There were beautiful rivers, lakes and Mountain with all different kind of formations. I would have loved to jump out of the bus, bath in the crystal clear rivers and explore the mountains. We kept on driving, on and on. Our destination was Bariloche, which is the biggest city in the Argentinian lake district. It is located at the shore of "Lago Nahuel Huapi" and many majestic mountains are in the surrounding. In the summer famous for hiking, fishing and camping and in the winter for skiing.
When we finally arrived in Bariloche at the terminal we had some difficulties to find the right place to get a bus ticket to get along the lake. They sold us a "tourist" (rip off) ticket for one way. We drove out to km 13.5 where we wanted to stay for the night on a camp ground. It is situated close to the lake and had all the amenities necessary for a pleasant stay. It was very busy, as most of the Argentinian are on holidays during the month of January and they love camping.
We quickly were approached by a couple of young Argentinian's and in deep conversation. Every new arriving person in our surrounding got involved and we ended up to be 10 people together. We all went to go shopping and prepared dinner together. By 1am (1am!) we finally sat down for dinner. Welcome to the Argentinian way of life. It was a funny group of people and we talked and laughed a lot. It was nice to have so many Argentineans around us. We had a couple of wines together with Paoblo and Quinamine (this is the Argentinian version of the German Wilhamine). They both have German ancestors and visited German schools in BA. That's why we spoke some German with them. And he is probably one of the biggest "Tote Hosen" fans and he also plays as a drummer in a band called "Pantalones".
It was a very funny night and went on until the early morning hours down the beach next to a big fire. Everybody was excited about the fact that we were from Germany. Some told me all the names of the German football team and praised their talent. I had to start rapping and introduced the "ceviche-rap". Luckily I didn't join the offers of drinking Fernet Branca and coke with them, as we might not have been able to get out of our tent next day. Fernet is a national drink in Argentina and I am certain that the rest of the world does drink as much Fernet as Argentinian's by themselves.
After sleeping in a little bit, we packed our bags for a three day trip. We left what we didn't needed in a locker on the campground. (this one of the few places where you could lock something and store for not too much money). We planned a hike into the mountains with two overnight stops.
With a bus we drove first along the lake and then took another bus to the foot of "Cerro Catedral". In the winter this is a great skiing area and the place from where you get access to the slopes. We started our first day of the hike and walked for 4 1/2 hours up the mountain through mystical forests and beautiful alpine areas. The sides of the path were covered with beautiful flowers and the views were spectacular.
When we arrived at the "Refuge Frey" we found a huge amount of tents already all around the hut. Some of the tents have been here already for a couple of months and the owners were dedicated climbers, which went climbing everyday in one of the many rock formations of the surrounding.
As it has been a very hot day and we sweated a lot to get up to this beautiful place, I went for a swim in the refreshing cool lake. The scenery was mind blowing and the water crystal clear and good to drink. Just the right place to be on a hot summer day!
With the sun going down the temperatures started to fall as well. We cooked some spaghetti for dinner. My attempts to strain the water from the noodles ended with crunchy spaghettis in tomato sauce. The secret ingredient for this meal is to drop the noodles on the ground before you add the sauce. The grinding noise between your teeth is very memorable, but if this is your only food, you will still eat it (or go to bed hungry). With a couple of rocks more in our bellies we went to bed.
Next morning was very chilly and after a hot tea to gain some warmth after a chilly night we packed all our belongings together and started into the second day of our hike. The morning mist still lay over the lake when we left our camp.
The day ahead of us was going to be a very tough one. As there were no real treks, only red dots sprayed on other rocks to guide the way, the crossing of the many mountain ridges was in some of the areas very difficult. The slopes were very steep and the ground under our feet was often very loose and it was possible to slip pretty easily. As later it got into the day as hotter it got. There was a lake on the way which was a nice refreshment.
We climbed several mountains up and down. On one the ground was so loose as if it was the sand on a beach. I love this kind of ground on steep slopes for going downhill as you can "run" down the hill. It's a mixture of running and sliding. An awesome feeling! On one of the mountain tops I wanted to take a picture:
I first planned to take my backpack with me as well. I left it behind the big rock I'm standing on. If it looks like as if I had something in my pants it might because I probably did have... On the other side is a drop of 800meters... (don't tell my mum) this hike was one of the probably hardest and through the probably toughest terrain we did so far as it was more or less going over mountains left and right. If we wouldn't have had the red dots to follow, we would have been gone even more complicated routes then what we already had to go. We were not alone in this dry and hot environment. Some small creatures were with us and happy that we were there.
This small lizards loved to catch the huge and annoying flies which followed us all the time. As the flies were so fat and not really fast, the lizards jumped at us to catch the flies sitting on us. A very entertaining act to watch. Also some of the plants adapted to this unforgiving terrain and are able to make a living up there.
Out of nowhere some plants are able to survive and shine with their beauty. In some of the areas was a kind of cloud in the air. This cloud was due to the eruption of a volcano 6 months back. Over the lake and Bariloche had been a cloud for several months and still now, depending on the wind is a kind of fog over the lake. This brought a declining business for the area. We heard stories from Buenos Aires and the dust carried over to the east coast by the wind, which covered the cars and the streets with fine dust for several months after the eruption.
After an exhausting and very long day of hiking we finally arrived at the "Refuge San Martin". The lake was inviting us for a swim to wash off all the dust we've collected during the day.
We had dinner together with two other Germans and enjoyed a beautiful sunset before going into our tent to rest our sore legs.
On the last day we got up at 5am to get a head start into the day as we had another 6 hours to walk to get down into the valley again. We only had to follow the river through different areas on the way. The mountains on the right and left gave us an impressive view on our trip and we enjoyed the walk. After finally coming back to a road, we still had 10km ahead of us on the road. Only a few cars passed us and after probably 4km a car stopped and a lady took us to the main road along the lake. The last 4km we followed the road. On the way we passed a small brewery with a beer garden and couldn't withstand the temptation to stop and get a cold glass of cider for Chrisy and a beer for me.
As we had some problems and miscommunication with our "Argentina by Bus" ticket, we didn't get the desired connection on the day and had to stay for another night on our campground. So we went back and got all our stored belongings from the lockers. Just as we were about to put our tent up, the Argentinian's from the first night came back from their excursion to another part of the lake. We all were very happy to see us again and put our tents up together. We planned to make some pizza on the BBQ for the night. I first did our laundry by hand, which took me almost an hour as we had everything possible to wash. As the sun was warm and a light wind was going, the drying process shouldn't be a problem. After everything was shopped I took the liberty and start preparing in hope we could eat before 1am today. The two big BBQ were lit in no time and the sauce we prepared for the pizzas was delicious. I was surprised about the great outcome of pizza from the BBQ! We had a fun night with all the guys playing "who am I" and laughing a lot. Late that night we went to bed and enjoyed the rest.
After a breakfast with "media de lunas" (croissants) and mate we hD to say goodbye to these fantastic people. We packed all our belongings (clean and dry) and made our way to the bus terminal for our trip to Puerto Madryn. We again travelled through the mystical landscape area.
With only 13hrs driving time, this was a short trip for this country standard. We only had a kind of connection which led us into a north direction with a long stay over of 12hrs in a small town called Bahia Blanca. We tried to explore the city, but it was extremely hot. We had a lunch picnic in the park in the shade of a tree. As most the shops are closed in Argentina for siesta, we took a nap as well. The rest of our sleep we got in the terminal.
The rest of our trip on the bus was flawless.
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