I´m back in Argentina and loving it!
Trip Start
Aug 26, 2005
1
16
126
Trip End
May 26, 2008
Bariloche,
Argentina
Thursday, February 2, 2006
I'm finally back in welcoming and peaceful Argentina after a terrible display by Chile.
Bariloche is just like Mendoza - way better than Chile! and its the gateway to adventure! But it has a few things that Mendoza is missing - Loads of Chocolate and Ice Cream!!!
A few crazy times went down in Bariloche...
It involved the biggest night of my time so far in South America. A massive afternoon drinking session and asado, with the hostel crew and then a super late crazy night out. For Jag, it involved a black eye and a bruised face and saw him hiding the next day. Me, Dan and Jag were crippled the next day and stayed in our dorm till 4pm, asking the cleaner to order food for us and everything
7 hours of hiking but check it out
. We had empanadas delivered to our bedside! Unreal!A few days later we did an 80 KM Bike Ride:
3 of us - Jag (Kiwi) Dan (Aussie) and Myself (Argentinian) hired bikes and set off on a massive ride that stretched to 10 hours and covered around 80 kms, passing many lagoons, monstrous testing hills and tree lined valleys, with a few swims in the icy water and loads of hiking to lookouts and old trees and graveyards of dead climbers and famous adventure/ mountaineering people! We even caught some fish (See video attached).
The ride first carved along the Nual Huapi Lagoon, on a busy road, where we were targeted by possessed taxi drivers and forced to ride off the side along the deep gravel. After an hour we were on a quieter sealed road and passed Bariloches Ski Resort, called Mt Cathedral and continued alongside a majestic river. As the day warmed up we needed a swim. We found a cliff, and a suitable place to jump about 5 meters into the cold glacier waters below. The sun was burning hot, but the waters were ice cold, so we continued along the road and found a gravel beach alongside the lake and chilled out. The return trip was tough, loads of hills, which got the better of us and saw us panting and pushing the bikes to the top, where we collapsed on someones front lawn to rest
Awesome boat ride across the famous lakes
. We were relieved to get back to the hostel and crashed early in preparation for the big few days to come.Refugio Frey:
We were absolutely exhausted after the ride but the next day, we rose early and caught a bus to the ski resort Mt Cathedral. We started at the base of the resort and climbed up and up for a few hours, then the path descended into a valley and eventually after 5 hours we arrived at the top. It was absolutely brilliant. One of the most scenic things so far. At the top was a Refugio (don't know if we have them in Aus but its a big communal house, where climbers and trekkers sleep) the place was called Refugio Frey, named after some old climber guy who died there. But the most stunning thing was the lake, perfectly round, and surrounded by tents and ice and glaciers, and massive cliffs. It was an awesome site, we sat and admired but then decided to test the waters. And my god was it cold! I intended to swim to the middle of the lake, but didn't get halve way before i was numb with cold. I swam to the edge and sunbaked on a hot rock. Its quiet amazing to have a lake, surrounded by glaciers but hot enough to swim. People were littering rocks all around the lake, catching some sun and occasionally testing the waters. The sun was warm, over 25 degrees, I don't know how the snow stays there!
Biking through Bariloche
5 hours up and 3 hours down, it was steep and knee jarring but a great day!
Volcan Tronador:
The next day we rested and prepared for a massive hike up Volcan Tronador - the tallest peak in the area - the summit site just above 3500metres.
Jag and I left early to catch the 2 hour bus and instantly got chatting to a few Spanish people and a Belgium guy (who later turned out to be DJ Benn - read on). We teamed up and hiked the first part of the volcano together before Jag and I picked up pace and basically ran up the mountain. Maybe the 80km bike ride and all the prior activities had tuned us into mountain climbing machines.
The climb was tough. It took around 6 hours of basically walking straight up, on the way, the scenery went from a wet fern forest to scattered trees, then a dirt path, which opened up to a massive valley, where we had a great view of the Glaciers. Further up we were greeted by Condors. We kept climbing to the Refugio at the top, crossing a few glaciers and eventually scrambling over sharp lava rocks, but arrived to the Refugio at least an hour before the others
Canonball
.The Refugio was nestled below the summit of Volcan Tronador between 2 glaciers. The view was stunning, one side, was the huge jagged summit of the volcano, another direction was a huge glacier, dropping off into a tree lined valley, and off in the distance was a sea of big peaks and mountains. Unreal!
We cooked a steak at the top, hiked a little further across the glacier, then chatted with all the other hikers before crashing. The top floor of the Refugio was the dorm, which was basically a floor covered in 60 foam mattresses. We spent a night there with 60 snoring smelly backpackers and rose early to a superb sunrise.
The next day we crossed the glacier and headed to a place called ´Paseo de Las Nubes´ - or ´Cloud Pass´. It took us 8 hours to hike to the next Refugio which was again situated right next to a glacier and had the most awesome view down the cloud valley. We spent the night drinking red wine and watching and waiting for pieces of the glacier to fall off. There were loud cracks and thunderous bangs all night but we didn't actually see anything happen.
DJ Benny, Jag and I spent a cold almost sleepless night in a big tent and rose at first light to warm up with coffee and more coffee
Hard climb to the top
.Today was meant to be the final day, but we had some dramas! We hiked 7 hours out of the cloud valley, where apparently a ferry would be waiting for us (we had pre booked and bought tickets and everything) The day was meant to involve the hike, then a short ferry trip across a lake, then another ferry to take us back to Bariloche.
When we arrived at the port, absolutely exhausted from the 3 massive days hiking, they told us that there was no room on the second ferry. oh no.
There ended up being 15 of us, that had hiked from ´Paseo de Las Nubes´ with the intention to catch the ferry. When we were told there was no room an uproar of disgust ensued, with massive arguments, almost a fight between a German guy and the ferry master, everyone was screaming and then the naval police came along.
We were eventually allowed on the first ferry, but very discretely, the second ferry intentionally took off before we had a chance to do anything. So now we had a problem. We were all stranded on an island. With no tents and no food
I promised to do this if we caught one!
! After continuing the argument with one of the remaining ferry people left, we realized there was no escape. We had to spend the night here. Somehow.We wandered around the island and found the water police head quarters and thought we would plead our case. We knocked on the door and told them the story of the 15 stranded backpackers. Miraculously we were invited us in and given food and water, and then Maté and chatted with the police for hours.
They offered the floor of the police station for us to crash on and we were delighted at the offer. They even radioed the boat and made sure there was room for the first one in the morning. Unreal hey!
That night we played table tennis with the police, had an asado and a few beers and eventually slept on the floor under the table tennis table for the night. We even had hot showers! What a day!
The next morning we were escorted to the docks and the police stood over us and made sure we were given a seat on the first boat. We celebrated when the boat left and we were finally on our way back to Bariloche, ending a very interesting few days.
