Week 21: Patagonia...Un Sueño

The view of Bariloche, lake Nahuel Huapi, and the Andes mountains from Cerro Otto

To escape the summer heat in Buenos Aires Emily and I decided to head to Bariloche Patagonia to visit another volunteer in our program who lives and works there.

In Argentina it is very common to travel by coach bus. There are many bus services provided in the country and most people travel by bus when going on a trip. It is cheaper than flying and they actually have really nice bus services. We took Via Bariloche and it included meals, a fleece blanket and pillow, and comfortable chairs that were almost like recliner chairs with a leg rest. The food was actually pretty good and they played movies for everyone as well.

After our 22 hour bus ride we arrived in Bariloche. Krystal (the volunteer that lives in Bariloche) was nice enough to let us stay with her in her apartment. She has a great apartment located in the center of the city with a great view of the lake. We had easy access to all the tourist stores and the public buses that took us along the huge lake to all the nature trails and mountains. The lake is named Nahuel Huapi which is a indigenous name from the Mapuche tribe. Nahuel Huapi is sort of a mysterious lake. No one really knows how deep it is and it is said that there are huge types of fish located near the bottom. I would say the lake is around the size of some of our great lakes.

Bariloche is a very "tourist" city. During the summer lots of people from all over Argentina visit the Bariloche area to escape city life and the heat of the country. Bariloche is located in the Andes mountains giving it a higher elevation and therefore cooler temperatures. During the winter Bariloche is the ski capital of the country. Emily and I really enjoyed actually being cold for once. Due to the fact that it is such a tourist orientated city it was really easy to find our way around and to travel into the Nahuel Huapi National Park to go on hikes.

On Sunday we went to church with Krystal. Her church, in my opinion, is the closest I have seen in Argentina to a United States Midwest Lutheran church. They have church ladies and a coffee hour after church. Everyone is so nice and always willing to help out in any way they can. We had a great time getting to talk with some of the people during the coffee hour. On Sunday one of the families offered to take us into the National Park and show us the shortest river in the world (or Argentina?). It is about 100 yards long (about the length of a football field). Also a young school teacher invited us over to her house for dinner one night. We had a great time eating homemade pizza.

Emily and Krystal in front of Krystal's church


The shortest river...all the water was this turquoise color in the area! So pretty!

The first hike we went on was climbing the Cerro (peak) Llao Llao. This was my favorite hike and it had breath taking views. There is a famous hotel nearby called Llao Llao. Our former president Bill Clinton and his family have stayed there. I got to get a look at the hotel as we drove by on the bus...very fancy!!!

View from Cerro Llao Llao

We also climbed to the top of Cerro Campanario. It was a much shorter hike but it was practically straight up! At the top there was an observatory deck and a little restaurant. They also have a ski lift that people can take to the top. After taking pictures and climbing around on the rocks at the top Emily and I enjoyed tea and coffee at the little restaurant with great views.

The view from Cerro Campanario

We unfortunately had a few rainy days meaning we could not go hiking. Bariloche is also known for its chocolate so one of the rainy days we went to one of the famous chocolate shops and drank hot chocolate. It was like drinking melted chocolate! It was so tasty!!!

On our last full day, Emily and I traveled to the top of Cerro Otto in gondolas as they call them. The views from the top were amazing! On top there was a highly priced restaurant with a spinning floor, a place where you could take pictures with St. Bernard dogs, gift stores, etc. In my opinion it was too touristy but we had fun non-the-less.

The cable cars that took us to the top of Cerro Otto

Our trip back was very interesting...very Argentine. The bus ride started out as usual and about 3 or 4 hours into the ride we were stuck in traffic for 2 hours...not moving an inch. Then for some unknown reason it cleared up and we stopped at a bus terminal to refuel. After that we started out again and found out that all the roads were blocked due to farm worker protests. Our bus and a ton of other cars, buses, and trucks were then driving around on gravel roads trying to find a route past the picketers.

After driving around in circles for an hour we gave up and ended up sitting in the same place for 7-8 hours. Lucky we were able to get off the bus and stretch our legs. Plus it was nice to be in the middle of nowhere with pretty orchards around us. We had a good time star gazing and talking to random passengers on the bus.

So our 21 hour bus ride turned into close to 30 hours total. When we got back it felt so strange to not be on a bus and feeling all the motion...it was like I needed to get my land legs back or something!

It was so difficult to leave Bariloche!! I fell in love with the National Park and would have loved to hike and explore more. Overall we had a great time!