Bariloche, El Bolson, Hielo Azul: Argentinian Patagonia

Posted on December 18, 2011 by zkruz

November 15th-21st

From all the hitch hiking I did on the coast I was inspired to hitch hike to my next destination, Bariloche Argentina. I had to take two buses to get to near the prison to the south of Valdivia. I made it there no problem and within a matter of minutes I got picked up by a truck driver with a very thick Chilean accent. I could still converse some words with him but he ended up calling his cousin who could speak English to talk with me and tell me he was going to Paillaco and needed to drop me off on the route 5 to Osorno. I got picked up literally right away by a girl from Valdivia who was excited to practice english bit didn’t really know much so i got to practice spanish more. She and he dad worked building hospitals and i noticed a big hospital being built in Corral when we were there and she was heading to osorno for another hospital project. She didn’t have faith that i would make it to bariloche and wanted to drop me off at the bus station. I told her it wouldn’t be a problem and i had lots of time. She droped me off at the intersection that led to the Argentina frontier. I had to walk about 200 metres and wait about 20 mins but i got picked up by a construction worker working 20km or so down the rd. He dropped me off and i waited another 20 mins or so in the hot sun. There was very little traffic but i got a ride to Puyehue by some ladies who worked in tourism that needed to deliver some papers to resort just outside the park. These ladies were very excited to meet me and show me everywhere (click any photos below for a link to full album).

After they dropped me off I had a long wait so I just kept walking… It was going on 5 pm and I wasn’t entirely sure if I would make it to Bariloche. It was a very beautiful, hot and sunny day and I just kept walking with my heavy pack through the park Puyehue which was absolutely beautiful. I got tired about about an hour and a half of walking and I finally found some shade so I took a break. I had walked a long way and passed a sign that said 15km to the Argentina border. I had seen about 4 cars pass by me in 2 hours and finally 3 cars came at once and one of them stopped to pick me up. It was Pablo and he was argentinian and heading directly to bariloche. He knew no english but I was able to converse with him using my pen and paper and my offline translation app on my iPod. I quickly learned some of the major differences between Chilean and Argentinian Spanish. About 5 minutes past where Pablo picked me up the lush green rainforest started to turn grey.

It was the result of volcan Puyehue that exploded in June of 2011. It destroyed huge sections of beautiful alpine rainforest in and around Nahuel Huapi National Park.

Even though huge amounts of ash and grey forest flooded the landscape, crossing the border was no problem. Soon enough we had driven around Lago Nahual Huapi into a dry desert like environment and back around the southern shores to Bariloche. Pablo was so kind as to phone my Couchsurfer Carla and figure out exactly where she lived. He dropped me off close to her place and I went looking for some food.
Bariloche is a hilly city and walking around with my heavy pack was no fun. I had a lot of trouble trying to get Argentina money and find a restaurant that was open around 6 pm. Finally I found one that accepted Mastercard and it had wireless Internet. I ordered a big sandwich and a beer And relaxed for a few hours while I waited for Carla to get off work at 9pm. I met up with Carla and she was so kind. We had a nice dinner together.
After a few glasses of wine I decided to show her my dry suit and she was a surfer so she had a wetsuit. We both put them on and she showed me how to dance the tango Argentina style in our goofy suits. It was ridiculous! Lots of laughing.

The next day I finally found a way to get money out and made my way to meet up with my friend Kara who I worked with in Mazama Washington with Outward Bound. She had done a mountaineering training in mid October that I was very interested in participating in but I had a lot on my plate at that time and felt too rushed to make it down in time for it. Oh well I still got to see the OB base camp and make some connections. The base was in an interesting neighborhood to the west of barloloche 20min by bus. I was originally in communication with Kara about climbing Volcan Tronador with her friend Bill but weather was not looking good so we decided to head further south to El Bolson and go trekking for 3 days up to glacier Hielo Azul.

It was a very nice trip with great weather. The map of the area was quite a bit off and the property owner at the trailhead would not let us pass through his property because he had not opened the campground for the season yet. He told us we had to walk back 3km and them down the river and follow the river back around to get to the spot by his property we could pretty much see from the gate. We ended up hiking back a few hundred meters back and bushwacking down to the river. This hike was great but it had some of the sketchiest bridges I’ve ever seen. The other thing that the trail kind of went more or less straight up with no switch backs so really steep up and down. The second day we hiking up to the glacier Heilo Azul from the refugio.

It was a great view of the valley and a more relaxed day of hiking

We hiked up and over more rugged terrain through interesting rain shadow forests of the Andes. We arrived down in the next valley and found the sketchiest bridge i’ve ever seen that led us to a campground on the other side of the river.

The next day we hiked out and made it back to El Bolson just in time to catch the bus back to bariloche. When I returned Carla had her whole family over for the weekend and there wasn’t much space for me at the OB base so I got a hostel for 50 argentino pesos a night close to $12. The weather was horrible with lots of ash blowing so I finally got some much needed relaxing in and had a good night on the town before I took a bus to Puerto Montt in Chile.

Playa Rosada & the Rural Valdivian Coast

Posted on December 18, 2011 by zkruz

Thursday November 10th:

After relaxing and cooking some good food for Natalia I left to catch an 11 hour bus to Valdivia in the Los Rios region of Chilean coast.

Friday November 11th:

I connected with Mathieu on couchsurfing in Plays Rosada, about a 40 min bus ride north of Valdivia. I arrived in Valdivia about 10am and took the expressa de la costa bus to Playa Rosada. I was blown away with the beauty of this coastline.

I had no idea how beautiful it was. I finally arrived at Mathieu and his wife Amanda’s place. Mathieu was from France originally and had been on all sorts of adventures from sleeping outside in the winter in scotland with nothing to working on sailboats in Antarctic. Amanda was from Castro on Chiloe.

They both live on top a cliff in a very simple but beautiful home. When I arrived there were 3 other couchsurfers. Juliano from brazil and Gil and Fanny from France. No one spoke English except mathieu so I got lots of exposure and practice.

November 11-13th:

These next few days were amazing. Lots of hitch-hiking, cheap empanadas, harvest and buying local clams/mussels (mariscos) and bbqing them up while watching the sunset over the pacific while sippin pisco sours, cerveza, and vino practicing Spanish. One day we hitched down to the town of Niebla and took a ferry across to the town of Corral and hitched all the way to the Reserva Costera Valdiviana. This was a protected section of coastline about 20km south of Corral near the town of Chaihuin. This was a beautiful place with hiking trails through the rain forest and beautiful beaches. We also went to a festival in the town of Niebla where we sampled some local Valdivian beer and enjoyed some music and an Asado ( BBQ). I really enjoyed my time with all these folks and I hope to meet up with them in my travels (click photo below for link to whole album).

Santiago, Vina del Mar & Valparaiso

Posted on November 14, 2011 by zkruz

So a new adventure began for me as I finally decided to take an extended traveling voyage to explore the world of Patagonia. I arrived in Santiago, Chile after an all night flight from Toronto around 11am on November 5th, 2011. It was long and uncomfortable but I left the plane with only a slight sore back. The time was only 1 hour ahead so it wasn’t that bad. It took a long time to receive my bag but I finally did and even though I was really tired I decided to take the cheapest way possible to meet up with my couch surfer in Providencia area of Santiago. This wasn’t so bad, just 1 bus and then the subway totally 2,000 pesos ($4). So I met up with my Couchsurfing host Natalia who was from originally from Anastofagasta in the north of Chile but went to school and has been working in Santiago in the travel and tourism industry. She also did lots of trekking in the Andes and was excited about outdoor adventures so we got along well. She works for Navimag which is one of the most popular ferry companies in Patagonia.

Although I was very tired we hiked all the way up to Cerro de San Cristobal and took the long and winding road to the very top (for more photos click any of the photos below).

This is a big park in Santiago with amazing views of the city and the Andes mountains which surround it. It was very hot something like 30deg C!

I was still processing the fact that I was in the southern hemisphere and it was spring and all plants and trees were all started to bud/bloom. Such diversity of plants and trees in this park. I could see in the same view: coniferous trees, deciduous trees, palm trees and cactus!

Natalia and I were quite tired when we got to the top. We decided to pay 1,000 pesos ($2) each to make in down on a sweet little tramway and rest before we went to meet up with her friends that evening for a pub crawl.

We made it out and met up Natalia’s friends at an Irish pub, then kareokee, then a night club where we stayed and danced with all the people in the group until 5am! I was so tired at one point but I kept it together and had a great time dancing to salsa, reggae-tone and other Latin music with Natalia and her friends.

Sunday November 6th:

The next day we slept in and I join Natalia at giant Eco-tourism convention in Santiago. Natalia had to work at the Navimag booth but I went and toured around collecting info for all the parks and interesting places in chile. I met many people and made connections for jobs and people to meet I the places I was planning on going.

Monday November 7th:

The next day Natalia went to work and I took a bus to Vina del Mar. It is so great how I can meet someone on couchsurfing and have complete trust in them because of this I was able to leave all my stuff and head off to the coast for a few days to couchsurf with just a small bag.

I Arrived around 4:30 after a half hour bus ride from Santiago and I went straight for the coast. It was kind of over cast, windy and cold so I just made a short stop.

Vina del Mar is a big resort town and weekend get away. On the heart of the summer apparently it is ridiculously full of people. November is still spring so it wasn’t too bad. I met up with Couchsurfer Patricia around 6 pm. She didn’t speak much English so it was challenging to communicate but great learning. We went shopping and cooked a nice stirfry.

Tuesday, November 8th:

Patricia had to work early but I made plans to meet up with another Couchsurfer, Raul. He worked for an insurance company in the heart of the business section of Vina. It was an interesting experience to meet him at his work and following him around as he delivered papers etc. He only spoke spanish so I had no clue what was happening most of the time. After about an hour of walking around we went out for pisco sours and the tour began. He took me to sevreral different bars and we tried to converse with each other in Spanish and the very very little English he knew. Finally after visiting about 4 bars in Vina del Mar I was able to return Patricia’s bike and Raul and I took a bus to the neighboring city of Valparaiso for a long awaited lunch of fresh fish and chips.

After we finished lunch Raul started talking to two brazilian girls at another table. He invited them to join us on our grand tour of the city. We went to several different bars, scenic vistas, and once Patricia finished work, we all went on a boat ride in the harbour and saw some enormous sea lions.

Wednesday November 9th:

I slept in and went to the beach in Vina del Mar. It was a beautiful warm sunny day so I thought I would relax on the beach for a while.

I put on lots of sun screen but still got burned. I took the bus back to Santiago and met up with Natalia once again only to find out she had fallen on her way to work that morning and broke her arm. I stayed an extra day and helped her around the house, did some cooking for her and she helped me buy a cheap cell phone.