Getting further south

After new year's eve, we spent the day relaxing and organizing things in Bariloche (e.g. updating the blog, etc. ), since we had booked a car in Bariloche next morning. So, as before Christmas, we headed to the rental car office to pick our new car up and we drove 120 km south to escape from the ash cloud of the volcano. Once we arrived, we were disappointed since the cloud seemed to be there as well, so the sky was silky and gray. But "luckily" this wasn't the cloud of the volcano, it was from the fires in the forest in Chile on the other side of the mountains. We hoped that we gonna have luck for next morning, went to our nice and private hostal and headed further south to the parque de los Alerces, where we spent the afternoon at a lake with sunshine.

Los Alerces

Next morning, later than expected, we started our day trip to the mountain Piltriquitron. you can drive up to 1000m, before you hike up to the summit (2260m). At the beginning its straight forward, but close to the end it gets really steep and we were happy to have our good hiking boots with us. The view was great from the top. Funnily, some other people (young Argentinos) had the same idea, but they merely wore normal sport shoes to climb the mountain ;-) .

View from the top

After our climb, we headed next morning to another hike on the other side of the valley for a night in a Refugio (better equipped than the one on mount Lanin). Firstly, we had to cross a suspension bridge that would not make it through any test since it supports only 1 person at a time and it is very unstable and half broken!

1 Person max

It was hot and dry while we walked up the steep slope and we were happy to have enough water with us. We reached the river with fresh water after about 4.5 hours of walking and from there it was just another 45 minutes to the Refugio. It is run by a family and it's very nice, except for the bugs in the mattress :-( I woke up with about 60 bites covering my body. Furthermore I lost the self inflatable mattress on the way up, it must have dropped from my backpack somehow.
Besides the bugs, the night was quiet and we left in the morning with small luggage to climb 450 m to reach a lagune at the head of a glacier on the mountain. Here as well, some Argentinos had the same idea, but they don't carry water, no food and just very basic shoes, whereas we used our good ones. The difference at the end is, that the Argentinos "slide and stumble" up and down the mountain more than walking ;-)   but the lagune and the view was great! Once back at the refugio, we packed our things and hiked the 5 hours down to the car again. On our way back we met some other Argentinos (yes: no water, bad shoes, no food) who asked us firstly how long it is to the river and then if we could give them some water :-) . Almost at the end of the way, we had a good view to a sad event, we could directly see the fire in the forest on the hills next to El Bolson.

The Lagune

View from the top

Fire

After our last night in El Bolson, we drove back to Bariloche to hand back the car (no problem) and we prepared for our next trip to El Chalten (about 1200 km south).

We started at 06.30 in Bariloche for our first 12 h road trip south. At the beginning, the scenery is nice and changing, but after about 4 hours, it's all flat, dry and a straight street. Luckily for us, this part of the road was mostly asphalted. With some stops in between, we arrived in Perito Moreno Pueblo where we stayed in an expensive hostal in a 4 bed dorm. Next morning, we had the same as the day before, but with gravel road. Sitting in a bus, waiting in a more or less not changing environment. The only change we had was the rain, which made the driving more difficult and we stopped for about an hour to pass a difficult place. Finally, we arrived at about 22.00 at El Chalten where we had to find a hostal firstly. It was cold, wet and windy, so not the weather where you want to walk around for a long time. But well, this place is really small and it took us about 1 hour to find something affordable.

Since El Chalten is the hiking capital, we had to get a tent for our hikes and we bought all essential things for 4 days in the mountains (which is food). It was still raining and very windy, but we took the opportunity to visit a small cascade close to the town.

On the way to the cascade

Carrying food for 4 days, a tent, sleeping bags etc. is pretty heavy but we hiked the planned route. Firstly, we went to the Laguna Torre, but the clouds were low so we couldn't see much there. The same day, we took a "shortcut" via 2 lagunes to reach our designated camping ground (Pointcenot) where we set up the tent and prepared dinner (soup and pasta). All day was about 20km of hiking.
Next morning, the weather was better so we hiked up to the laguna de los tres (450m uphill) and we had a good view to the Mt. Fitz Roy and the lagunes there. A pretty nice spot! Since we had some more time this day, we walked back and went for a late lunch to another lagune (laguna Capri) where the view was great as well. In the evening, we had pasta and soup again, after walking for about 15 km.

Fitz Roy

Lagune

On day 3 we headed west to the piedra de los frailes which took us some time (one way was about 12 km) and arriving there, we were told that passing this point to reach the lago electrico would cost us 75 pesos each (about 18 CHF per person). So we dropped this plan and hiked back another route that brought us to the Lagune Piedras Blancas. This Lagune can only be reached by climbing through big rocks, not very easy but nice at the end! Finally, we reached our camp ground tired after about 25 km. Tired but happy we had another soup and pasta for dinner before we went to bed.

Laguna Piedras Blancas

Since the last day was really nice (no clouds) we decided to go back to laguna Torre again and go back to town from there (12 km hike). Fortunately, the weather stayed good so we could take some more pictures of the Cerro Torre and its lagune! But the way back and the previous day were hard enough, so we suffered a bit on our way down. All in all, we hiked about 80 km in 4 days but it was very nice.

Blue Sky

Cerro Torre and Lagune

We didn't have a lot of time for relaxing, because we had an appointment with some horses next morning (horse back riding). We didn't book the boring tour, no, we took the big one which goes up a mountain and down on the other sides. We took this because firstly, it's more fun (if you know riding) and there was a bbq for lunch! So, sitting on a horse for the first time (for some people) we headed uphill with our guide and some other tourists. The view from there was great and the horses know the way, so you don't have to do a lot (except for not falling down). The downhill part was a bit more difficult since my horse wanted to run down all the time (Galopp) which is not the most relaxing thing in the world ;-) but finally we reached the bbq place and had some nice patagonian lamb. From there, it was just a short ride back to the Estancia and after about 6h we were back in town, with a full stomach, slightly hurting buts and legs.

 
In the evening (after having packed again) we went to a small but very nice restaurant where we had some other animals for dinner (about 1 cow, 1 tasty fish and some pig-sausage)  ;-) and to answer a question from some of you: No, besides meat there is nothing else to eat in Argentina (well, there is, but meat is mostly the best thing you can eat normaly).
Well, the night was over, we got up and waited for our bus to El Calafate, the town closest to the Perito Moreno Glacier. We arrived in the afternoon and had time to check out some places regarding visits of the glacier and other things. We decided that we wanted to "have a day off" so today we didn't do a tour our anything but sleeping, eating, postcarding (does this verb exist?) and blogging (and soon eating again ;-) ).
Tomorrow, if all goes well, we hope for good weather since we gonna visit the Glacier (the entrance cost is 100 Pesos each!).

News coming soon...

We haven't updated the blog for almost 2 weeks now :-( but we'll do it soon again. We headed from Bariloche to el chalten and today we move to el calafate (with hopefully a better Internet connection) and we'll do an update from there :-)

Happy New Year

As written in the last entry, the 25 dec we hiked a mirrador close to San Martin de los Andes and headed further to la Islita, an island close to a beach where we had a short swim in the refreshing water!

Mirrador

La Islita

Next morning, we checked with the Park Rangers if it was possible to climb volcano Lanin (3776) and what we would need. We met a german who did it before and he advised us, that a guide is not needed, so we opted for the version without guide. The funny thing about the Lanin Volcano is, that it's covered with permanent ice and snow, so you need crampons to climb it. Furthermore, there is quite a lot of regulations what you need to get the allowance to climb it (eye drops, first aid set, ice axt and helmet, etc.) and the rangers check if you have all of it at the beginning. so we needed to hire some equipment in a store to be ready. In the afternoon, we wanted to visit another lake in the north with hot springs, but we were already a bit late since the 50 km took us way longer to get there since it's all unpaved and very narrow. During this day, we also noticed the ash cloud that covers the sky and the ground (it looks like fog). The reason for this is an active volcano that erupted in June and that is still smoking some 100 km away in Chile. Depending on the wind situation, the smoke is blown to Bariloche, the 7 lakes area or / and villa la Angostura (see later). So we had lunch at the shore and headed back to prepare for the Lanin.

Volcano Lanin 3776 m

 We left early in the morning and arrived at 08.00 at the foot of the Lanin, where the ranger checked our stuff (and was happy with it). To give you an idea of our tour, here the plan:
1 day: hiking up 1500 m for 6-8 hours to reach the refugio on 2660 m altitude. You need to carry water (13 l for 2 people), food, stove, pan, ice axt, crampons, sleeping bag & mat, helmet, cloths so it added up to about 25 kg for 2 people).
2 day: climb to the summit (ascend of 1116 m on a 45 degree slope) and downhill everything back to the base camp (2500 m down) in about 12-14 h.
The first day was pretty though because of the weight that we needed to carry up, but luckily, after 8 hours, we arrived at the refugio and we were the only ones there! only some condors were visiting us there!

The refugio

 Climbing the summit usually goes along with an early start. We left around 5 in the morning due to windy weather before and we climbed 2 snow fields with the crampons pretty quickly. After the snow, we had to pass a horrible rock field, which was very steep before we reached the glacier / snow field on the summit (another hour to climb). Finally, we made it to the top and enjoyed the view, although the ash from the volcano was disturbing it slightly. And from the top, we were also able to see the smoking volcano! (see the picture that looks like a cloud). On the top, we also encountered another Swiss climber that did the volcano in 1 day with light luggage, so he could climb faster than we did (funny: 3 Swiss meet on the top of an Argentine Mountain).
 

45 degrees uphill

Snow field walking

View to the volcano Villarica

On the top with view to the smoking volcano

Downhill through the snow fields is good fun and you can walk very quick, but once we passed the lower refugio, we had to walk down for about 3 hours on gravel with our big backpacks and tired legs (and it was hot as well and we had a lot of very annoying horse flies around us), so we were happy to reach the car. We stopped at a lake close to cool down a bit before driving back to San Martin.

downhill

Next day, we took the car and returned to the route of the 7 lakes, but the ash cloud was following us. We had sore muscles and wanted to enjoy some views at lake Trafull. As we arrived at the lake, we couldn't even see the other side of it, so dense was the fog there, so we continued to Villa La Angostura. There we noticed something that we didn't notice the days before Christmas: This town is heavily hit by the volcanic ash! on the side of the road, you can see as piles, on the roofs is ash of about 10 cm and they clean the roads regularly with water. Also the mountains around are covered with an ash layer, so they are grey on the top!

Ash cloud and covered mountains

Ash on the roof

 We stopped here for dinner and stayed the night (disrupted by an alarm horn at 2 in the morning) because we had to return the car next morning (the car was gray from the ash as well)
After returning the car, we started to organize our next days and we postponed or flight back to the 15.02.2012 (arriving on Thursday the 16.02.2012 in Zurich) :-) so we have some more time here.  Unfortunately, we may encounter some issues regarding the national park of Torres del Paine (in Chile). There is a fire (apparently because a very stupid Israeli was not careful) and they closed down the park at the moment. So we have to check if we can visit it or not.
At the day of new year, we visited the mountain close to Bariloche (Cerro Otto) to have a look around. It was a hot day and the ash cloud was visible again, blocking the view to the lakes around, but still, it was nice. We spend the evening in a Mexican restaurant (besides meat-restaurants, there is not much else) with wine, food, margaritas and champagne! So we wish you all a happy new year and we'll write some more postcards. Apparently some of the cards are still on the way (sent weeks ago) but we still have some time :-)

A typical dinner for 2, 700g of meat

From hot to cold and (almost) white Christmas

Back in Bariloche we have some time to do our next update, starting with the wine tour in Mendoza!
There is different ways of doing this. Either you book a guided tour (with bike or bus) or you take the public bus to Maipu (the fee is 2 pesos per person, but there is NO coins in supermarkets or anywhere so you don't have them! Solution: a friendly person pays for you with the electronic card). The bus driver was so kind to drop us off directly at the bike rental point of Mr. Hugo where you get a bike, a map with the wineries around (12k distance) and a bottle of water. It's around 11 and the sun is getting stronger, so you bike to the first one (Trapiche, closed :-( ) and then to the one further away so you can make your way back. Arriving at the Bodega, you start with the tour through the Bodega (this part will be skipped in later tours) and you end up with tasting (and maybe buying) wine.

Since it's around 12.30 now, we decided to have lunch there before we went to the next one (tour and tasting). We did this with 4 Bodegas where we tasted different wines before we went back to the "chocolate and liquor" place (where you can taste chocolate and liquor, right). At the end, we headed back to Hugo where he offered us some really cheap wine, before we headed back to town with the public bus.
We probably had 35 degrees next day, so after breakfast we stayed in the shade of trees or anything else to bear the heat. We actually wanted to leave this day (Sunday) but there were no buses available, so we had a lazy day in Mendoza and we had some nice pasta in the evening (we used the kitchen in the hostel since the people from Argentina know how to grill meat but they have no clue what to do with pasta!)

Our hostal (bar) with pool

 On Monday, it was hot again (around 35 we guessed), so we chilled in the pool of the hostel (actually it was 2 x 2 m wide) but nevertheless refreshing! We had to wait since we were facing an 15 hour bus ride and we booked first class service from Andesmar and to shorten the time, we visited the snake terrarium and had a coffee in the street cafe (where my cell phone got stolen by some children, the Sony Ericson one :-( )

 Since we didn't want to spend the day in the bus and arriving at night in Bariloche, we waited for the nightbus... very good idea:
First Class service means, that you can convert your seat to a bed (180 degrees) where you can really sleep, not just nap in the seat. The food is exactly the same as in the normal bus rides, but you get a proper knife and fork and a napkin. Furthermore, you also get free red wine for dinner (tasty wine) and we got a 3 times refill and last but not least, before the lights are switched off, you get a glass of champagne for a good night... I'd say it's definitely worth for a long bus ride to spend some more :-)
Next afternoon, we drove through an amazing valley before we arrived at Bariloche (called Swiss Argentina) and it really looks similar. There is a lake (blue) mountains (high) and the town is a skiing resort in winter. As we left the bus (still in shorts) we noticed the slight breeze (which was a strong wind) and the slightly chilly air (it was freezing cold there!). So we organized a hostel and put on some warm cloth and visited the town. Besides all the chalets here, there is also cheese fondue and plenty of chocolate (like in Switzerland).

Bariloche

Next day, we had the plan to climb (hike up) to the mountain close to Bariloche, but the bead weather (wind, wind, wind and rain that was close to be snow) and a dog blocking the way stopped us from doing this (we wouldn't have seen anything anyway). So we just had a stroll around the lake and did some sight-seeing and tried to organize a car for the 7 lakes and for the Caretera Austral. Unfortunately, drop off at El Calafate in the south is ridiculously expensive (1500 CHF EXTRA) so we changed our plans and we are going by bus down there, but this later.

Cold and windy

The 22nd of Dec, we had our car and started with a round trip around Bariloche (and it was still cold there as you can see on the picture). The area is great and we also visited the small Swiss Colony in the west of Bariloche, before we headed north to the route of the seven lakes (there is more lakes then seven but never mind). Our first stop was Villa La Angostura, another skiing resort town where we stayed the night. But before we went to bed, we looked at the beautifully snowy mountains around and a little bit of Christmas feeling arouse :-) . Here, we also tried a specialty: roasted lamb, very tasty!

Snow in Summer

Next morning, we hiked the peninsula and we had a pick nick at a remote, but beautiful lagune before we drove further north. The 7 lakes rout is gravel, so we didn't went fast but it's anyway nicer and the temperature was raising, it wasn't freezing cold anymore. We stopped now and then and enjoyed the view, before we arrived at the lake Hermoso. We stayed in a small cabana close to the lake which was just great!

Lunch at the lagune

Just another lake (look at the mountains top)

Our cabana

After breakfast (24. dec) we drove the last part to San Martin de los Andes where we spent Christmas. It's also a small town at the shore of a lake and fortunately, the temperature was high now so that we could walk around in shorts again! The town itself is cozy and laid back and we had a wonderful dinner for this evening.Next day, even in Argentina all is closed down, so we enjoyed the warm and sunny weather and hiked to a mirrador and from there to the lake for swimming in the refreshing lake.

What happened the days after we'll write in the next entry!  

Quick update... Mendoza and Bariloche

It has been a while since we had time to update the blog and it's gonna take some more days until we update it properly, therefore here a quick update:
Wine tasting in Mendoza is great, we liked it and bought some wine as well!
Since we couldn't get a bus on Sunday, we waited 1 day longer in Mendoza (around 35 degrees) to get a first class bus to Bariloche and first class is really great! You can sleep in the bus fairly good and there is good service too!
Drawback: my phone (old sony Ericsson with the 076 323 .... ) got stolen the last day in Mendoza :-( but I still have the iPhone :-)
Bariloche is a nice town that could be in Switzerland as well (and you get fairly good cheese fondue as well!) although it is summer, it got freezing cold here! We rented a car to drive the 7 Lagos road and at 23.12 we had SNOW around us!!! Almost White Christmas ;-)
We spent Christmas in San Martin de Los Andes (another ski-resort town in the mountains) with now better weather and temperature, 25 degrees.
Tomorrow we plan to hike the Lanín volcano (2days) and head back to Bariloche after this, to spend new year there.
More in some days!
Merry Christmas and a happy new year!!!

In Vino Veritas

Due to the fact, that the only bus on Tuesday was full, we booked Andesmar on Wednesday to transfer to Salta in Argentina. Luckily they had space and we got the front row seat (btw. there is no bus on Thursday) so we could take some nice pictures of the landscape between San Pedro de Atacama and Salta.
At first, the landscape is flat and dry until we reached the mountains (then it was hilly and dry) and sometimes we saw a lagune, somewhere in the middle of nowhere. After about 3 hours, we arrived at the border (checkpoint for fruits, vegetables and drugs ;-). As it is normal, you have to remove all your things from the Bus, a drug-dog and an X-Ray checks if you don't have anything not allowed in your bags and then move all back in (with the help of a luggage-guy that later comes to the bus and says "money".... no, not for loading the bus! )

Quebrada de Humahuaca

From there the journey continues through rough mountains to the Quebrada de Humahuaca, passing the city of San Salvador de Jujuy and finally arriving at 19.30 in Salta (slight rain but not cold). Unfortunately, the ATM was not working at the bus terminal, so we had just 20 ARS$ to get to a hostal which fortunately had some beds free for us :-)
 
The hostal was nice and it looked a little bit like a hippy place (Incl. Rasta-men and a family from Belgium that left everything behind and lives there in a dorm, father, mother and 2 year old child) but nice and friendly.

Salta is a nice and quiet place, especially at the 8th of December since they celebrate a christian public holiday (by closing almost everything down in the city) so, we couldn't really visit what we wanted, but it was nice anyway. In the evening, we wanted to have dinner with a Belgium couple that we met in Potosi but at 19.00 when we met, no restaurant is open yet, the people here eat around 21.00 or even later. So we shortened the time with a bottle of white wine before we had a delicious dinner!

Salta

 

Since the wine was so good, we headed next day to the white wine area in Argentina around Cafayate. Here as well, the journey is stunning when you drive through the rough valley before your arrive in hot and dry Cafayate. It is a small town with a lot of Bodegas (wineries) that you can visit and where you can try some of their wines, what we did next day :-) But they don't only do white wines, they also have good red ones :-) which we tried in a wine bar (another tasting of different wines :-) ) and we enjoyed a Parillada as dinner in the evening. The Parillada is basically a BBQ, but with a lot of meat of different origin: Steak, ribs, blood-sausages, pork sausage, chicken, kidney and gut (Darm) :-) (not really tasty)
Next day we wanted to head to a waterfall, but due to a cold we didn't and stayed in town, relaxing and curing the cold.

Garganta del Diablo

 

Welcome to Cafayate

 

Our plan was to head back to Salta and catch the night bus to La Rioja the same evening (since bus rides are expensive and the landscape is not that spectacular around and because it takes about 10 h to get there. So this passed by quickly and after some sleep in the bus, we arrived in La Rioja in the Morning. In the afternoon, we wanted to organize a tour through the two national parks close, but firstly, in La Rioja almost everything is closed between 14.00 and 18.00 :-( and therefore, it looks like a ghost town, just very few people on the street and it's very hot there (around 30)! Once the Agencies were open, we had quite a shock what they wanted to charge for 2 people going to the parks (about 150 CHF each) so we changed plans and didn't do the tours, but went to Mendoza next day.

La Rioja

 Mendoza, the red wine center of Argentina is basically a city in the desert. The water comes from the close Andes but the city itself is very green and has a lot of trees and parks so that the heat during the day is not too bad (it's still hot and they close for a siesta as well). But all in all it's a nice city, without historical center but a nice pedestrian area. So we spent today with visiting the city (and updating the blog which usually takes a while ;-)  )

Mendoza

Mendoza

Tomorrow, we plan to go for another wine-tour and then we'll see what we gonna do.