Bariloche

Hola from Bariloche, Argentina.

All is well - it has been a while since posting, just because we have been waiting to get somewhere with cheap(er) internet. Since we left Mendoza in the wine country, we spent an uneventful day in the oil town of Neuquen. Not very exciting, and kind of expensive.

From there, we went to Junin de los Andes, which is a small, sleepy town in the foothills of the Andes. The bus ride was quite interesting - the landscape of the northern stretches of Patagonia are remarkably like western Texas and eastern New Mexico. You can tell where the people are by the stands of wind-break trees. One difference is that there are herds of rheas running around (I chanced to look up from my book and see five running along a fence line). The ranchers hang foxes they shoot on the barbed wire - foxes can learn not to eat easy prey like lambs and chickens by seeing their dead relatives, I guess.

Junin is small, and I guess the people are a bit jaded by the amount of non-natives there. Melanie said buenos dias to the neighbor of our hosteria three times and each time he stared at us like we were from Mars. No matter, because close to the town is the Parque Nacional Lanin, in the center of which is a volcano (Lanin) and a nice waterfall where we had our lunch:



This park has been our favorite out of the three we have been to so far, but it was kind of a pain to get to on the bus. And dusty as hell. One good thing about it is that there are no RVs running around trying to squash hikers (and like most other parks, once you get 15 minutes up the trail, the ammount of people drops precipitously). The backpacker culture here in Argentina is very strong, with many, many people backpacking (nonecessarilyly as much in the backcountry) to campgrounds.




Then we headed further south to Bariloche, which is a largish, busy city nestled in the Andes on a lake. I can understand why people like to live and visit here - it is in quite a stunning setting. The downside of that is that there are tons and tons of people (now is the high season, when the Argetines have their vacation - the place is packed with people).

We took an all day hike to El Catedral:



Again, it is easy to see why people like to come here.

We have also been sampling the local beer scene, which is stronger here than anywhere in Argentina. There are several brewpubs, at one of which we met the guy who supplies all of the brewing equipment for microbreweries in the country. He will be a good contact for when we start ours down here. :)

You can't walk ten feet in Bariloche without seeing a a) chocolate shop b) ice-cream shop (our favorite . . .) c) an alpine themed building.

From Bariloche, we headed to El Bolson, which the book describes as the Berkley of Argentina. Nonecessarilyly a high selling point, but when I read that the valley was the major growing region for hops, I was on. El Bolson is sleepy and a bit run down, but still a nice place to stay for a couple of nights.

We hiked and had lunch next to the lake:




but the hikes were not as beautiful as our last two. Oh, well, because we then tried the big brewpub in town (El Bolson, with a camping ground in front), at which the lights went out and we had to have our beer by candlelight. Not too shabby. Then we tried the smallest one (Cavall de Foc), where the owner brews with homebrew equipment.

So, we are back in Bariloche now, as there is not much south of there that is not a painful busride. Sotomorrowow we pick up a rent-a-car and head across the border into Chile and some more parks. Then, we head to Buenos Aires, stay for a while there and then fly down to the southern most portion of Argentina to see some glaciers and more parks (it's much cheaper to fly from BA than from here).