bike tour, ice climbing

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Bariloche was a great stop. On my first full day i decided to take a bus into the mountains and rent a bike to do what is called the Chico circuit. this loop is about 30km up and down the hills surrounding a bunch of lakes, and then there were a few side trips along the way. After reserving my bike i ran into one of my dorm mates, Peter, and he decided to come along as well. This was a good way to spend the afternoon and the scenery was beautiful, pictures can hardly do it justice. The following day I had to start and figure out where i was going to go next and try to figure out how to spent the quickly fading days I had left. It was becoming impossible to continue doing what i wanted in Argentina and still see Chile so I had to drop Chile from my list, which left me with a big problem of getting to Santiago for my flight home and still heading south in Argentina. I managed to find an airline flying to Santiago for cheap, only 125 american, but of course i had to call Chile to book it. That took most of my day to figure out, so another day kinda wasted. But I had heard of a great hike in the region, climbing this ridge where glaciers are on both sides of you crashing down almost 2000 feet and ending up at a refugio right next to the glaciers. Peter, from biking, was already looking into this so we quickly went and booked our bus for the next day. The hike up was one of the best Ive ever done. 3000 verticle feet but we did it in just over 2 hours which left us with a big problem, what do we do with the rest of our day as we were planning on spending the night at the refugio. Well after sitting along a cliff and watching the glaciers tumble into the valley below we went inside and discovered there is a guide there that will take you on a number of adventures on the glaciers. We couldn´t say no, this was also at a price unbeatable anywhere. and since we were the only 2 to arrive early we had the guide all to ourselves. We fitted up and headed out on the ice for a 4 hour tour. as if walking on the glaciers were not great enough he was going to teach us how to climb out of the creavases. so once we found a good started he showed us the ropes, gave us the ice picks and sent us down. It was great, can´t wait to do it again. After the first climb we continued on and found a bigger creavas and went down for two more climbs, each one learning a new technique. then back across the ice to watch the sun set over the mountains and then inside to a fantastic cooked meal prepared by the 3 girls working there. Awoke the next morning, hiked down and went to the bottom of the valley where the glaciers come crashing down but didn´t get too lucky seeing anything big come falling. hiked to some waterfalls and then just relaxed in the sun for our bus back. After that great trip I booked my bus and got ready for my 30 trip south the El Calafate to see the more glaciers. Side note on the food, Peter our two other british roomates and I went to a Parilla, for a steak dinner. This meal was beyond good. We all ordered the small filets, 200 grams on the menu. What came out was a giant plate with not one but two of the biggest filets I have ever seen. Just one would have been worth 50 bucks in the US but we got 2 each, and they were great, all for about 15 dollars. Mmmm, i love Argentina beef.

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Photos

hiking
heading up there

hotel
hotel along our biking route, little too pricey for me

glacier
glacier overhanging the valley

refugio
here is our home for the night

glacier
heading out there

glacier
Going down, check back later for the video of heading back up