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Published: December 26th 2010
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Bariloche - Circuito Chico, at the look out with Hotel Llao Llao and the various lakes in the backgroundThe next part of our travels was through the Lakes District, which is again split between Argentina and Chile, either side of the Andes mountain range. As the name suggests, this area has numerous lakes as well as quite a few volcanoes (some active!).
After disembarking in Puerto Montt, Chile from our 4 day cruise through the Chilean fiords, we headed for the town of Puerto Varas, a former German colony only 20 minutes further north. This town is on the edge of Lake Llanquihue with a beautiful view towards Volcan Osorno, a perfectly symmetrical, cone shaped, snow covered (extinct) volcano. We didn’t get to appreciate the view for the first couple of days though, as the bad weather, with torrential rain, moved in once again. We took advantage of this time to catch up on a heap of wedding stuff, finalizing numbers, putting tables together, writing vows and so on, as the wedding was also fast approaching.
As the weather began to improve, we decided to hire a car for a couple of days and do an overnight trip down to Chiloe Island, about 150km south of Puerto Varas. After taking a 30 minute car ferry across to
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Bariloche - at one of the stops on our ride around the Circuito Chico the island, we spent a relaxing day in Ancud, the largest town on the island, with about 35,000 inhabitants. We did a self guided city tour exploring some of the town’s and island’s long history, which dated back as far as the 1600’s.
Anecdote: Chiloe Island is most famous for its 61 wooden churches which dot the island. The churches were built by the Jesuits in the late 1600’s as part of their attempts to convert the local indigenous population to their religion. What is really interesting about the churches is that they were built from a locally found hard wood, without the use of metal nails. The churches are held together using 17 different types of wooden joints. Sixteen of the 61 churches are now preserved as UNESCO World Heritage sites, with all of them having been restored using exactly the same techniques as used in the past.
The hostel we stayed at while in Puerto Varas had an adventure tourism operator directly below it called Ko’Kayak. We ended up becoming their best clients over the following week, trying out pretty much every activity they had on offer; canyoning, white water rafting and kayaking. We first tried
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Bariloche - Cerro Catedral trek, the amazing granite peaks that surround the refugio a half day white water rafting trip with them. The outfitter was really well set up with quality gear and guides, and we liked them immediately. As it had been raining solidly for the previous 3 days, the river was super high and we had an awesome couple of hours being thrown around on the icy waters of the Petrohue River, with almost the entire time being in Class III and IV rapids.
After this experience, we found out that they had a 2 day / 1 night kayaking trip leaving the following day, again on the Petrohue River, however a little further down from where we did the rafting, after the river had widened a bit. As we had enjoyed the rafting so much, we decided to do this trip as well. The first day’s weather was magnificent with hardly a cloud in the sky, so we had some stunning valley views as we cruised down the river in our kayaks, until it disgorged into a fiord. We spent the night camping on the banks of this fiord, eating smoked salmon, couscous and grilled chicken, cooked over an open fire, and drinking wine and pisco sours. We also
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Bariloche - in the town square had one of our best sleeps, with an un-interrupted 10 hours under a canopy of bright stars. BRILLIANT! The following day we packed up the camping gear and continued paddling along the fiord for another 3 hours to the town of Cochamo, along the way encountering penguins, dolphins and some playful sea lions, which followed the kayaks for a while! It was an awesome couple of days, nice and relaxing, and gave us plenty of time to admire and take in the beautiful mountains and scenery.
The last trip we did with Ko’Kayak was some canyoning. Neither of us had done this before, so we were both really looking forward to the experience. As the water was very cold, and we would be spending the bulk of the day submersed in it, we proceeded to put on 4 layers of neoprene to protect us from the cold. We had 10mm of wet suits by the time we were fully kitted, and trying to walk in this was a mission in itself! There was also definitely no chance of drowning in the water, as we were like corks on an ocean! We spent the day working our way down the
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Bariloche - at one of the stops on our ride around the Circuito Chico canyon going down numerous water slides (some head first!), jumping off ledges into rock pools below and finally abseiling down a 20m waterfall. Apart from our feet and hands, we didn’t get cold at all. In fact, our bodies hardly got wet at all, as we were wrapped that tightly in neoprene. Once again, a very unique experience, and heaps of fun!
From Puerto Varas, we caught a bus back across the border into Argentina, to San Carlos de Bariloche, the Argentine Lakes District largest city, which sits on the shores of beautiful Lake Nahuel Huapi.
There was heaps to do in this area and we spent the first half day working out what interested us. As the weather was looking good for the next 3 or 4 days, we decided to get all the outdoor activities out of the way. There is a small town called Llao Llao on a peninsula about 30km from Bariloche. Around this peninsula are some beautiful forests, mountains and lake views, so we hired some mountain bikes for the day, and proceeded to ride around this circuit. The road around the circuit was gorgeous, as there was this bright yellow wild flower
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Bariloche - Hotel Llao Llao, a five star hotel in the region which was in bloom, and it lined both sides of the road along it. We stopped quite a few times along the way to take in a number of the lake views, have lunch at one of the lake’s beaches and also do some short walks with the best one being up Cerro Campanario. It’s a 40 min up hill but you arrive on a ‘confiteria’ with a great terrace where you can appreciate what is considered one of the top 10 views of the world with snow capped mountains surrounded by lakes everywhere.
Another two days we spent doing a trek through the mountains behind Bariloche, staying overnight in one of the refugios. We hadn’t read anything about this walk in the guide books, so we were just thinking it would be a nice walk. However, it turned out to be one of the more spectacular walks that we have done, easily comparable to Torres del Paine and the Fitzroy Ranges in Patagonia! The walk took us along the side of a lake before heading up through a beautiful forested valley towards a high pass. Near the top of the pass was Refugio Frey, on the edge of
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Bariloche - Circuito Chico, our lunch stop a lake and surrounded on all sides by weirdly shaped, snow capped granite outcrops. We had planned on going over the pass to a refugio deeper into the mountains, however the pass was still covered in more than a metre of snow, and we didn’t have the necessary equipment to get through this snow, so we ended up staying in Refugio Frey and just enjoying the snow capped peak views for the afternoon. This area is also one of the principal rock climbing spots near Bariloche, so we also spent some time watching these brave souls scaling some of the weirdly shaped peaks. The refugio was known for its home made pizzas, so that night we had this for dinner, along with a locally brewed beer, while watching the sunset. Definitely one of our best nights of the trip!
Anecdote: Throughout our time travelling through South America, every city we have visited has had its fair share of homeless dogs wandering the streets. These dogs have never caused us problems and are in fact at times too friendly! On numerous occasions, when we have been going on hikes, dogs have “adopted” us and spent a number of hours or
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Bariloche - Circuito Chico even the day walking along with us. The latest example was walking the 12km back from Refugio Frey to Bariloche, a german sheppard cross came with us the whole way! Some of these dogs even become super protective and start barking at other people or dogs that come near us while walking along. By the end of the day, Patty wanted to take him home with us, and we both felt really bad having to leave him at the bus stop, where we had to catch a bus back to Bariloche. The dog didn’t seem too phased though. As we drove off in the bus, we watched him running off to a lady nearby, who was having something to eat, to make a new friend.
After leaving Bariloche, we began working our way back towards Chile, passing through a number of small towns, Villa la Angostura and San Martin de Los Andes. We slept a night in each of these towns and had a quick look around both. They were both postcard perfect little towns, with all the buildings made from wood and stone. They had lots of boutique shops of clothes and nick nacks that Patty loved, and
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Bariloche - Circuito Chico thankfully it was a weekend with most of them closed so Patty wasn’t able to buy anything. Both these towns reminded me of the town in the movie, “The Truman Show” with Jim Carrey as they were that perfect, that they were almost too perfect. Absolutely gorgeous, and we wished we had a little more time to spend in each.
Back across the border into Chile one last time, we headed to the town of Pucon, on the edge of Lake Villarrica. This town is famous for the 2900m smoking volcano, Volcan Villarrica, that towers over it. The activity to do here is climb this volcano, so upon arriving we immediately organised this tour for the following day. Once again, as has happened to us heaps of times through South America, we found ourselves in a private tour, just the guide and us, as two of the other tourists pulled out at the last minute. We had a stunning day for the hike to the top of the volcano, so after getting kitted out in equipment (snow boots, ice picks, crampons, etc), we drove the 10km to the base of the volcano and began the 5 hour ascent. We
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Bariloche - one of the trout swimming in the crystal clear rivers hit the snow line at around 1800m, from where we began zig zagging our way up the steep face of the volcano. There were some amazing views to be had back towards Pucon and the surrounding Andes mountains, however Patty, who suffers a little from heights, was completely focussed on her feet, trying to forget about the steep, slippery, snow covered slope we were working our way up. To her credit, she made it to the top of the volcano without freaking out, or breaking down in tears, like the guide told us many other tourists had done in the past. Our guide held the record for the most days in a row girls had broken down in tears on his tours, 13 days! As we neared the top of the volcano, we began getting whiffs of sulphur. The wind was blowing the smoke coming out of the volcano directly towards our path up to the summit, and the last 5 minutes of the climb were very unpleasant with the sulphur laden smoke stinging our eyes and throat. Once at the top, we could work our way around the edge of the volcano, out of the smoke, and got to
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Bariloche - Glacier on Volcan Tronador peer inside the volcano and take in the surrounding landscape. We then started heading back down the volcano. This was the coolest part of the tour, as we strapped a plastic sheet to our back sides and slide down the volcano, using our ice picks as our brake! It took us five hours to climb the volcano, however sliding down it on our rears, we were back to the bottom in less than an hour! It did take Patty a few attempts to get the hang of it though. Her first go resulted in her losing the ice pick half way down, and then in her attempts to stop rolling onto her stomach and madly scrabbling for a hold on the snow with her hands! We ended the day by heading to one of the many natural hot springs in the area to soak away the aches and pains for a couple of hours.
Anecdote: With the wedding fast approaching, we had been getting everyone that was coming to it to send through their itineraries. When my Auntie Nel, my mum’s eldest sister, sent through hers, we saw that she had a 3 day stop over in Santiago that
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Puerto Varas - kayaking on the Petrohue River happened to coincide with when we were planning to be in Santiago. As she wasn’t aware of this, we decided to surprise her by meeting her at the airport when she arrived. When she came through the gate, we jumped in front of her, gave her a big hug and welcomed her to South America. She was completely caught off guard, and it wasn’t until about 5 minutes later that it hit her that we were actually there, and a few tears were shed. Being her first time in South America, and travelling alone, I think she appreciated our unexpected welcome!
Our last stop before heading back to Colombia for the wedding was Santiago. Here we stayed with some older friends of Patty’s from her days in Townsville, Maria Edith and Colin, in their apartment close to the city. It was wonderful to have a place to call home for a week or so, especially as they treated us like their own children while we stayed with them. Over the week that we were there, they took us (and also my Auntie Nel while she was there) to some of their favourite restaurants and we also had a night
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Puerto Varas - kayaking on the Petrohue River away with them at their country house, about 45 minutes from Santiago. The country house is within a country club, which has an 18 hole golf course, tennis courts, pool and restaurant / bar, a lovely environment to relax on the weekends after a stressful week at work.
While in Santiago, we also did a few touristy things. With my Aunt, we did a free half day walking city tour that took us past all the major monuments and buildings in the city centre, and gave us some history on Santiago & Chile. I had never come across these free walking tours before, and found out the concept had started in some of the major European cities, like Munich and Paris. The guide simply asks for a tip at the end of the tour as payment for his services. Our guide was really informative, giving us plenty of stories about the city, including gems like how the owner of Telefonico, a huge mobile phone provider here, had wanted to own the highest building in Santiago, and so had built it for himself, in the shape of a mobile phone. Or showing us one of a chain of the coffee
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Puerto Varas - kayaking on the Petrohue River shops that was very popular with the businessmen through their marketing ploy of hiring only tall, well endowed waitresses whose uniform was a short little skirt and tight, low cleavage tops.
We also did an overnight trip to the coastal city of Valparaiso, which is the major shipping port for Chile. This city is very old with steep hills, and has been declared a UNESCO world heritage site for its urban design and unique infrastructure. Probably it’s most famous aspect is its ascensors, an unusual system of funicular elevators used by people since the late 1800’s for getting up and down the steep hills. We spent a full day here walking around the city’s attractions, including a boat trip on the harbour.
Anecdote: In the city of Valparaiso, we realised we were seasoned travellers when we immediately realised a group of guys were trying to rob us. We were at one of the city lookouts when a guy approached me and told me that I had something over my back. I asked Patty if I had anything on me, and she confirmed that I had a sticky caramel substance all over the backpack and my pants. During this
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Puerto Varas - kayaking on the fiord time, another couple of well dressed guys approached us offering assistance, one with some tissues in his hand to help clean me up. By this stage I had alarm bells ringing very loudly, as some other travellers had told us about a similar situation where they had been robbed of their backpacks. The con works by the thieves spraying something on the unsuspecting tourist’s backpack. They then offer to help the tourist clean the backpack. When tourist removes it, the thieves begin cleaning it, and then all of a sudden they take off with it. So wise to the scam, I calmly told Patty what I suspected and said that I wasn’t taking off the backpack under any circumstances and we would worry about cleaning it up later, once we were away from the guys. We politely declined the help of the three guys, who soon realised that we weren’t going to be suckered, and they quickly vanished. The whole episode was all very subtle, and if you hadn’t heard about robberies of this type, you wouldn’t have thought you were in any danger until your backpack suddenly disappeared.
And now we are back in Colombia, counting down the
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Puerto Varas - kayaking, our camp site for the night last 7 days to our wedding. We look forward to seeing some of you soon in Cartagena, and for everyone else we hope you have a wonderful, relaxing festive season! Stay tuned for another update in the new year!
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