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You are here: Home / Archives for patagonia

And then there was snow…

November 9, 2009 By Jillian

Bariloche is known for its access to great hiking, mountain biking and its delicious local chocolates. Now you know why it was high on our list for Argentina. When we left Pucon to cross the mountains back into Argentina we didn’t expect a miracle with the weather, but we did expect things to be different on the eastern side of the mountains. And they were. I nearly fell out of my bunk the first morning when the Argentinian guy in our room told us it was snowing. Great. We had traded rain for snow.

We had planned to spend a week in Bariloche hiking, mountain biking, and maybe even camping out a few nights. The heavy precipitation of the previous week left the single track (that’s mountain biking) too muddy to ride, and the multi-day hiking treks covered in knee deep snow. Only two of the numerous “refugios” (shelters) in the mountains were even open, so any sort of multi-day trek was out of the picture almost immediately. We turned to the only things that were left, day hiking and chocolate tasting.

Hiking through Parque National Llao Llao on our first day, we thought we were in luck. For nearly five hours we hiked through the park without so much as a flurry or drop of rain. Ironic considering it’s a temperate rainforest and that morning we woke up to snow. With the constant threat of bad weather, and the fact that it is still low season, we had the paths and lakes almost exclusively to ourselves. Overlooking Lake Moreno we had a great view of the surrounding snow capped peaks, and while the weather looked awful up there, we were quiet dry at the lake side.

Emboldened by the fortunate weather from the day before, we decided to make a go of one of the mountains the following day. Dressed for cold, wet weather we headed up Cerro Lopez. A challenging hike up a steep and rocky trail, the other hiker turned around before we made it to the first look out. With the light drizzle quickly turning into a stinging rain, we continued up the mountain determined not to let the weather beat us. As we got above the clouds, the rain stopped and we thought we were in the clear. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves, but about 100 yards after the hiking path joined the “road” to the “refugio”  we found ourselves in a winter wonderland. Except for a few icy inhabitants, it was clear to us that the “refugio” was still closed. From as close to the top as we could get the views were incredible, and its clear why this region is called the lake district. The five or six lakes spread out before us seemed to fill the valleys between the mountain tops and it except for the threatening rain clouds, it looked like a postcard (although postcard photos are taken on days without bad weather) of the Lake District. Verdant green landscapes with turquoise blue lakes, it is easy to see why the region is so popular. Climbing back down through the snow and then the rain, we continued our circuit of the lake, walking 10K back to Llao Llao on some of the same trails we had done the day before.

After hiking in the rain and snow there was only one thing to do: taste chocolates. With more than a dozen chocolate shops lining the main street, we had to choose carefully. Unlike in the United States, there aren’t a lot of free samples, and after we bought some rather expensive samples at the first shop Danny declared we’d only buy from shops that gave us free samples. Fortunately the next two did just that, and before we left Bariloche we ended up with a ¼ kilo box of delicious chocolates, fudges and treats. Just what we needed for the long bus ride south.

The bad weather aside, we had a great time in Bariloche. This is definitely a place that gets put on the “must come back to” list only next time maybe we’ll come when the weather is a little more pleasant.

Filed Under: Argentina, Hike, South America Tagged With: hiking, patagonia, snow, weather

Rain, rain go away!

November 4, 2009 By Jillian

We woke up to rain at 5:30am the day we were going to summit the volcano. At 6:30am we´d finished our breakfast and it was still raining, no actually pouring. We decided not to even bother walking into town to see if we were on and we went back to sleep. Several hours later, it was still raining. Did I mention the air temperature is just above freezing? We eat lunch, and then dinner, and it is still raining. Tomorrow we´re going to be leaving town. To say we were disappointed us an understatement, but bad weather had to affect us sometime right?

The Volcano we never got to climb 🙁

With the constant downpour we were needless to say depressed. No volcano, and no possibility to do much else. Fortunately, a guy at our hostel had a rental car, and it didn’t take much to convince him to go to the hot springs with us and a young British guy that night.

Two Americans, an Australian and a Brit set off down the dark road, in the rain, in Chile. Did I mention that our driver thought he was a Formula One driver? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where this is going. Zipping through the dark country side at almost double the speed limit, all three passengers braced ourselves for whatever was to come. We flew over a blind hill to see a disabled car in the road.

Within seconds we hit a huge pot hole forcing our driver to slow down. It was clear we had a flat, but it took Danny stating to obvious several times before we pulled over. Rolling to a stop 20 feet in front of the first disabled car Danny jumped out to inspect the damage as our driver said nothing. It was flat all right, and there was no hiding the dented wheel rim. Popping open the truck we searched for the spare and the jack as a wet figure came running towards us in the dark.

Turns out he was Argentinian and let’s just say we learned a few new words in Spanish that night. Like jack, wrench, wheel rim, tire lever. They just don’t teach that vocabulary in class. Turns out his wrench was too short to get any torque on his tire nuts and our rental lacked a jack. Great combination.

Not changing a tire in the dark, but here’s the rain!

Lacking a jack and a flash light, Danny (without the help of either the driver or our other passenger) changed our tire using “spanglish” by the light of a lighter. What couldn’t be communicated in Spanish or English was communicated through charades in what must have looked like the most bizarre game to anyone driving by. Our wrench didn’t fit their tires, so after assuring us that they had called for help, we continued on our way to the hot springs.

Unfortunately our driver didn’t learn his lesson even after the paved road ended. Flying down the gravel path, he seemed not to notice the rocks hitting the side of the car or the pot holes. We were sure we had missed the turn off, and said so, several times. As the road grew narrower and narrower, you’d think that even a Formula One driver would slow down, especially on the only spare, but our driver did not. We hit every bump and hole in the road for about 5 or 6 kilometers before it appeared that the road might actually end. Finally the driver agreed to turn around. Not 1000 feet after we rejoined the paved road did we see the sign for the hot springs. Nice.

The night’s torturous ride had ended, and while we couldn’t relax too much at the hot springs knowing we’d have to go back into town with Formula One, we did enjoy soaking in the water.

With rain in the forecast for the next few days, we headed to Argentina the next morning. Sometimes we get lucky and do incredible things. Sometimes we don´t.

Filed Under: Chile, South America Tagged With: driving, hotpsrings, patagonia, weather

And Noah had his flood….

November 3, 2009 By Danny

Moving South from Santiago, we arrived in the Chilean lake district and made ourselves comfortable in the small town of Pucon. Coming here because we´d heard of a day trek up a snow covered volcano, we figured this was a good place to start our journey into Patagonia.

Unfortunately, the volcano was not meant to be.  For what wasn’t the first and surely won’t be the last, the weather wasn’t going to cooperate with us. When we arrived in town we were told that it would be at least 3 days until we could go and do the volcano on account of the weather. And by weather they meant “rain”, heavy, continuous rain.

With our chances of hiking the volcano slipping away with every subsequent rain drop, we made the best of the town and headed out to do some mountain biking. A day of mountain biking on some rather nice, well tuned bikes…the first time we´ve had that combination on this trip, and we were back to our usual selves. Despite getting caught in the rain, biking through the hills on the gravel roads was a real treat after so long on a bus. We did a 35km loop around the surrounding country, including a set of waterfalls called Ojos de Aguas. Usually small waterfalls, the turbulent and swift moving water was anything but reassuring for our next activity, some whitewater kayaking.

I know what you’re thinking. Usually when we write a whitewater kayaking post it details a story that makes our mothers cringe. Have no fear mom, this story has a very happy ending.
Not since my terrible time in Ecuador several months ago have I been back in a boat. Those memories were still quite ummm.. prominent as were Jill´s of her rough times in Mexico. The warning from the outfitter…”we´ve had a lot of rain so the river is quite high” had us nervous, but she assured us the river was still Class III which was important to us as we were looking to regain some lost confidence. We regained some confidence alright, but the river was not at Class III.

The recent rains had put the river into flood stage. We spent the first half of the two hour trip floating down fast moving, flat water…just taking the time to adjust to the boats and get comfortable. As we approached the first of the rapids though, it was clear that this was not going to be the easy day we were expecting.

Relating our trip rapid by rapid would be impossible. Literally. The water was moving so fast that there were no breaks between the rapids so really it was all just one giant 7k rapid. We had expected the whitewater portion to take 45 minutes to an hour. I think in the end it took less than half that but it felt like even less still. At one point Jill spun her kayak around upstream (or was that by accident) and her wide-eyed “oh my god” face told it all. Crashing through the ice cold waves (this is glacier melt people!), we didn’t have a second of relief until we were on dry land. Scared the entire time we made it through without so much as a tip over. Neither of us needed to use our roll and this was by far the biggest water we´d ever been in. As we pulled the boats out of the water, our guide asked us if we had fun. “Yes,” Jill replied. “But I don’t want to do it again!”

I’m not actually sure if it was a stroke of luck or actual improvement of our skills, but we took it for what it was…a successful day on the river.

Filed Under: Chile, South America Tagged With: lakes, mountain biking, patagonia, rain, waterfall, waterfalls, whitewater kayaking

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