photos of Bariloche

Finally on top!






View from Cerro Otto


Argentinian Parilla (speak: Parisha)

Bariloche, Argentina

We arrived in Bariloche on 24th December. It is a nice and lively town with lots of groups of Argentinian students who are taking their "fin del año" holidays here. The town is surrounded by beautiful mountains and lakes and has got a lot of opportunity for hiking, river rafting, horseriding or kayaking. We decided to spend 9 days here incl. new year´s eve.

"Perdido en el bosque!"
After Christmas, I couldn´t wait to get out there and do a hike since all you do at Christmas is eat and drink and sit around. We walked along Lago Gutierrez and up to Refugio Frey, which lies at 1.700m. It was a nice hike in the forest, quite steep at times and took about 5 hours to get up to the Refuge. There was snow up on top of the mountain, scenery absolutely beautiful. Some hikers took their backpacks and tent and camped up the mountain.
But we had to get back the same day, since I had booked river rafting the next day! So we made our way back what was supposed to be a 3 hour hike, since it´s almost all downhill. We did well and took a different path than the one we came from in order not to repeat ourselves.
The last bus from the village we were heading for left at 8.15pm, so we thought we would just about make that if we walk a little faster. It all went well up to the point where the up to then well signposted path completely disappeared and we could not find our way to the village. We decided to follow the river, but that unfortunately lead to nowhere, just a lot of trees, bushes and undergrowth. By that time it was a about 8.30pm and we knew it would get dark at 9.30ish, so we needed to get back before that. But no path to be found anywhere.
There came a point where I decided to phone emergency services to get us out of there. Unfortunately they were very useless and kept suggesting for us to go back to the refuge (which was 5 hours away - not really a good option in the dark). We finally found something that looked like a cycle path and followed that but it seemed to end in a river. After another 1/2 hour of frenzied speed walking we finally saw some houses and figured that that must be the village! Big relief, since it just got dark then, it was about 9.45pm. Missed the last bus but were lucky to share a taxi with 2 other guys to get out of the village and back to Bariloche.
It def. was an experience not to be forgotten too soon! After 10 hours walking I felt pretty exhausted. I wish I had joined the girlscouts in my youth! ;-)

River Rafting
The next morning, my aching legs and body had to get up early again to do the river rafting! I wished I hadn´t booked it, but I already paid a part of it, so had to do it. It was a 2hour drive to the river and I felt like a zombie. When we finally got on our wetsuits and got into the boats, the adrenalin kicked in - and the cold splashes of water - and I felt very awake suddenly, espcecially when our guide kept talking about that the boat might flip over and not to panic if you fall into the river etc. It was fun though and not as rough as i thought it would be. The 8 people in our boat managed not to fall in and we had lots of fun with the rapids. 1 1/2 hours just weren´t enough!
The typical Argentinian-style "Parilla" afterwards was very well received with huge amounts of yummy grilled beef and "morcilla" (blood sausage). It was very very tasty!
Check out photos in the entry above.

Onwards south on 1st January, towards El Chalten, El Calafate and the Moreno Glacier.

FELIZ AÑO NUEVO! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Season´s Greetings

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Greetings from Argentina, Bariloche.
(celebrating with some Argentinians from the hostel on Christmas eve)


We left Chile as quickly as we got there, since it was very expensive (especially compared to Bolivia) and all in all really not that nice. Santiago was like any big city in Europe, very modern and western. Valparaiso was probably the nicest place in Chile we´ve visited. It lies by the sea and is very hilly, you have to go up the mountain in an elevator.
Moved on further south from there to Temuco, then to Puerto Montt. Puerto Montt is surrounded by lovely scenery, but the town itself is a really dim place. It was raining non-stop, everything grey and miserable, so we didn´t even get to check out the scenery. Maybe we were unlucky but Chile really wasn´t what I expected at all.

Rain!

Valparaiso



Glad to have moved on to Argentina. Bariloche is a really nice place, surrounded by snow-capped mountains and it lies directly at Lake Nahuel Huapi. Our hostel here is called Tango Inn and is full of backpackers, so quite sociable. Once Christmas is over I am looking forward to doing some hiking.

People in Argentina seem much more open and friendly compared to Chile. I think I like it here…!

The last of beautiful Bolivia

Desert, Volcanoes, Lagunas, Stone valley, Geysirs, Lava Craters and Natural Hot Springs.

We had to get up at 4am one morning to go up to 5.000m and see natural Geysirs and Craters. It was -5 degrees up there but the water coming from the geysirs is 250 degrees hot. You can see the lava bubbling in the holes in the ground, one just has to be careful not to fall in. The steam is pleasently warm and you can warm your frozen hands on it. Quite amazing to see this spectacle of nature.
At 7am we were rewarded with a bath in the Natural Hot Springs, the water is 35-40 degrees warm. Compared to the chilly outside temperature it was very very pleasent! It really took some willpower to get my kit off though (yes, unbelievable for a German, innit?).

Laguna colorada

weird cauliflower plant at 4,700m

Stone tree

geysirs

Hot Lava!

more hot stuff!

Laguna Verde


Now we´re in Chile (a different world entirely)... more to follow soon.

Salar de Uyuni - an outerwordly place!

We did a 2-3-day tour to the Salt Flats of Uyuni and visited several volcanoes and lagunas on our way to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile.
The Salt flats are one of the most amazing places I´ve been to, words and photos cannot describe the amazing landscape. It is basically 12,000km square of salt pans, all you see is white ground and blue sky wherever you look. In the middle of the saltflats there is this island which in Quechua is called InkaHuasi and now Isla de Pescadores and it is full of huge cactii. There are also several Salt Hotels,made entirely of Salt, but we didn´t have the pleasure of staying there. Go there and bring your sunglasses!

Giant John

2000-year old cactii




white white white...

Potosi - The silver city

We went from Uyuni to Potosi with a bus ride from hell. The bus was probably the crappiest we´ve had so far and the road was not paved, but a very bumpy and windy mud/stone road and on top of that the driver drove much too fast. The bus ride lastet 6 hours and on the way we had to change a tyre since we had a puncture.

Glad to be alive we arrived in Potosi, the highest city in the world at just over 4,000m. It is a nice colonial town and the main attraction is "Cerro Rico", the silver mountain, where the mining of silver has been taking place since the 15th century. We visited the mine and experienced horrendous working conditions, heavy physical work, lots of bending down, dirt and dusty air. Some of the minors have been working there for 25 yearsor more but they earn good money and that´s why they have been doing the dirty job for generations. After they retire most of their lungs are partially or completely black.
Some photos to prove that we also got dirty with it...


cerro rico

is it b´cos I is black?

Bolivia: Lago Titicaca and Isla del Sol

Village life





boat trip




On 30th November,we crossed the border from Peru to Bolivia at Lake Titicaca. Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world and lies at ca. 3,800m above sea level.
When we arrived in Copacabana on the Bolivian side, there was no electricity in the whole region for the last 2 days. That of course meant no warm showers either since they are all electrical and pretty dodgy. When the electricity finally came on again, we nearly got electrocuted under the shower because the wiring is very dodgy. No health and safety concerns here. It´s fun almost always!

The next day we decided to follow the wonderful Lonely Planet guide and do a walking tour of 3-4 hours from Copacabana to Yumbapata, where we could cross over to Isla del Sol, the birthplace of the Sun according to the Inkas. It was a lovely walk with nice scenery, but we got an offer from a local guy to cut short the walk. He rowed us over to the island in a small rowing boat for a very good price. Got to support the local community we thought!

I loved it, John was not feeling too chuffed about being in a boat, but did very well. The village on Isla del Sol was pretty small with a few hostels around and maybe 2-3 restaurants, so pretty dead at night. The hostel we picked from our now most hated Lonely Planet guide (wrong and completely outdated information) did not exist any more.

The next day we wanted to do some more walking and go to visit the Temple of the Sun on the island. Unfortunately our guidebook did not give us many clues as to where the path to the temple was. So we got completely lost and were climbing and scrambling on agricultural terraces, stepping on some farmer´s potato plants etc. for about an hour until we finally found a path. It was really hilarious thinking about it now,not at the time though.

Halfway thru the island we decided to take another rowboat to speed up our journey and to finally see the Temple of the Sun. When we got to the shore we found out that it was actually another hour´s walk to the ruins and the last and only boat for Copacabana would leave in half an hour. So there we were, never got to see the ruins but certainly got to know the island! Disaster, but nice scenery, have a look!

Colca Canyon and Cruz del Condor

From Arequipa I decided to do a 2-day tour to the Colca Canyon, the 2nd deepest Canyon in the World (drop of 1,300m)while John stayed in Lima. Along the way spectacular scenery of volcanoes Misti and ChanChan. I saw some vicunas, the smaller cousin of the llama and alpaca, whose wool is very expensive. We were visiting little villages on the way and in the evening we indulged in the hot springs in Chivay. The next day we went to Cruz del Condor where we were supposed to see Condors flying around. Well you can see the result of my Condor-spotting below...


i had to help the condors a little bit along the way...



the group

vicuña

Paragliding over the sacred valley

I finally did it! Went paragliding in Peru, and absolutely loved it. We were in the air for 40 minutes and had very good thermicas, so got up to 4,800m almost into the clouds! Here some photos of my adventure.