The last trek but one was a bit of a washout; we paid a lot for a bus to a national park to find all trails closed and we could only hike along a road on the first day, returning to the entrance. Still, I had fun getting a fire going with soaking wet wood and finally managed to keep it going to add a little warmth until it was time to go to bed because it was raining/sleeting so hard!
The second day we woke up to find our tents covered in snow, and everything was still closed! Then we had all day to wait for the bus back (a day earlier than planned). When we got back to Bariloche the hostel where we left our stuff was full and we couldn’t find another one; we found the cheapest hotel we could, the bonus being that we had cable TV and a good shower.
The hostels don’t let you reserve nights so we knew we were going to have the same problem when we got back again; we decided to stay in the same hotel which would let us reserve a room just to save having the hassle.
We hired a car to drive through the ’7 lakes’ up to San Martin a bit further north; as I am the only one with a driving licence, I was the designated driver for the trip. This scenic trip is along what can only be described as the gravel stages of a rally; I don’t know maybe these roads are used for the Argentinian rally …
We spent 2 days shaking our bones in a little Fiat that had seen better days, but I guess the renatl companies know people are going to do this route and loan out beaten up cars. The actual scenery was impressive, but a little disappointing considering the sights we’d seen on the treks; I think this trip is designed for people not doing the trekking.
We’ve just returned from what should have been a 5 day trek, however we cut it short. We did the first two days in one day to ensure we had good weather to climb the summit on the third day according to local weather reports; unfortunately the clouds closed in at the end of the second day and we had to spend the night in the Refugio at the top of the mountain (but not the summit) after getting soaked through by torrential rain and snow.
When we arrived at the Refugio there were about 30 others in the same situation although only 3 others had done our route across the mountain pass through some very demanding climbs up rock faces, through densely vegetated areas, and sliding down snow drifts (see photos)!
We decided to return the following day rather than risk getting caught in bad weather and stayed at a campsite around 14km outside Bariloche; which is where myself and Omer caught some kind of poisoning (we suspect from the water) which caused us to vomit and had bad stomachs on Friday. This was really bad news because Friday night is Pizza and wine night! Only Yonatan managed to make the customary trip to the local pizza parlour.
We have both recovered now, it being a 24hr thing.
Tomorrow we head south to El Bolson for more trekking. Bariloche has not been the best place for us with finding accommodation difficult and a few treks that haven’t panned out as planned but it does have really great chocolate everywhere which we’ve sampled in abundance. Apparently there’s good ice cream too but we haven’t tried any.
