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looking over the bariloche lakes
Phew.. what a climb.... via a chairlift. This was the start of the traverse across the mountains overlooking the bariloche lakesHola Chicos y Chicas,
Well this is a very belated blog posting. Rin and I have been buzzing along from Chiloe, and we are pretty much a month behind on our blog. Well you cant blame us.... travelling takes up your time, but we are thinking about all of you back there.
Also we have had a few hickups along the way including bouts of gastro for rinny and a tent slashing and robbery in Chile. So here´s some pics for our lakes district adventure... more to follow shortly..
The Lakes District
Rin and I have spend the last two weeks enjoying autumn in the lakes district. We thought that the cooler and wetter weather had finally put the proverbial tupperware lid on our adventures in the andes, and snap locked our memories of pategonia. We were wrong. The lakes district turned it on for us with beautiful weather, amazing chocolate, autumn leaves, rustic lakeside hideaways and artesian offerings.
After making our way from Puerto Varas (Chile), we headed to Argentina and Bariloche for a week, then back to Pucon for another week in Chile... then back to Argentina again. The processes of boarder jumping every
majestic valley in autumn
amazing colours and landscape of the valleys dropping away below us couple of weeks or less between the two countries has resulted in us playing the passport stamp game. What is this you ask? Well, we were introduced to this by our friends on the road Ryan and Kate, and the aim of the game is to try and manipulate the boarder officers to place the boarder stamp where you want it. Sounds easy? No no no.
First you have to take into account the relative locations of your previous entry stamps into the country. Some federal police like order, and its going to be difficult to get the stamp on another page. Others like to stamp in the middle of a fresh page... this is absolutly unacceptable and leaves you with dissapointment and low points. 6 stamps to a page is the best total so far.
So the majority of the photos we have included are of our time in Bariloche (Arg) and Pucon (Ch). These two places although they are both outdoor activity mekkas in the lakes district are as different as chalk and cheese.
Bariloche is more like a european ski village with the high mountains behind it, while pucon centres its actvities on volcano
traversing talus slopes
our trek takes us in a high traverse around these rocky pinacles villarica that dominates the town skyline. Both have rafting, horseriding, hiking, climbing and skiiing on offer.
We had a blash in Bariloche, especially with the Argentinian culture and the amazing hiking. Although the weather was cold at night the beautiful sunshine and amazing autumn colours were truly spectactular. We cant recommend more to come during the autumn here. Just make sure you have some time to pick the best days.
The hike we did took us up to around 2000m and very craggy peaks, and dangerous scree slides and ascents. Pictures tell a 1000 words so you can get an idea of what we saw. Fascinated by summiting a peak here in the andes, I pushed on day 3 up the face of a very challenging ascent of a rock face and steep coulier into the alien landscape well above the snow line.
Bariloche is also the home of chocolate, beer and generally a very bavarian lifestyle. Its a must if your in argentina and nearby.
Pucon was a lot of fun also, but more for its activities than the actual town itself. the main feature of Pucon is Volcano villarica, which you can climb on
talus dropping into the valley
talus: - a sloping mass of loose rocks at the base of a cliff a organised tour. At 2800m its no easy feet with about 8-9 hours required to ascend and decend. Not far from the volcano further into the andes is Huerquehue national park where they have ancient Auricaria trees. The lakes we visited here are very special places, as the trees have a mysterious silience to them due to their spiky open branches that dont catch the wind.
Enjoy the photos!
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