Stuck in San Martin

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Oh well, Matt tried to get up to date but we are getting behind again so I am going to give you an account of our few days in San Martin as well as the rest of our time in Bariloche. We are currently in Santiago and Matt did spend almost 2 hours yesterday sorting through 1200+ pictures and selecting the best ones to put on the website. So the pictures are coming!!! Santiago is a very nice city and we had a lovely day yesterday which hopefully you will hear about soon.
Back to Bariloche, Argentina on February 25... So after an action packed evening before of obtaining tickets to San Martin de los Andes, catching up on internet, and of course an obligatory helados trip, we headed back to our out of the way hostel (7 km from town) in a taxi. It was midnight when we got back but that did not prevent me from still waking up at 7 am. Jill and I were both up around 7 am because we wanted to do a long day hike in Nahuel Huapi National Park. The mountains surrounding Bariloche are beautiful and I had begged Matt to let us a do a several day hike in the park but to no avail. He asked me if I wanted to do the hike or see pink dolphins later, and you know how it is with me - animals or mountains, you know who wins!! Unfortunately, Matt could not be roused until 9 am, but we caught the next bus and headed for the park. It was beautiful day with lots of blue sky and wonderful views of the lake next to Bariloche. When we got to the park, we purchased an expensive but worthwhile chairlift ticket which gave us great views and eliminated 3 hours of uphill hiking in the hot sun. When we got to the end of the chair lift, it was a quick trek up to beautiful views of the surrounding mountains, lakes, and 2 volcanos clearly in the distance. We then scrambled our way through exposed boulders and scree along our trail past more great views. After we reached the busy refugio and many Chileans swimming in the cold lakes (as well as an Ashby headed goose - yeah another bird), we dipped down into the lush forest which prominently featured beautiful native bamboo. It was a very fulfilling day hike and after catching the bus out around 6 pm, we headed to Bariloche for the only Mexican restaurant in town. The margharitas were fabulous and they had several yummy vegetarian options for Jill and me.

The next day, we arrived at the bus station to a mad house of people shoving their stuff into the one small baggage compartment on the rather diminutively sized Albus. We quickly threw our stuff in and claimed seats even though their were no assigned seats on our tickets. More and more people streamed on until 3 people were left standing in the aisle with their luggage, it appears that they had overbooked the bus (strike 2 against Albus, strike 1 was when they had told us we could use credit card then said oh no cash only). After passing more beautiful mountains, forests, and lakes, we arrived at the picturesque, touristy town Villa la Angostura for a bus change. The time of the next bus 1230 quickly came and went and we began to check the empty ticket counter every 10 minutes to inquire about our bus. When someone finally arrived at the ticket counter, she informed Jill that the next bus is at 2030 and that they sold us a ticket for a bus that did not exist. This was a definite strike 3 for all of us. We demanded our money back and bought the 1730 bus out with another company. That meant four more hours with our mountain of luggage so we headed for the park and took turns watching the stuff and making trips for internet and lunch (helados!!). The time in Villa la Angostura was salvaged for me though because I got to see another bird, a type of sierra finch. Our bus came and dropped us of in San Martin de los Andes without incident. We immediately marched up to several ticket counters and immediately ascertained that the first trip to Pucon would not be until Tuesday. We booked the tickets but were very disappointed because their was another less direct but more available route from Bariloche to Pucon through Osorno but now we were stuck in San Martin for 3 nights. It was particularly disappointing to me since we could have stayed in Bariloche and down in multiple day hike in Nahuel Huapi. Unfortunately, the bus companies do not communicate very well with each other especially if you have to cross the border from Argentina to Chile. So we were stuck in San Martin with empty bellies and no place to stay. Matt and Jill (the navigator and translator) were immediately dispatched to find a hostel while I (the lowly doctor) remained parked at the bus station with the bags. I told them to take as many bags as possible so I would have less stuff to watch but I didn´t really see exactly what they took. Matt had locked most of the bags together so I perched atop the mountain and resumed reading Wuthering Heights and observing the chimango caracaras. About 20 minutes went by when I suddenly realized that Jill´s backpack was no where to be seen. I frantically looked everywhere and waited another tense 25 minutes until Jill and Matt returned. Upon seeing Jill with only her day pack, I promptly burst into tears and exclaimed that her backpack was stolen. I knew that I could be extremely distracted while reading but I had no idea that someone could steal her whole backpack from under my nose. They immediately reassured me that her bag was at the hostel and it was with her the whole time. We dropped off the mountain of luggage at our hostel where Matt had obtained our own room with a double bed (yeah no bunk beds for three whole nights) and headed out to a wonderful, inexpensive vegetarian dinner.

For our first whole day in San Martin, we awoke to rain and immediately decided that this would be our rest day. We booked a whitewater rafting trip, ate lunch, took naps, read books, grocery shopped, ate dinner (vegetarian hamburgers and watermelon), and played cards. It was the first easy day (other than enforced rest on the bus rides) that we had in a long time.

The next day, the people from the tour company picked us up at our hostel at 9 am and drove us two hours to Rio Alumine. It was a fairly cold, windy day and we were worried about how cold it would be on the river. Fortunately, the whitewater company was way ahead of us with heavy wet suits, helmets, and rain jackets (though Matt and I chose to wear our own). The directions were all in Spanish but we got the idea. The river was beautiful, the rapids were fun and though the lunch was heavily meat based (the tour company forgot to communicate that we were vegetarian), it was a wonderful day. We piled into the van, tired and happy, and glad that we were stuck in San Martin for a few days. I also got to see 4 really cool birds on the river!!

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