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Published: March 14th 2008
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Laguna Negro
Looking back to Refugio Serge After my mammoth adventure across the lakes, I arrived in Bariloche, the Switerland of Argentina around 9pm.
Bariloche is located about 450 miles southwest of Buenos Aires and 50 miles from the Chilean border. The city’s center is comprised of dozens and dozens of lpine chalet-style buildings; each constructed of logs of Argentinean hardwood and covered with sloping green-tiled roofs, and decorated with charming wooden shutters and tiny flower gardens; quite befitting of its European namesake. Set on the shores of Lake Nahuel Huapi, with its brilliant blue-green waters and seemingly endless borders, Bariloche serves as the hub of Argentina’s own Lake District, and the northernmost point of Patagonia. As such, while relatively small, it is a bustling, international city filled with charming cafes, quaint boutiques, fashionable restaurants, luxury hotels, and enchanting lakeside log cabins, and, perhaps most importantly, outdoor outfitters on every corner.
Situated next to range after range of craggy mountains and tucked between dozens of magnificent lakes and rivers, Bariloche is an outdoors-person’s idea of paradise, and indeed, I was in heaven. There are so many hiking possibilities in Bariloche, that the hardest part of my week was deciding which hikes I’d do. After visiting Club
Andino (Bariloche’s hiking and outdoors club, and responsible for a marvelous system of hiking trails and mountain refuges), and talking to lots of people from my hostel, I found myself well-armed with maps (so I thought at the time), trail conditions and all the gear I would need for a few days on the trail.
First up on my itinerary was a three day hike starting in Colonia Suiza, which is a little farmer village founded by people from Switzerland who came at the beginning of the XIX century. I meet a local from Bariloche at the start of the trail and we hiked together though the beautiful forest of coihues and cypresses up to Laguna Negra, where we stayed the night in the Refugio Serge.
The next day I set off on my own in order to hike the seven hours to Refugio Lopez. I was a bit nervous as the Hiking in Patagonia book said that this track was not well marked and that there was a pretty dangerous scree slope that you had to climb up. Well, even with the directions in the LP and my map it was still hard to find the way. I
did manage to loose the trail a few times and ended up following other people’s foot tracks to find the trail again. - obviously it pretty common to get lost here!! Every thing was going pretty well until I hit the scree slope. Standing at the bottom of the valley looking up I never thought I would make it up to the top. I had about a 1000m vertical climb over loose rocks with a full pack on my back. For every three steps I would climb up, I would slide back another two. That climb was one of the most horrible things I had ever done. It was bloody scary!! Lucky as I was climbing up, a couple of people were coming down, so at least if something happened they could always come to my rescue!!! Eventually I made it up the top, and I was greeted by the most amazing panoramic views of Bariloche and Mount Trinador. It really was well worth all the sweat and (almost) tears. After another hour and a half I hobbled into Refugio Lopez, and treated myself to a well deserved cup of coffee and slice of apple cake.
The next morning
I had a pretty easy walk back down to Colonia Suiza - or so I thought. I was told by an Aussie couple in the Refugio that if I followed the four wheel drive track I would run into the hiking tail. Well, I followed the road, and after an hour hadn’t found the trail. I got jack of going round and round on the road, so decided to cut though between the road tracks. That was all good and well, and shaved a lot of time of my hike, until the road failed to turn back up again. Hmmm, what was I going to do. Well I knew the road was going to end up at the bottom of the hill, so I just decided to bush bash it. Hmm, not such a good idea as I ended up skirting around shear cliffs and sliding on my bum down some pretty step slopes. I finally did make it to the bottom of the hill, but ended up in someone’s private property. Luckily I made it over the fence before the dogs found me!! I had about another 5km to hike back to Colonia Suiza along a dusty road, which
I wasn’t really looking forward to, but luckily a nice family picked me up and I got a ride in the tray of their ute all the way back to Bariloche. So cool!!
The next day, instead of relaxing my weary limbs I decided to go mountain biking around the lake. I set of in the afternoon and spent about 5 hours riding around the national park. It was really beautiful.
The day after I was back on the hiking trail; this time for a day walk from Pampa Linda to see my first glacier. This time the trail was clearly marked and I didn’t get anywhere close to getting lost (thank god). It was an easy three hour hike uphill though lush forest to get to the glacier. Upon emerging from the forest I was greeted with an amazing view of the glacier set hill upon a cliff. It was truly spectacular. I was the first person to hike to the glacier and I had the whole place to myself. I sat down with my water bottle and some fruit and just stared up at the glacier, listening and watching for the falling ice. After about an
My first scree slope
The introduction to hell hour and a half the people started to trickle in and I packed up by bag and wandered back to my pick up point in Pampa Linda.
Well, that was about it for my adventures in Bariloche. My next destination was to be El Calafate, and because I couldn’t handle the thought of a 36 hour bus ride, I decided to splurge on a plane ticket, and get there in only two. Yippy!!
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