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Published: November 21st 2010
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After a mammoth 24 hour bus journey north from El Chaltén, I arrived in the city of Esquel. The bus journey itself was quite an experience – Ruta 40 is supposedly one of the most beautiful roads in the world. With only one large town between El Chaltén and Esquel, the majority of the landscape was simply mountainous wilderness.
The city of Esquel itself has two main attractions – the first is ‘La Trochita’ (The Patagonian Express), an old steam railway that was not running on any of the days I was in the city, and the Los Alerces National Park, where some of the tallest trees in the world are. But as it is still low season, public transport to the park only runs three times a week, which fortunately did not coincide with any of the days I was there. The city itself was nice, if unremarkable. I moved on quickly enough to El Bolsón, 2 hours further north. El Bolsón is surrounded by lovely countryside, which was ideal for a few short hikes, but is best known for its handicraft market (fairly “New Age”, as is the town in general). The area seemed very nice, but without
a car, there were only enough things to do to fill a few days.
My next stop was the city of San Carlos de Bariloche, a further 2 hours north of El Bolsón. Bariloche is one of the biggest tourist centres in South America, let alone Argentina, and the main base for exploring the Argentinean Lake District. The city is surrounded by the gigantic Nahuel Huapi National Park and sits on the shores of the Nahuel Huapi lake, by far the largest in the area. The area around Bariloche was stunningly beautiful – amongst my most favourite places in South America. The city itself didn’t quite have the same appeal – quite a few unsafe areas. The city centre itself was pleasant enough, and as Bariloche is Argentina’s self-proclaimed chocolate capital, the main shopping street was jammed with chocolate shops of varying quality. Even without the chocolate aspect, the city had a distinctive Swiss feel, complete even with St Bernard dogs posing for photos in the main square.
But the main attractions are located outside of the city itself, and luckily here public transport was excellent, so getting around was no problem. The Circuito Chico (small circuit) was
my favourite area around Bariloche – I took a bus to Colonia Suiza, a quaint Swiss village, and then walked through woodlands and along the lakeside for most of the day, passing bays and inlets along the way, until arriving at the small port of Puerto Pañuelo and the gigantic Llao Llao hotel in the late afternoon. Another day trip from Bariloche was to Cerro Catedral, which in winter is one of South America’s largest ski resorts, and is supposed to be picturesque in summer as well. Personally I didn’t like it that much, as there was not that much to see and the views over the lake were not as good as elsewhere. The trail from Cerro Catedral to another lake, Lago Gutiérrez, was more scenic however, and as it was downhill all the way, much easier than the other trails at Cerro Catedral.
No visit to Bariloche would be complete without climbing to the top of Cerro Campanario. This is a hill 17km west of Bariloche with outstanding views of lakes in all directions. As a matter of fact, National Geographic lists it as one of the top ten views in the world! I had visited another
viewpoint, aptly named Punto Panorámico before climbing Cerro Campanario, and as it was sunny at Punto Panorámico and overcast by the time I got to Campanario, I preferred the views at Punto Panorámico. But even with cloudy skies, the views from Campanario were outstanding.
After Bariloche, the next stop was the small resort town of Villa la Angostura, an hour or so to the north. The modern part of the town is very upmarket and not that interesting; the port area, 3km away from the centre on Lake Nahuel Huapi was much nicer, and is also the gateway to the Los Arrayanes National Park, which is a mini national park within the gigantic Nahuel Huapi park. This miniature national park was actually quite interesting – it is a peninsula 12km long, with a reserve of the rare cinnamon-coloured “Arrayanes” or Chilean Myrtle trees at the tip. After visiting the park, the weather deteriorated somewhat – in fact it didn’t stop raining for the next 3 days, which meant I didn’t get to see much more of Villa La Angostura. I had a bus booked for the following day to San Martín de los Andes, another upmarket resort town in
the Lake District. The road between Villa La Angostura and San Martín is supposedly one of the most beautiful in the area, as it passes by 7 lakes, but with the rain it was difficult to judge. San Martín was definitely a nice town, but with the rain there was not that much I could actually do. I was hoping to head into the nearby Lanin National Park (yet another national park!), but even if there had been good weather, there isn’t even any public transport at this time of year. San Martín is just across the Andes from Pucón in Chile, where I was 6 or so weeks ago, so it was a disappointment not to be able to see any of the San Martín area as I remember how stunningly beautiful Pucón was. Unfortunately I had to leave San Martín just as the weather seemed to be improving. After returning to Bariloche, I had a 14 hour bus to the coast to wildlife haven of Puerto Madryn. The next blog will come from there.
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