Bariloche: 3 - 7 Mar

Mar 3:

Sarah, Kevin, Christina and I left on the scenic bus to Bariloche early in the morning, with me hoping to meet Mat and other Sarah for a backpack to a Refugio in the mountains. Like clockwork (thanks Sarah :-) ), Mat met us at the station and the race began. Bus to the centro, get some lunch, get some hiking food, Mat to rent a sleeping bag, meet Stephanie (a cool computer programming American friend of their friend living in Bariloche), re-pack into trekking mode, and catch the 14h15 bus to the Catedral ski village starting point. And everything went according to plan!

The 4 hour hike to Refugio Frey along the mountain shores of Lago Guiteritz was great: thick green bamboo-like bushes, and giant lenga tree relics. The Refugio was toasty, with kitchen, gas, toilets (squat-style) and a cold lake for swimming. And snow from last weekend still filling the shadows. Great mixed supper including the miracle grain coiquey ??? and red-wine.

Mar 4:

The next day we watched La Carrare del Los Cuatro Refugios (The Race of the Four Refuges), which is a 2-day mountain running stage race of about 5 hours a day. I think Ian Adamson was winning at our refugio.

CAPTION: Refugio Frey (PC1), a bit of the lake, and the favourites in Race of the Four Refugios.

Then an excellent scramble up to another lake, and up even more passed the windswept ´futbol´ field, to a viewpoint looking down over another huge valley headed by the snowy peak of TROGDOR. Okay, actually it is called Tronador!

Back in Stephanie´s fantastic apartment in the centre of Bariloche, we (Mat, Sarah, Steffie, Karina, and me) made pizzas, salad and drank a little bit of wine!


CAPTION: Carina, Colin, Sarah, Stephanie, and Matt.

Mar 5:

Woke up late. Said cheers, to Mat and Sarah, and finally walked a little around the Swiss chocolate village of Bariloche. I have NEVER seen so much chocolate in my life---whole supermarkets selling only chocolate!

Stephanie and I then went out to a concert of the 'band' Circuit Ensamble. Unfortunately due to a large mug of wine beforhand, which washed down a steak and chorizo (huge pork sausage), I fell asleep and can't comment too much on the quality of the performance. However the words I would use all begin with vowels: eerie, interesting, awf... Suffice to say, the only words I understood and that were said forwards, were 'The serpent awakes' (and that was in Spanish)!

Mar 6:
After messing around town all morning (not even the biggest supermarket opens before 09h00), and since it was an epic day, I rented a forlorn MTB from some schoolkid running the adventure shop. Since the brakes didn't work, I found some Allen keys in the backroom and started to fix them, till she confiscated the tools and said I'M not qualified to do techinal stuff to the bike!

So I took the bike on a journey it'll never forget. Firstly, up a Constantiaberg Mast ascent up Cerro Otto (which most tourists/skiers reach by a 1km high cable car from the edge of town). Here I found an ex-Ukranian cross country skiing champion/instructor looking bored in the warm weather. He gave me some water and suggested I do the ski circuit/track on my MTB. Well, I wasn't going to say no to that, so I completed my first Nordic-skiing circuit all along this ridgetop in the Andes.

Then, pedalled to the top of the 360 degree resturant, got bounced from it because I wasn't going to pay to go in, but the bouncer later pointed out a tap for me when he saw me gasp down the last sip of my bottle. Great view, great short downhill to the top carpark where I accosted a guy with 4 bikes on the roof. After looking nervously over his shoulder, he explained this epic MTB route to me (that unfortunately ends in a huge lovely private golf estate).

CAPTION: The first 30m of the most epic MTB ride down Cerro Otto.


Well, when I took the pic, I had no idea how good it was going to be. It was 8km of rolling cross-country skiing track, then about 6 km of steep downhill 'roads' with in sane switchbacks. It is really a downhill/cross-country ski lane in winter, but just perect for MTBing, all through thick jungle.

I eventually arrived shaken an excited at the golf estate: some very logical interpretive navigation and a bit of pleading stupidity and smiling saw me out of the security gates, and onto the 20 tar section with the wind back to Bariloche, home,

Mar 7:
Another morning spent horsing around town trying to sort out some simple passport questions. And then it was of to Nacional Parque Llao Llao which is pronounced shouw- shouw. Double L is a whole different letter of the alphabet (as is Ñ), which has a 'sh' sound in Argentina, and a 'ly' sound in Chile. So don't even think about pronouncing llama with an 'l'. it is 'shama'.

Well, as Pooh said, 'Oh bother, it looks like a spot of rain.'. But not enough for me to pack my rain pants. But after a 30 km (2.60 Peso) bus ride along the beautiful Lago Nahuel Huapi, it was raining like I was in Northern Patagonia, for I was in Northern Patagonia. Actually, I do not have any evidence that the water was indeed coming from the sky, and not just from the waterspouts on the lakes (Perito Moreno, Perito Moreno Oested, and a whole bunch more similar sounding generals).

So I kitted up in everything I had for extra warmth, including sunglasses, and headed into the free municipal park. The walk was epic, all though tunnels in the 'bamboo' which kept me sort of dry, and certainly out of the wind. Well, lots of rain, lots of wind, lots of rainbows, lots of forest.


CAPTION: The insane wind of Bahia Lopez from Llao Llao Park.

And on the return loop of the Circuito Chico that I was on, I somehow ended up being given a lift in a huge old bus/winnibago with an argentinian honeymoon couple and there 2 year old. They saved me many kilometres of walking in the rain until their bus broke down back on the main public bus route.

That night Stephanie baked these amazing brown raisin breads, and we went out to her favourite resturant, the excellent something Vegetariano. Great vegetarian food, which surprisingly was a welcome change to Argentina's carnivorous diet.

Crack of dawn wake up to say many thanks and goodbye's Steffie, and catch the 50 Peso bus to Puerto Varas.