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Published: April 1st 2009
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Finally, after 2 months in South America we started traveling through the Patagonia region of the Andes Mountain Range! Bariloche was our destination which is located on Huapi Lake on the border of Lanin and Nahuel Huapi National Parks. Among its outdoor activities (wind surfing, fly fishing, trekking, etc.) it is most well known as a ski town, for its swiss architecture and it´s gourmet chocolates. However from Pucon, Chile there was no direct route and we had to first go 5 hours south by bus to Osorno and catch a second bus over the border for a 5 hour bus thru Northern Patagonia to Bariloche. The scenery was not to be missed so no sleeping on this bus trip. Mountains, pine forests, and beautiful alpine lakes all connected by brilliant blue streams.
We spent the first two days in Bariloche walking the city and eating chocolate..ha...there are chocolate shops everywhere! ... and we sampled most of them. 😊 That night we met some folks who recommended renting a car for a couple days and what a great idea! Road trip! Our friend Mel was up for the adventure so we rented a Ford Corza (spare no expense) and the
next day we were bound for bumpy roads! The route that many recommend is called ¨la ruta de los siete lagos¨ (the seven lakes drive...it sounds better in spanish) and goes from Bariloche via Villa La Angostura to San Martin de Los Andes. In all its a 400 km roundtrip with a large portion of the route being gravel/dirt roads... so bumpy that the driver often had numb hands. Lots of gearing down, gearing up... and quick manuevering around random cows and road construction (packing down the dirt).
Day 1: How excited are we to drive??? Hitting the road with the windows down was glorious! After about 2hrs we stopped at a beautiful stream that had clear blue and green water. It appeared to be 6 or 8 feet deep and the weather was nice.... SO... we jumped in!!! John inspected the depth and found that it was closer to 20 feet deep (couldnt touch bottom). Oh... did we mention it is was cold? All-in-all it was quite refreshing and required mulitple dips. Since we were not prisoners to a bus and its schedule (quite the delight) we spent an hour or so swimming and laying around before getting
back on the road to San Martin. This time Mel from Austraila took the wheel. As many of you know... Austrailans drive on the left side of the road, with driver and steering wheel on the right with the gear shift on the left!!! We were all delighted with her asking ¨which side?¨ Lots of laughing was had. San Martin was another very cool town, again with swiss architecture and situated on a Beautiful turqoise lake.
Day 2: More beautiful lakes, more bumpy dirt roads (car making squeaky noises now... poor thing), passed thru VA Traful headed south to Pampa Linda to hike around Mt. Tronador and see its glaciers. By this time it was getting dark and we still didn´t know where we were staying so we stopped about 50 km short of Pampa Linda at our first hotel of the trip. It was a very nice 2-story condo accommodation (about $15/person 😊 )that looked out over Lago Gutierrez (another lake of course). That evening we took some snacks and a bottle of wine to an abandoned pier on the lake and watched the sunset. Perfect ending to day two.
Day 3: Although we only had 50
km of driving, they were ALL off road (don´t know how the wee little tires didn´t bust). It took us over 1.5hrs to get to the trail head. We drove to the tourist overlooks of the Glaciar del Manso and Ventisquero Negro Lake, then began hiking a trail that brought us to Galcier Castano Overa. We passed two people and one army soldier (weird training was going on around us) on the 3 1/2 hour hike to the mirador. As we were getting closer we heard an enormous thundering crash and decided it must be an avalanche... darn we missed it! But just as we cleared the woods and found the glacier plain empty from other tourists... we could view the glacier 300 feet above us... we heard another thunderous sound and saw a massive avalanche take place! It was fantastic!! There were over 20 waterfalls that were fun to watch and we hung around for a while hoping to see another avalanche but with a 3 1/2 hour hike ahead of us and the one lane dirt road waiting, we decided to leave. The trails were so smooth and maze like... the 3 of us ran, skipped, hopped, and
laughed through the forest (reminded us of being children again - for the record, i did not skip or hop- jc). On the way out of the park the sun came out in full force and we decided to go for another swim. It is just amazing how clear the water is. (I later read they have a visibility of 45-50 feet!) It was really incredible to swim around with your eyes open and see 20 or 30 feet below with no mask! (BTW: John is the only one that opened his eyes under water..haha) We were also joined by a random energetic dog who insisted on chasing rocks but didn´t want to be petted. By the end of the day we were exhausted and slept well before rising early to get the car returned in Bariloche by 9am the next day.
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Momma
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My Boy
The photos are absolutely beautiful. How will you frame them all? Miss you guys -much!