In and around Bariloche

---

Today is our last day here, making our way down to Torres del Paine tonight. A long bus ride, for sure.

Spending two weeks in Bariloche was not expected for us, but it has been good. Let´s reflect.

We spent a great New Year´s Eve with campsite friends, eating lamb till we were muy gordos. Riding our road bikes around town didn´t get any more enjoyable, it is sad to say...and we had to investigate all of the options. So for a few days, we investigated the option of buying a motorcycle down here and riding it around. In the end, we decided to send the road bikes back to Buenos Aires. Buying a motorcycle wasn´t really a good option either, with our limited amount of time. So the bikes now sit in storage in the hostel we´ll return too. Hiking and backpacking is the new theme to the trip.

After an enormous amount of headaches to get the bikes out of town (I think we spent a good four or five days coordinating everything, I will spare the details), we bought backpacks and gear and set out on a common trip in the mountains around Bariloche. The route was between Refugios near Cerro Catedral (the town´s enormous ski resort). What should have been a three day trip turned into a five day trip because of a terrible map. We thought we´d take a shortcut along a ´creek´ which actually turned out to be an astounding series of waterfalls (described by Mark as something out of Indian Jones).

The map descrepancies continued. What appeared to be valleys were actually crossings over ridges, gentle declines were sliding scree slopes, etc. It kept our days interesting, you never knew what you would come up against.

Yesterday we bought our bus tickets to Rio Gallegos, about twenty-four hours on buses will begin this evening for us. Looking forward to seeing more wildlife (penguins aren´t too far off!), exotic plants, crazy weather, etc. Getting closer to the end of the world now. More soon.

---

Photos

New Years Celebration
With great people, and lots and lots of grilled meat. Very Argentinian.

Preparing for Parilla Pizza
Cecilia and Thierry

MMM...
Mark and Frederico. We tried a couple pizzas this evening. Thierry had the idea to crack an egg on top while it was cooking, tasty! Rubbing olive oil on the bottom also seemed to help keep the crust from burning.

World Biker
Thierry and his bike. More than a home, more than a wife. He is riding around the world over the next few years. Hopefully he will visit us in AK when he gets there...check out his website for inspiration: www.worldbiker.ch

Goodbye, bicis
Coordinating how to get the bikes to Buenos Aires (or the US) was not fun, to say the least. We thought this was the end of the road, sending them off with the Post Office. Shortly after this photo, we found out we had to send by another company, haul them across town yet again, purchase tickets for them...etc.

Refugio Frey
Huge groups of teenagers were staying in the refugio, so we camped for free. Hurricane-strength winds sounded like they were going to shred our tent to pieces the first night we stayed here...and then they were gone as soon as they appeared.

The surroundings.
Beautiful lake above Refugio Frey, Cancha de Futbol in the background (check out the massive group of teenagers hiking up the snow...they were pretty hard to miss most of the time).

At the top of Cancha de Futbol
Just made it up, very excited. About to find another major flaw in the map as we descend a scree slope to the bottom of the valley you see behind.

Waterfall, number one.
This waterfall was labeled on the map. The other major two drops weren´t. It was a beautiful and refreshing creek...we were just continually surprised with the steepness of its descent.

Makeshift camp
After realizing we couldn´t follow the creek to get back to the beginning and we´d have to turn back to the trail, we found a flat, cleared spot and quickly made camp along the creek. Made a tasty dinner of pasta, canned tuna, and salsa golf for sauce (we think this is a combo of mayo and ketchup. It was surprisingly delicious.

Refugio San Martin
We got back on track after the day and a half excursion along the waterfalls, hiked up to San Martin on Lago Jakob. Had this great campsite until some crazy lady made us move...Mark was fuming mad and coming up with all kinds of creative things to say to her.

Austermeria
Not sure about the spelling, but I remember these from my college roommate who worked in a flower shop. These are all over the trails!

Comments

[alimum]

crazy lady 2
so the crazy women are down far south, too? This looks like wilderness. Did she own it?