Bariloche & around
After our side trip to Puerto Madryn it was back to Barlioche for the arrival of my little sister & her other half! It was quite exciting going to the airport to met them and to catch up on the gossip from home.
We´ve all had a busy 7 days in and around the Barlioche area – rafting, walking, horse riding & walking again.
White water rafting was great fun – it was supposed to be a grade III – IV river, but I don´t think the rapids were as quite as fun as at the beginning of the summer as the river was quite low & the rapids slightly tamer. But it saw us all entering Chile “illegally” (on the border – with the Chilean border post further down the valley – so unable to register properly. It turned out that the border was just two days walk up from the Cochamo valley we´d stayed in a few weeks previously.
The following day it was out into the mountains for 3 days. Whilst the cable car from Cerro Catedral (Barlioche´s famous ski area) was a cheats way of getting to the ridge, it saved us a couple of hours of up! The walk over to Refugio Frey was harder than I expected – lots of rock scrabbling just down from a ridge (with spectacular views out towards Tronador – a volcano on the Argentine/Chile border) before two steep descents (more scrambling) to a couple of lakes before getting to Refugio Frey. The area is famous for its climbing & we were luck to see a group climbing what we think was Torre Frey – making it look very easy, but I´m sure it wasn´t!
It was great staying in a catered Refugio – steak for tea (not much of a surprise the world here is powered by meat & various other cuts of animals) – a nice change from pasta (or rice) with a soup/cheese/salami sauce – our standard fare on the stove when catering for ourselves on treks!
However, finding a cat in my bed was a bit of a shock, as I put my hand down on a warm, furry thing in pitch blackness – to my surprise I didn´t scream but very calmly said “I think there is a cat in my bed”!
The following day it was back up the two steep descents – which weren´t as bad as we were expecting before a very steep scree slide – very fun, but not sure the walking boots enjoyed it as much, very dusty & scratched – I´ve heard scree slides described as putting your boots through a liquidisor – very apt!
A welcome lunch stop & refuel in a lovely camping spot in the valley – oh for a tent – before tackling another up and down (c. 500m of up & similar down). Huff, puff up & into the `gully of hell´as named by Ben – it went on forever before reaching the lake outlet & Refugio Jakob (also know, confusingly, as Refugio San Martin, no idea why though).
The final day was very different from the other two, which had been above the tree line wit great views over the moutains…it was into the tree line, and surprisingly, through lots of bamboo – no pandas though!
Horse riding the next day was a great rest for the legs. We spent a full day trundling round the steppe (type of land) just out of Bariloche. The horses, incredibly sedate & well behaved, certainly all had personalities of their own, and despite generally following each other, were also aware that you were boss & followed your commands.
The hospilaity of the owners was second to none – a great asado (Argentine BBQ – beef, lamb, sausages all cooked over a fire for a good 1 1/2 hours, with fabulous results) and afternoon tea (with a group of the families friends who´d happened to drop in) – we felt like guests rather than paying clients.
After five hours of riding under our belt (and only one incident when I lost my striups whislt trotting & the horse making run for it – soon managed to stop it though – thank goodness – I d visions of running in the middle of nowhere!) the legs & bottoms were not too sore the next morning! A good thing, as we had another walk planned!
An early, cold, rattling bus took us to Pampa Linda & the start of the walk up to Refugio Otto Meiling. The walk climbs up through the trees (zigzagging up steeper and steeper as we go) and suddenly pops out of the tree line with views out over the glaciers surrounding Mount Tronador. A hard steep climb, but the views were worth it. The Refugio is perched high on the lava flow in between two glaciers.
We decided to go ice climbing in the morning of the second day, before walking back the way we´d come up to catch the worlds coldest & noisiest bus back to Barlioche.
We were individually lowered into a crevasse about 4ms and then had fun trying to place ice axes and crampons into the ice to climb out – not very elegantly. It is certainly harder than it looks – standing on two spikes on the front of your toes is quite a strange experience!
Tags: Argentina, Travel, Trek
Jenni
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