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!