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Published: February 23rd 2010
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So we have finally finished our last trek in the South American Andes and it proved to be quite a task.
We arrived in Barriloche after a 9hour bus from Puerto Montt in Chile. It was midnight and unfortunately every hostel was booked out. Eventually we found a cheap hotel and jumped straight into bed.
We woke up early the next morning as we ad to get to the national park for our last three days of trekking.
We went to town and got a map of the park, booked a hostel for our return and set off with heavy bags. I think my bag was around 20 kgs and Annes was around 10kgs.
The first day of the trek was beautiful. We gained around 700 meters in 4 hours of trekking alongside Lake Guitirez and through a burnt out Forrest before entering the main Forrest which is still intact. As Barriloche is in the Lake District the place is full of them, every corner you turn is another lake!! There was not a cloud in the sky so it was a perfect start to the trek. For the last hour of day one we were trekking quite steeply uphill which
was a good workout with 20kgs on my back. We made it to our campsite overlooking a beautiful lake and set up our tent. We made our dinner and got talking to an American named Cody and a French guy named Mickael. We all seemed to get on quite well so decided to set off together the next day for the 8 our trek to our second camp.
On day two I was up at 8am and I woke everyone else up. We all had some coffee thanks to Anne and I and set off at 10am. We really did not know what this day would bring and had probably underestimated its difficulty but the views were perfect. Not too many clouds so it kept us cool. We got to our first climb which was 200 meters up to a small lake and wen we reached the top we had another 150 meters climb which was a grade 3 in climbing levels which means we really had to use our hands to climb up boulders. This is no mean feat with 20k on the back!!! We reached the top of this pass and it was 1980 meters. We wanted to
get to 2000 meters so we saw a peak to climb close by which was a nice rock climb to 2005meters! We went back down to start our first decent of the day and were greeted by 5 or 6 Condors only meters away.
The decent down was quite difficult and was a mix between sliding down scree to negotiating large boulders. It took quite a while to get to the bottom but eventually we made it with no injuries.
Once at the bottom we ad a level plain through wetland for an our before we ad to make our second climb of the day. The climb took around 2 hours and up again around 700meters and back close to 2000meters. Once at the top the views were again amazing, All we could see was snow capped mountains all around us. This decent although completely different to the last was also extremely difficult and as we were getting tired it made it even tougher. The terrain was loose rocks the whole way down but eventually we got down to the bottom and had to walk through sinking mud for 30 minutes. Once through the mud we had to cross a
river with no crossing which meant getting into the water. We arrived to camp 8 hours after leaving with wet feet but it was an amazing day of trekking and the sights were just perfect!! We ad our dinner and got an early night.
Day three was a lot different to the first two days and was 20km of a nice decent although it ad some tough uphill struggles. We managed to job most of the and made the 20km in 3and a half hours. We managed to hitch a ride at the bottom to where most of the buses are and jumped on one to head back to Barriloche.
After a good nights sleep and and all you can eat dinner we are now going to head to Mendoza to the wine region 😉
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