Advertisement
Published: March 14th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Cannon in Bariloche
US cannon from 1799 This is the last entry in the blog, describing the last 1600 Km of travel from the Moreno Glacier to Santiago, Chile where the trip ended for me.
this last section of the trip is mostly a long drive on narrow, one lane roads through the spectacular national parks of Chile and Argentina in the Patagonian region.
Highlights of this section are the Rio Futaleufu whitewater center, specializing in river trips, followed by the towns of Bariloche and Pucon, and finally a 500 mile superhighway drive to Santiago.
The Rio Futaleufu whitewater center is a private hostel/campground/rafting center South of Bariloche. Unfortunately, we arrived after two days of constant rain, and were not looking forward to pitching our tents and living in the rain for two nights/three days.
We were lucky to find that they had three "cabins" available for a slight charge; about $5.00 per person extra for the two nights. So we had beds, kitchen, wood stove....which we were all grateful for.
I like whitewater, however it was cold, and it was raining. At my age good judgement intervened and I decided not to go rafting in the cold rain. Most of the rest
of the group did go rafting, got dumped in the river, and had a great time. I read a book by the fire and had a great time!
The river is billed as having grade 4 and 5 rapids, and Im sure it seems like that to rafters swimming down the river.
It rained for the 3 days we were there, and then, as we were leaving, the sun came out and provided the weather we should have had for the rafting experience!!
And then we drove on to the resort town of San Carlos de Bariloche. Usually just known as Bariloche, the town is surrounded by lakes (Nahuel Huapi, Gutiérrez Lake, Moreno Lake and Mascardi Lake) and mountains (Tronador, Cerro Catedral, Cerro López). It is famous for skiing but also known for sight-seeing, water sports, trekking and climbing.
Bariloche is also often called "Braziloche" for the numerous Brazillian tourists who vacation here. Chocolate is also a big draw, with chocolate shops on both sides of the main street competing for business.
We stayed two nights at a campground operated by their national park service, right on one of the lakes, and conveniently on a
Alfajors
must be the national cookie of Chile, lots of varieties and very good bus line into town. Bus fare was about 50 cents one way. This was a very nice campground, with nice hot showers, internet, and a bar lounge for the party animals on the trip; and it only rained a little bit while we were there.
I signed up for a kayak trip on the adjacent lake, but when i arrived at the put-in place, there was only one other person, a Dutch tourist with no canoeing or kayaking experience. He decided not to go, as the winds were blowing about 30 miles an hour and the waves were pretty high. We paddled a double kayak about 2 miles upwind, then surfed back down; I had a great time.
So, after three days buying chocolate and other stuff in Bariloche, we headed north to the resort town of Pucon, which sits next to the live volcano Villarrica. Inside the town are signs showing the evacuation route, with colored lights designating the varying degree of danger at the moment.
Pucon is a very scenic touristy town on the shore of a nice lake, with numerous outdoor activities, treks and hikes available, usually to the top of the volcano. Most
of our group took the hike and glissaded down the snowfields on the volcano's surface. I had hurt my knee hiking a week or so earler, and decided that I just couldn't make the trip. I wish I could have, as it was obviously a great hike and a good time for all.
We stayed in a campground near the beach; probably the most crowded campground we saw; must have been 300 people camped there, but nice showers and close to the town. Pucon is definately an upscale tourist area, but still quite reasonably priced restaurants, souvenirs and so forth.
So after two nights in Pucon, we made the final 500 mile drive to Santiago, Chile. This drive was notable for two things. First, a 500 mile (not 500 Km) drive is a long drive in the truck, and Second, we were on a 4 lane divided highway instead of our usual one lane rutted dirt road. We left at 7:00 a.m., and by 3 p.m. we were in Santiago, having eaten lunch while driving. This was probably the greatest one day distance we traveled the whole trip, and one of the shortest days on the truck.
Bariloche
very nice resort town with chocolate stores everywhere Santiago was the end for about 7 of us, with the rest of the group staying on for another 8 weeks to Quito, Equador; so there was a party mood all day long on the truck. Im pretty sure some of my fellow travelers weren't sure where they were until they woke up the next morning in the hostel in Santiago.
Our hostel in Santiago was an old mansion, La Casa Roja, with a jacuzzi, swimming pool, nice outdoor bar and dining area. Dennis and I upgraded to a private room; the rest stayed in dormitories.
Santiago, Chile
Santiago is a huge city. I am attaching a picture from the statue of the Virgin on top of one of the mountains surrounding the city, which seems to go on forever.
One think I found interesting about Santiago is that it is four hours ahead of Denver in time. Now if you don't look at a globe it would be easy to think that Denver and Santiago are probably in the same time zone, or maybe one hour or so different, but if you look more carefully, it is evident that Chile is considerably East of the
cathedral in Bariloche
Built from "native materials" looked a lot like raw concrete and rocks, but very pretty US.
And like other big cities, Santiago has the same stores, the same kind of malls and so forth as other big cities around the world. We ate lunch one day in the Ripley department store food court and had to choose between McDonalds, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Subway, Taco Bell, Fritz(a German fast food chain), Pizza Hut, and several other pizza, ice cream, sandwich and fast food outlets. Other world-wide brands abound; everyone seems to be wearing North Face clothing, eating Nature Valley Granola bars, and of course talking on cel phones everywhere.
We found two interesting attractions in Santiago. First was the pre-colombian museum, which has a very nice, but not very large, collection of artifacts. The second was the trip to the top of Cerro San Cristobal to view the statue of the Virgin and see the city below. This was interesting because the gondolas going up start in a city park with about a mile walk through a very upscale residential neighborhood. Once on the top of the hill you have a spectacular view of the city, which is immense, stretching in all directions. Now to descend you can walk down, take the
gondola back down, or descend using a funicular back into a different part of the city. We took the funicular down. At the base of the funicular is another part of the city park and is quite a local gathering place.
One other interesting thing was that at the top of the gondola, just below the statue and its surrounding religious area, was a German beer garden, complete with tables and chairs obviously imported from Germany. Obviously there is a huge German influence here in Chile.
Our final night in Santiago we dined at "Nacional Bar Numero Uno", a landmark with pictures on the wall showing the restaurant back into the 1930's. We had drinks, steak with fries, wine, coffee and dessert for a total bill for two of about $20.00. A very economical meal.
And then a long flight back to the USA......
Advertisement
Tot: 0.086s; Tpl: 0.022s; cc: 7; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0544s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb