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Published: March 21st 2006
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Here we are, in Bariloche, a small town at the doorstep of Patagonia, nestled in the Argentinian Andes. This is our second week in Argentina, having arrived in Buenos Aires on Tuesday 7h March. B.A was pretty cool - we went to a tango show, explored the city and ate the best bloody steak we´ve ever had. Hard to believe, but I´m actually tired of eating mammoth portions of beautiful beef!. One of the highlights was the Recolleta cemetary, filled with musoleums of amazing variety and grandeur. The city's very European, albeit with a Latin American flavour, so we were glad to head out after a couple of days, and do some exploring of the countryside and the Pampas.
We spent the night in a sleepy lakeside town called Chascomus and went to check out an Estancia, or cattle ranch, only this one didn´t have any cattle or cowboys and our taxi broke down on the way there! Twas interesting to see some of rural Argentinian life though. We then headed to the coast, to a little seaside town called Villa Gesell, to get a bit of beach..which was nice, but not nearly as beautiful as the Capetonian beaches we´ve
been spoilt with. We did have fun driving a quad bike over the dunes and up the coast on Shivvy´s birthday - with the obligatory telling off by the rental agent for driving too fast..hee hee. It was too touristy for our liking though, so we headed out to Bariloche after two days.
18 Hours by the most pampered bus ride, saw two people with rockstar identity complexes arrive at our destination. Bariloche is a beautiful town nestled between the Andes, at the shore of a huge glacier-fed lake, bordered by a massive national park that´s teeming with volcanoes, forests, mountains and rivers. Truly beautiful. As luck or fate would have it, on our second day at this rustic little hostel, we bumped into an old varsity friend of mine, Mark Wilcott, whom I haven´t seen since 2002...small bloody world! Turns out they were planning to summit this volcano, the 4th highest peak in Patagonia, and they had space in their group, so we jumped on the bandwagon and found ourselves sleeping the next night in a little hut, perched on a ledge at 2000m, nestled between 2 glaciers on Mount Tronador (thunder in Spanish).
The 5 hour
hike up was both eventful and achingly beautiful. After making our way up this valley, though bamboo forests then huge moss-covered trees, we came apon this wild-eyed Frenchman who was running down the mountain like a first-year streaker. He proceeded to tell us in the gravest of voices that our lives were in danger, as he had gotten lost in the knee-deep snow above the tree-line and would have become a French-popsickle, had a guide not led him to safety, from our destination, a Refugio, or traveller´s hut mentioned above. This caused some consternation, but really just fuelled our desire to forge ahead and kick some mountain ass. We did do a doubletake, however, when, after being asked whether there were any avalanches, he replied, "OUI! Many! " When we somehwat nervously questioned him where these occurred, he replied that we could " ave the lunches at the Refugio". He clearly realised that we weren´t taking his frenzied warnings very seriously when we broke down crying with laughter, so we left him once he had calmed down to a panic.
The conditions weren´t great above the snow-line, with bad visibility and light snow-falling. At one stage, we couldn´t find
Ricolleta cemetary
Beautiful cemetary with musoleums and Eva Peron´s grave the trail-markers, as they were buried in knee-deep snow, but at the opportune moment, the mist cleared and we found faint footprints leading to the cosy Refugio, with a blazing fire, cold beer and classical music awaited. Unfortunately, the weather did not prove in our favour to climb to the summit, where you can see across Chile to the Pacific, but we had an awesome time exploring the glaciers and doing some ice climbing outa crevasses.
The following days were pretty chilled, with mountain biking (our bus caught on fire on the way to the bike rental..ha ha) and a lake tour.
After Bariloche, we decided to spend a night in a little hippy town called El Bolson and we can personally attest that it definitely retains it´s "hippy ethos"! This was personified by our hostel owner, who we affectionately dubbed, "Scruffles" and seemed permanently on the borderline between conciousness and a coma. Driving the next day to San Martin de Los Andes, 400km north, was an experience of the sublime to say the very least..the landscape is so dramatic and achingly beautiful, you cannot but fell elated at the joy of living.
Sat 25th March
We´re spending a coupla nights in San Martin, which is a really beautiful little lakeside town, with awesome lookouts and a little injun community tucked away between the hills and the lake, with their llama friends..pretty fun for downhill biking. Then we´re off to Chile tomorrow, to climb an active volcano called Villarica..3500m, above the snowline..crampons and ice. Hopefully we´ll be able to see the bubbling lava, if the sulphour clouds are not too thick, whereafter we slide down on these shield-like improvised toboggins..just another day at the office.
See below for pics in date order..hasta la vista!
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