Hola
So last time I wrote I was in Bariloche getting ready to go for another backpacking trip. Luckily for this 3 day trek in Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi I had great weather—3 days of sun and warm temperatures. Unfortunately I forgot to put suntan lotion on my triceps so they got pretty burnt. Lesson learned. Anyways the hike was pretty short (only about 18 miles total) but was probably the most challenging that I have done so far down here and that was even after cheating and taking a chairlift up to the top of the 1st ridge. Anyways the hike spent most of the time scrambling up and down along various sized rock, up and down a couple of different ridges, through a number of snow fields, down steep rock talus slopes (tiny rocks that cause you to slide with each step…not my favorite walking terrain), and through some swampy bogs. So needless to say I was definitely pushing my limit in terms of comfort level for trekking by myself. However the views were outstanding as there we mountains on top of mountains and a really pretty lake that was surrounded on all sides by high mountains and even had ice sheets floating in it.
One comment about Argentineans….they really love their vacations, the outdoors, and mate. January and February are the big vacation months and it is common for people to take 3 weeks off during this time. And one way that they like to spend their vacations is by hiking in their parks. Once again there we a ton of people on the trails (I think that they are loving their parks to death even more so than in the states), the huts that I stayed in were full (even though I was the 1st one every day…like everything else here they hike late into the night and commonly start hiking at 5 in the afternoon), and they don´t go anywhere without their mate and accompanying thermos of hot water. Mate is sort of like tea that is drunk in a gourd shaped cup with a metal straw that has a strainer at the bottom as the mate is just put directly into the gourd. Drinking mate is a very social activity and it is common to share it with all the people around. You see people everywhere carrying their cup and thermos so I shouldn´t have been surprised to see so many thermos on the trail.
The day after getting back to town I decided to take an all day excursion to get from Bariloche to Puerto Varas in Chile. This trip involves 4 buses and 3 boats and is supposed to be a very beautiful trip through the Andes. Unfortunately the weather didn´t cooperate so when I slept for portions of 3 of these legs I didn´t miss too much. At times though the weather did clear and I was able to see some of the mountains. I did get to see a number of waterfalls which were nice plus some monkey puzzle trees. This is one of the weirds trees I have ever seen…their leaves are really just hard spike like shapes and they even have these spikes on their trunk…definitely not a tree that I would ever want to bump into accidentally. All in all it was an expensive way to get to Chile but sometimes you just have to try your luck in order to try to see pretty scenery. Maybe next time here I will have better luck.
I decided to go to Puerto Varas for really only one reason and that was to go rafting again. Once again the Petrohue River had about class 3 rapids but it had almost constant white water so it was a lot more fun than the other rivers that I have rafted so far this trip. Couple that with another great day, a couple of snow covered volcanos in the background, a really good guide, and the fact that the river was a half hour from town (instead of 3 hours) it made for a great and highly recommended trip.
The next day I woke up and hopped onto a bus to come to Pucon, Chile which is where I am currently writing from. Pucon is the adverture center of Chile with the main activities being more rafting and kayaking and climbing a nearby active volcano. My 1st day in town (Sat) I headed to the beach for a couple of hours to enjoy the sun. The only problem is that I still don´t have a proper full size towel and the black volcanic rock beach gets really really hot but the water felt great. Day 2 was a trip up to the summit of Volcan Villarrica. We cheated again and took a chairlift up the 1st 1500 feet but from there it was still another 3000 foot climb in snow to the summit. With that said I was in a group of 5 Chileans one of whom was probably pushing 300 pounds. He made it to the top but our pace was nothing short of deliberate. The advantage of that was this was probably the easiest climb I have ever been on and when I got back to town I didn´t even feel like I went for a hike. From the summit I had views of 5 different volcanoes plus a number of lakes. The highlight though was when the sulfur-steam clouds cleared enough you could peer down into the crater and watch large sheets of lava being sprayed against the crater wall. It was really cool. The 2nd best part was the slide down from the summit. We were able to slide down the entire length of the ascent on our butts so it only took us about an hour to get down from the summit. If you need a picture of how this is done see the Antarctica picture of Chad glissading. Anyways it is a lot of fun to slide down 3000 feet in the snow. Last night I ended up going to a natural hot spring outside of town to help recuperate from my climb. This was an outdoor hot spring unlike the fancy spa that I went to in Costa Rica so it was really pretty on top of being really relaxing.
A couple of random things about Chile. 1. They really love their receipts. You get them for everything including when you spend 60 cents (American) to use the bathroom. 2. They definitely believe in full employment here just like they do in Argentina. As an example at the grocery store you have to have your produce weighed by some who then prices it. Same thing with bread and the meat counters. This may actually speed up the checkout but is annoying when you forget to have your stuff weight before hand. Oops you would think that I would learn by now. And then almost every store you walk in has multiple employees just sort of hanging out not really doing much. With that said though the economy here is booming and things are definitely more expensive here than they were in both Argentina or Brazil.
Today is my last day here and I am going to go on a 2 hour ducky (rubber kayak) trip in a couple of hours. I have only been river kayaking once or twice so this will be a new but fun experience for me. I will let you know how it goes. Tonight I am catching a bus for the 12 hour trip to the town of Valparisso on the Pacific coast. Not sure what I am going to do there but I have heard it is nice.
I am definitely in a hurry to get north so I will probably start seeing the main highlight or two in each city before moving on to the next place. I will jump across the border a couple of times in the next week as well. I am trying to make it to Bolivia as soon as possible so I can spend as much time there as I can because I have heard great things about it.
Love
Scott
P.S. I was able to post some pictures into this entry as well as the one I made on Jan 15th which includes pictures of Fitz Roy.
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