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Published: January 29th 2010
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Hey everyone,
Thanks again for all your comments, its great to see that people are enjoying the blog and following our adventure! After Mendoza, we headed into Patagonia region, first stop, Bariloche! The drive was beautiful through Patagonia´s Lake District, turquoise waters, mountains and rolling terrain. We arrived in Bariloche and stepped off the bus into surprisingly different weather. It was our first introduction to Patagonian winds and quite a temperature difference from the 40 degree weather in Mendoza! Bariloche is a beautiful town - situated right on a lake, with mountain back drop and the entire town on a hill facing these incredible views. We stayed at a great hostel, Hostel 1004, which was on the 10th floor and overlooking the lake. That day we walked around uptown (discovering that this area is famous for its chocolate....sooooo delicious!) and down at the lake (nearly getting blown away).
Our second day, we set off to Cerro Catedral where we took a gondola and ski lift up the mountain of a ski resort. The views overlooked all of Bariloche and were very nice but obscurred by the overcast weather. We had lunch at a lodge at the top accompanied by
very good hot chocolate...now a small addiction of ours. We hiked back down and had ANOTHER hot chocolate (literally just melted chocolate - so thick and rich...we´re in heaven).
Our third day we took off on a trek to Mount Tronador (not knowing entirely what to expect). The trek was stunning - thick forests, pure blue rivers and small streams flowing down from the glacier and mountains). The trek up was very steep and quite challenging especially since we were carrying packs. But once we neared the top we realized it was well worth every ounce of effort it took. The views were incredible, overlooking the valley below, snow covered mountain peaks and glacier. We eventually reached a part where we had to trek across a slope 20 metres or so from the edge and then up into the snow to get to the refugio. This part was scary for both Greg and I and was the ultimate test of Greg´s fear of heights! We had such a feeling of accomplishment when we reached the refugio after the 5.5 hour climb. The refugio sits at an altitude of just over 2000 metres and behind it is the most beautiful
views of the Tronador peak (altitude 3500 metres). We had planned on camping outside but that quickly changed and decided to stay inside the warm refugio. The hut is a relatively small, 2 level refugio where the upper level is dedicated to sleeping area for max 42 people. That night, there was 67 people and we slept shoulder to shoulder, head to head, foot to foot. It was a pretty unique experience. We woke up to a snow storm and having very little experience at climbing mountains were quite concerned with how we were going to get down. Luckily we had met a couple on their honeymoon who had a personal guide and they let us follow them down, otherwise, we weren´t going anywhere! The snow quickly turned the rain as we got lower and by the time we got back to Pampa Linda (where we started our trek), we were very wet and cold. So we treated ourselves to a hotel room when we got back into town (its not very easy to find a hotel room in High season in Patagonia...we found that out pretty quickly). Overall, the trek was a really great experience and a pretty extreme
first trek!
We met up with a Danish couple that we had met in Mendoza and spent the next day together and made plans to start heading south together. Our next stop is El Bolson, 2 hours south of Barriloche where we plan to do some more hiking. We´re looking forward to the very short bus trip! Its unheard of in our trip so far to only have to travel 2 hours to our next destination!
Take care,
Laura and Greg
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