Bariloche

Lago Nahuel Huapi and Hotel Llao Llao as seen from the Circuito Chico

Looking up the valley (and straight downhill) from the ridge behind Cerro Catedral

Lake #2 on the Ruta de los Siete Lagos

The West bank of Lago Traful, a short detour on the Ruta de los Siete Lagos

Ruta 63.  Beautiful, but not a shortcut.

Bariloche, a fairly touristy town in the Northern ‘Lakes Region’ of Patagonia, was our last stop in Argentine Patagonia.  The city is best known for two things – its chocolate, and as a Winter ski destination.  It’s situated along the shore of a large, ridiculously picturesque lake called Lago Nahuel Huapi.  The lake (as well as the surrounding mountains) create a strange climate in the Bariloche area, whereby South of town, Cerro Catedral gets many meters of snow per year, while the steppe North of town gets very little precipitation.  All of this makes for a very interesting Summer destination – gorgeous scenery and great outdoor activities in the presence of international luxury tourists.  The typical foreign tourist is a lot different in Bariloche than in, say, Chaltén.  For example, we heard some people saying they’d done an ‘exhausting 4km walk’ along the lakeshore.  It’s the kind of place an adventure-seeking traveler goes only if they’re on a very long trip.  In other words, it’s second priority to places like Torres del Paine and El Chaltén for people like us.  Nonetheless, it’s a fantastically gorgeous place and the outdoors are ripe to be taken advantage of.

We spent 6 full days in Bariloche, which was probably 2 too many.  But, since I originally intended the week as a rest from all the hiking and hostel-staying we had been doing for the past few weeks, we had booked ourselves a rental studio from AirBnB (which turned out to be a better deal than the over-priced local hotels/hostels anyway).  This meant we got to cook all our own meals, and finally had some privacy, so a very nice break is what we got.

Day 1: we spent the first morning walking around the city to get a lay of the land.  It was such a nice day, we decided to get a jump on the activities we had looked into.  So we took the local bus 20km West of town and rented bikes to ride the 25km Circuito Chico.  The route is relatively traffic-less, winding its way along the shore of Lago Nahuel Huapi, along other local lakes, past fjord-like mountain structures, and finally ending up near the most famous hotel in Argentina, Hotel Llao Llao.  Along the way, we were treated to some truly great views in the afternoon sun, and a pretty good workout.  After returning the bikes, we decided to stop into Hotel Llao Llao to have a drink.  The place was nice, but seemed pretty stuffy, and we were obviously the only people there who had just came from a bike ride.  We sat in the cafe/foyer and tried to flag down a waiter, but all we got were strange looks.  After a 20 minute wait, the waiters had visited all the tables except ours, and it was becoming clear they didn’t want our money.  We left in disgust.  Screw that place.  We got an empanada at a cafe down the street and took the bus back to our apartment.

Day 2: another nice day was forecast, so we decided to do the big local hike, from the base of the Cerro Catedral ski area to the top.  The 'classic’ hike involves taking the gondola to the top and walking down, but we wanted to do the opposite.  Going up is fun; going down sucks.  We took an early bus to the mountain, and nearly everyone but us headed for the gondola.  We had the trail mostly to ourselves, and passed a few groups on the way up to the intermediate point, Refugio Frey, where we had lunch.  The scenery at the Refugio was familiar – it looked like the Sierras!  Spiky granite outcroppings lined the hanging valley with its beautiful blue mountain lake.  The Frey area is known for rock climbing, and as we ate lunch we watched a few people scale the local outcroppings.  Afterwards the trail kept going up, and up, to an additional gorgeous hanging lake, and a plateau at the summit of the ridge.  It then began a traverse with a poorly marked trail on the back side of the ridge, through talus fields and across boulders, with views of the local mountain ranges and an extremely steep 3,000ft drop-off.  Finally, after 1 hour of enjoying ourselves on the rocks and an additional hour wishing the hike was over, we arrived at the top of the ski area.  Now, we had two conflicting desires: the desire not to destroy our knees hiking down 3,500 feet back to the base, and the desire to not spend $75 to take the lift down.  Luckily, the lift operators weren’t checking tickets on the way down (which speaks to the un-popularity of doing the hike in the direction we chose), and we were able to hitch a chairlift and a gondola ride to the bottom.  It was the perfect Kristen & Jeff hike – how often had we lamented that the main issue with hiking uphill is that you have to come back down?  We got all the fun of the hike and none of the misery!

Day 3: the third day looked like the last day with great, warm weather we might get in Bariloche, so we decided to rest our legs by touring the ‘Ruta de los Siete Lagos’ (7 lakes drive).  We rented a tiny car for a few hundred pesos (from a storefront shaped like a giant red toadstool), dropped our laundry off, and left the apartment around 9:30am.  The Ruta de Siete Lagos is just that – a road (or rather series of roads, part paved and part dirt) that pass by 7 lakes (or so) on its way from Bariloche to San Martin de los Andes.  The laundry place closed at 8, so we knew we had pretty much all day to enjoy the drive.  For the first several hours, we stopped frequently to take in the sights.  We also made a 2 hour detour to Villa Traful, a tiny resort town on Lago Traful.  It was beginning to get a bit late by that time, but Lago Traful turned out to be the most beautiful lake we saw on the entire trip.  We stopped at 3 points to take pictures of the lake, the last at a beach on the Western bank, which was our favorite spot of the day.  We wanted to stay, maybe forever, but we knew that if we did, we wouldn’t be able to get our laundry, and I was wearing a swimsuit because both my pairs of pants were dirty.  So regretfully, we left, and continued on our way up to San Martin.  The map made the last 25km to San Martin look pretty boring, and there seemed to be a shortcut to get back to Bariloche, so we turned off on to Ruta 63.  It turned out not to be a shortcut.  It was a 70km poorly maintained dirt road.  We probably saw 2 cars the entire time.  But as we slowly (very slowly) made our way back toward the highway, the views improved.  Crazy limestone formations began to come into view, and we snaked our way up and down gorgeous valleys.  The stress of wondering if our Volkswagen Gol was going to fall apart was tempered by the scenery.  In the end, the car was OK, and we got our laundry just in time.

Day 4: after 3 hectic days of activity, we decided to take the day off.  But the weather was so nice, we couldn’t just sit around.  We went for a 4 or 5 mile walk around town in the afternoon, and sampled some of the local chocolate at the most famous store in town, Mamuschka.  The store was ridiculously kitchy, and the chocolate was ridiculously delicious.  By far the best chocolate we’d had in South America.  It tasted like the real thing.

Day 5: After 2 relatively sedentary days, we wanted to get out and do another hike.  But it was threatening rain, so we had to settle for another quick walk around town, and more chocolate, this time at Rapa Nui (whose rama-style chocolate we liked even better than Mamuschka).

Day 6: The weather finally cleared up, so we did a hike up to Refugio Cerro Lopez (as recommended to us by the friendly woman at the car rental place).  It was about a 2,000ft climb, very steep, with the potential for an additional 500-1000ft rock scramble above the refugio to a scenic ridge.  As we made our ascent – Kristen leading the way and happily destroying me with her blistering pace – we began passing people wearing helmets and matching shirts.  It turned out they were participants in an adventure race, sort of like a hike/trail run.  We were clearly picking off the back of the pack, and we must have passed 100 or 200 people on our way up.  After a little over an hour, we reached the refugio.  The trail racers were all making their ascent up the rock scramble, and it looked like a logjam disaster up there.  So we decided to eat lunch and head back down.  We took the long way down – a shallow, switchback 4x4 road that was at least 3-4x longer than the direct way we took up the hill.  It was a tedious 3.5 hour descent, but we made it down without sore knees, and even had time to grab a coffee and a couple of empanadas in Colonia Suiza (the local Swiss-style settlement) before grabbing the bus back to Bariloche.  On the way back, we stopped off at the Cerveceria Berlina.  Bariloche is also known for a vibrant (and nascent) craft brewing scene, and Berlina is its crown jewel. Its “B” logo is suspiciously similar to Brooklyn Brewery’s.  We got a sampler, and viola! a few of their beers were really great, American style ales.  Ales are rare in South America, where the preferred taste is watery lager.  Satisfied, we went home to pack up.