Lakes District - Pucon to Bariloche

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For the bus journey from Santiago to Pucon Jess and I wanted to try out the premium sleeper byuuses we had heard all about. On the bus websites you can choose different classes of seats by how much they recline, and the premier class ones go down 180 degrees - how excitement!

They were pretty comfortable. Not having flown business class long haul (yet!) they were much comfier than any plane seat I have sat in, although you still have to account for the side to side motion of the bus. However, we got to lie down the whole way, were given nice blankets and pipillowsand also socks and an eye mask - posh!

It made the 12 hour journey quite pleasant and we were able to get lots of sleep which was good.

We were met at Pucon bus terminal by the owner of our hostel which was nice and unexpected. The hostel was close to the centre of town which was small anyway and owned by a really nice family who were very helpful despite our combined Spanglish efforts!

Pucon is a lovely town, set a little back from a lake and surrounded by mountains, and starting to get very picturesque as you head south in Chile.

We headed straight out for our activity which was a half day of horse riding up into the mountains. This proved interesting as the guide who we thought was bilingual only spoke Spanish (and probably Mapuche, as he was one of the local indigenous people). I was quite nervous as I´m not confident on horses and haven´t ridden in a while. Thankfully my horse was very docile (it turns out too docile at times!) and a gorgeous caramel colour so he got the name Toffee (until I asked, and found out it was actually Bambi!). Jess also helped out with horse riding tips which was very helpful.

We went slowly up the Quelhue mountain on our horses led by our guide. The scenery was spectacular and we could see down to lake Villarica, and on to the Villarica, Lanin and Quetrupillan volcanoes. It was a bit of a shame as we couldn´t relaly ask many questions with our limited spanish and the guide´s lack of English. Nonetheless, a lovely experience, apart from a c ouple of hairy moments coming down steep parts and the horse slipping and sliding! I don´t think I´ll be riding a horse again any time soon!

Afterwards we tried some of the traditional Mapuche foods, again difficult to know what we had due to language issues, however it was all yummy! We had delicious empanadas, some yummy bread, fresh raspberry jam, salsa, and an interesting milky drink that could have been fermented and mixed with sugar.......not really sure!

That night we had Peruvian for dinner again - lomo salteado is steak with tomatoes and served with fries and rice and is delicious. Again, accompanied by yummy red wine and salsa so hot it burned my tongue!

The next day we walked around town and down to the waterfront and ´beach´. It was nice although the water was freezing. It was crystal clear with black sands, due to its proximity to volcanoes.

In the afternoon we did a small tour of the local surrounds and went to see some amazingly fast rapids (thankfully you can´t go on them in rafts as they looked very dangerous), and also to the waterfall Los Ojos which had amazingly blue water.

The next day we caught a bus south to Puerto Varas, our jumping off point for the Lakes Crossing into Bariloche and Argentina. Puerto Varas was settled by German settlers (as was Pucon) and so has a germanic feel to it - the local iconic church is very german and there are german restaurants (and cake shops!).

We had yummy empanadas for dinner and headed to the local casino. We had seen them everywhere and were itching to play the pokies! Unlike everywhere else here, you can actually smoke in casinos, so it was really unpleasant, and thankfully limited the amount of time we spent in there! I think we broke even and had a good time doing it.

We woke up the next morning for our Lakes Crossing day to truly foul weather. To put this into perspective, it is a whole day of travel - from bus to boat, bus to boat, and bus to boat. 12 hours in total, through spectacular scenery and fjords, and from Chile into Argentina, and it isn´t cheap at $230!! Needless to say we were dismayed and disappointed at the wind, cold and howling rain - but what can you do!

The Chilean side was lovely but disappointing due to the weather. We stopped at a national park on the Chilean side to see a gorgeous waterfall and while it was lovely, we couldn´t wait to get back on the bus! Along the way we were supposed to see the Osorno Volcano but it was totally invisible due to the fog covering it. We then started to see the Andes which were a bit more visible and just spectacular.

We got a ferry across All Saints Lake which is emerald in colour, although it was difficult to see it´s true colour and also sometimes to see what was on each side of the lake due to the rain and fog. We ended in Puella at a lovely hotel for lunch, and had seats in front of the huge windows looking up at the mountains. By this time things had started to clear a little.

We had another bus to the border crossing into Argentina and then another short boat trip on Lago Frias, followed by another short bus trip. At this point the weather thankfully started to clear. For the last boat leg we entered Nahuel Huapi national park and started to really be able to see the massive fjords we were navigating, topped with snow and so high on either side of the boat. These were spectacular, and bigger than those I had seen in Norway.

We learnt about Perito Moreno, who is a national icon in Argentina with many things named after him - a glacier, national parks, street names, etc. He was an explorer and scientist, and was gifted a large portion of land in Patagonia for his work. He donated this to the public and it was one of the first national parks in Argentina. This part of land was the Nahuel Huapi park where we were. He is also buried on a small island in the park, and the ferry tooted its horn 3 times as a sign of respect as we passed.

As we came into our final boat stop the scenery got even more spectacular. We pulled into Llao Llao National Park and you will have to see the photos to get an idea of the surrounds - although these do not do it justice! The moutains were gorgeous, water emerald and it was a lovely way to end off a big day of travel.

We were dropped off at our Bariloche hostel, Patanuk. It was close to the centre of town and right on the ´beach´next to the lakes, and with large windows overlooking the lake and moutains beyond. What a gorgeous spot, and we spent lots of time looking at the views over the next 3 days!

We headed out for patagonian lamb and a glass of Malbec (as you do) and chose a parilla (BBQ) which had a whole roasting lamb in the front window, as many of them do. You wouldn´t want to be a veggie in this part of the world! We chose a great restaurant which was decorated inside with cow hides and thankfully chose a half portion of the lamb - which is actually big enough for 2 people on its own. The portion sizes are massive here - further evidenced by the sides of veg and papas fritas that we ordered - it was a feast!

The next day we went back to Llao Llao National Park and did a whole day hike with a lady Sue we met at our hostel. We walked along the banks of gorgeous lakes, and finally up to the Cerro Llao Llao lookout which was a steep hike up to xxx m. The views over the fjords and up 2 rivers were spectacular and made it all worth it - it was just stunning.



After a long day we were knackered and just went out to a local pizza restaurant for dinner. Pizza tends to be the next available thing after the local food here, and it was awesome!



The next day we hung around town which was much needed. It also wasn´t helped by the fact that the Chilean volcano which is about 170km away is still spewing ash, and the wind was crazy, and blowing ash all over town which is a real shame. It meant activities such as kayaking were out due to huge waves on the lake (and not being able to breathe with the ash) and also rafting.



Lucikily, the shopping was the best we had found so far so we picked up some much needed gifts for self and others. I saw a couple of Saint Bernards in town which were gorgeous - they are a symbol on lots of souvenirs here and I hadnñt seen any as yet. I saw a guy sitting in the main square with a huge (pappa) one with the barrel around its neck, and accompanied by a puppy which was the size of any other full grown dog - gorgeous!



That night when we asked our hostel to help us get to the airport we realised that due to the volcano the airport was shut. Everyone seemed to know this but us, and we hadn´t been advised anything by our airline. They even let Jess book tickets out of Bariloche when it was shut, and they knew it would be shut when we were flying! There was no mention of having to go to another airport and no notification via email or phone which there should have been. There ensured a frantic hour or two where we tried to get hold of LAN and confirm the alternate plans and thankfully we did around 9pm - not the nicest evening!



The upshot was that instead of getting up at a reasonable hour to go to the Bariloche airport which was very close for an 11am flight, we needed to get a bus at 6am (and be there for 5.30am) four hours south to Esquel, an airport literally in the middle of nowhere - I´m talking a shed and a runway in the middle of what looked like the outback!



The flight taking off wasn´t great - it is so windy around that area that extremely bumpy ascents and descents are the norm. Not only this,but the plane seemed to drop every few minutes which wsa quite terrifying. I kept telling myself that this was normal and the pilots do it every day and that would be fine and we were thank goodness. Not everyone felt the same though and people in my row kept crossing themselves, and the plane staff had to be called for another girl who was really frightened and crying.

Jess had booked us both in window seats however and the views flying down to Calafate in Patagonia were amazing! A lot like I imagine the outback to be in terms of sparse land, and also beautiful glacial lakes, big mountains and some greenery. I will write next about Patagonia in my next installment!

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