Before I left the United States I had purchased an airline ticket to fly to Mendoza after my Antarctica trip. I figured by then I would crave warm weather and I was right. Plus Mendoza would be a perfect location as a gateway to the rest of my trip. From there I would make a decision on which direction to go. I would either head North to Bolivia or East to Chile. I just had to decide which way. So after a layover in Buenos Aires and my arrival in Mendoza it was decision time, North or East?
I chose…South.
While walking around Mendoza the day I arrived, I realized a couple things. First, the hike we did a couple days before, after getting off the boat, hardly quenched the activity need that had built up on the ship. I needed more. And second, I was leaning more towards making my way to Peru on the fast track via Chile, versus Bolivia. Then Linda messaged me that night about going to Bariloche.
I wanted to but did not visit Bariloche 17 years ago during my first visit to Argentina, so it was a priority to visit this past March when I returned. And while I had a great time with friends (you may have read the post), I felt somewhat cheated because the weather was not nice and I didn’t do some of the activities I had wanted. This then became the perfect opportunity to make up for that, get active, extend time with a new friend, and I could still easily pop over to Chile. I realized It was the perfect direction to go so yeah, the next night I headed south.
The first day in Bariloche we rented bikes and rode the Circuito Chico. With helmets and brightly colored vests (safety first) we rode up and down what seemed like never ending hills (at least the up parts), viewing the beautiful mountains and lakes. Unfortunately that day we did have a near death experience. No not bicycling on the road but the danger of all dangers, sitting down at a picnic table. I don’t know if the cruise buffets were the cause (but I blame them) but I do know when the two of us sat down together on the same side of the table, the other side immediately flew up in the air and was teetering on the edge of destruction. Luckily balance was shakingly found and tragedy was avoided, and we even saved our newly purchased sandwiches.
On Xmas eve we planned to hike up to a refugio that Linda made reservations for. We planned to take the bus to the trailhead but realized the morning before that it was a private, not public bus that we had to take, and therefore it had limited availability. And by limited I mean, the bus was full and didn’t have room for us. So that day, while hiking in the hills above Bariloche we contacted another refugio and were able to make a different reservation. Problem solved. Until we got back to town and realized that this new refugio had a notice about bed bugs on its site (yeah Spanish skills might have come in handy earlier that day). So at that point, dejected but still optimistic, we contacted yet another refugio and they, even though they didn’t officially have space for both of us, invited us to come up anyway saying they would make it work. And they did.
The next morning we took a public bus that had lots of room for us, to the trailhead at the tourist trap location that is Colonia Suiza. Food stalls with very dangerous looking picnic tables, and a couple dozen little kiosks that sell tourist trinkets are at the end of a random dirt road (I seriously do not understand why the tourist shops are in that location since the only thing there was our obscure trailhead).
For the next two days I hiked with an Austrian mountain goat (permission requested and granted to call her that). Rather than the standard route to and from the Refugio, Linda had mapped out alternate routes for each day that were double what was required, on both distance and elevation. It took everything I had to keep up with her (and sometimes didn’t) as we hiked up and down steep terrain, sometimes on trail, sometimes off. And I was very happy to hear during and at the end of each long day, that she was as tired and sore as I was.
The hike to and from Refugio Italia (Laguna Negra) was beautiful. Views of the lakes and snow peaked mountains dominated the surroundings. When in the woods we often had a river flowing with brightly colored blue green glacier water. Mountains we crossed varied, some green and lush with bamboo type plants, some rocky, and another just felt like we were crossing the moon.
Both Linda and I were leaving Argentina the day after the Refugio trip so we carefully planned how we would spend our remaining Argentinian pesos. We initially thought we were gonna be living large at the Refugio on Xmas Eve. However, because of how we got the reservation, we didn’t make a down payment with a credit card as we had expected. Therefore we had to pay more in cash at the Refugio which also brought into question whether we had the funds to get home. As we compared the al a cart costs with the cash in our wallets, it was with dismay that we realized we could each have a desperately needed, thirst quenching, diet Pepsi, but if we wanted a celebratory beer, we would need to split it (turns out we each could have had our own beer).
After lingering around outside enjoying the scenery, including a lake that beautifully mirrored the mountains above it, we enjoyed a candlelight dinner (because they have no lights) with the 30 or so guests.
The next night upon our return to Bariloche we finally had our celebratory beers and made individual pizzas in the hostel. It was supposed to be a competition but that got canceled after Linda “lost” my can of pineapple. Hers included something I had never seen on a pizza before, tuna, and it wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected. As long as she isn’t aware of it, I might even try it again.
After Antarctica I truly had no idea what direction I was going to go. Mendoza, a place I love wasn’t feeling right and neither direction of travel seemed that desirable at the moment. Coming off such a great high made it difficult to get excited for what was next. However, from the moment I started thinking about Bariloche as an option I was re-energized. That just amplified more and more during our time there. This was the Bariloche I had wanted previously and finally got. Finally, it was time to leave Barliloche and once again say goodbye to Linda (who now I will see again since she invited me to Vienna).
Now I am energized for what’s next, and now just need to figure out what that is.