek in the Cathedral region which happens to be the Southern Hemisphere's biggest ski resort. It was really dusty and dry in summer though. We trekked through dusty scrub land, then up through nice forests before coming out to the Reffugio Frey set amongst some rugged jaggy mountain scenery. It was pretty impressive and Pete was itching to get climbing! So he and James headed off to catch the late afternoon sun and climbed a couple of crack routes whilst Carole and I had a swim in the lake then relaxed on the shores of the lake.Unfortunately a passing dog stole all our bread and avocados so we were a bit short of food for tomorrows lunch.
It was a good break and we were enjoying being back in the mountains but with a flight from Santiago in a few days we had to head back to Bariloche after only 1 night at Frey. We did manage a nice scramble on a ridge above the hut in the morning before heading back down.
The last evening of our Bariloche stay ended with a pizza and last Austral beer at the campsite in the wooden hut at the campsite where we played Jenga.
Next day it was on the 7am bus heading back to Chile, our time in South America's almost over now, 3 months has flown by.
