Bariloche and Ruta 40

---

After being marooned in El Chalten for slightly longer than we intended the first 'we'll have to skip it' decision, leading to skipping Cuerva De Las Manos (13,000 year old painted caves) and throwing caution to the wind with the time old effort of 'I like bus journy's' - hence embarking on a 35 hour rollercoaster journey up Argentina's legendary Ruta 40!

This particular section of Ruta 40 from El Chalten to Bariloche (Ruta 40 runs the full length of Argentina) is particularly famous due to the desolate landscape and was a journey that Che Guevara made and where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid hid - amongst others. This section of the road cannot be classed as a road, being mainly unpaved (gravel) with nothing for kilometres except the view of rolling hills filled with shrubbery, the distant view of the Argentinian Andes, the odd sheep and the longest shaker-maker known to man! But with every lump and bump, glorious sunrise and sunset, it is easy to see why this route has become so legendary. As Southern Patagonia disappeared the Andes seemed to stand taller, the temperature had a welcome rise and the surrounding scenery less barren. The Andes had transformed into vast hills covered with lush green forests, intertwined with pristine blue lakes - namely The Patagonian Lake District.

Perched on the edge of Parque Nacional Nual Huapi, Bariloche sits on the banks of the park's namesake, the massive Lago Nual Huapi and enjoys pleasant temperatures of 30 degrees Celcius plus around this time of year, under the shelter of the majestic Andes. The town is one of South America's many adventure Meccas. After spending an afternoon devouring the local chocolate (Bariloche was originally a Swiss town) and tramping around tourist information boudoirs we had our eye on 2 weeks' worth of activities. Sifting through the 'to-do' list, to tame things down we both decided to spend a morning zipping 30metres high between the verdant forest trees as one of the town's many canopy sites before abseiling down the final tree.

Being in the tail end of the season does have it's perks - like half-price rafting! We spent the day with a couple of others 'making up the numbers' for the local rafting operator. With a low river the 'white knuckle' aspect was removed from the day - or so we thought! With the excitement evident from our guide relishing the 'technical' elements for our day ahead, we learned a new lesson in rafting. When the river is lower, it's slower, but then the rockis are bigger! After an extended lesson in swimming in angry rapids our guide spent the rest of the day throwing the dinghy into every rock, whirlpool and crevice possible while the rest of us paddled our lifejackets off. It all ended with the great traditional Argentinian barbecue - basically, chargrill a whole cow and tuck in... a tradition I'm quite enjoying!

A highly recommended trip came in the form of the Seven Lakes Route, so with a random from the hostel in tow we hired a car and spent two days road-tripping the route to San Martin de los Andes. Taking on the driving duties, which entailed cruising on both tarmac and gravel tracks, we made our way through the lakes, stopping off along the way to take in the peaceful, breathtaking scenery. By the end of the two days I'd mastered how to drive on the right-hand side of the road with only driving up three one-way streets wrong and veering onto the side of the road three times - a statistically sound road trip. Returning back at our leisure to Bariloche, we started to plan our escape.

Initially I had intended to climb to the glaciers on Mount Tronador - a two-day hike - but with time getting away the hike was abandoned and I did a short afternoon hike to get a panoramic view of the town and the immediate island network gracing the corner of the lake, and in the evening added o0n a show of Bariloche's week-long tango festival, which was very enjoyable. While missing out on the glacier hike, we thought taking a day trip to the Black Glacier on Mount Tronador would be a good substitute.

So, final day in Bariloche - day trip - how hard can it be? Very! A 9am pick-up turned into a 9.15 pick-up - as the driver trots over to the hostel door yelling 'canopy!' i reply with 'No, Tronador' and 'Si' is the spritely reply. Over the next 40 minutes Cecilia asks for the Black Glacier, and the driver replies 'yes' yet again, without checking our voucher (while still not understanding while he has one person on his list to pick up from our hostel). We drive off and he finally realises he picked the wrong people up after his agency phones him. We were then unceremoniously dumped at the side of the road and left to get a bus back to the hostel. Upon our return the hostel staff were pretty speechless. We cut our losses, received our refunds and made the decision to push off to our next destination - an interesting, amusing, yet baffling end to an enjoyable week in Bariloche.
Full Photos on Flickr

---