Bariloche: The Argentinian Lake District

After an enjoyable 3 weeks in Chile, it was time to head back into Argentina. Our destination this time was San Carlos de Bariloche. It's a nice town situated on a beautiful lake. The Argentinian lake district. We had a great airbnb with beautiful views of the lake out our window. We're also trying something different with this entry in that Jess got to pick all the photos and I got to tell the story around them.

The view from our airbnb!

Our goal was to do laundry here which turned into quite the experience! Our host was out of town and the guy that checked us in didn't know where the laundry room was. We finally found it but found out we needed tokens to use. A day later we had tokens but found out we didn't have the key to the room. That took another day. When we finally went to do laundry we didn't end up having enough tokens so we had the entire apartment covered in clothes for a night trying to get them to dry before we left early the following morning!

That experience aside, we had a lot of fun here. Our first day we set off to do some hiking out in Llao Llao. There was a bus that left from just outside our place that would take us out there. We bought our bus passes along with some pastries and set off on the road to Llao Llao.

How can you pick just one!

We built our own little circuit to hike using a variety of different trails in the area. The first walk was through the Arrayan forest, which was native to the area. It was a very twisted looking tree with a unique reddish-brown color which really made it stand out. The trail then had a path out onto a lake where we walked along the beach for a bit. 

Immediately regretting letting Jess pick the photos

Selection of shots from our Llao Llao hike

After completing the Arrayan pathway, we crossed the street and headed over onto the Llao Llao circuit, which culminated in a climb of cerro Llao Llao which offered beautiful views of multiple lakes in the area including Lago Nahuel Huapi, the one we can also see from our airbnb. It was a quick, steep climb but the views from the top were our brief glance of what was to come as we moved deeper into Patagonia. We also saw our first condor.

A views of the lakes from atop cerro Llao Llao

 After completing our little circuit we returned back to our place to have some dinner and plan out our next day. We decided to take a hike up to refugio Frey. This was the first hut in a network of trails which created a multi-day trek in the area. The trailhead for this route was actually at the ski resort of Catedral. We caught another bus out front of our place and headed off. Given that it was the summer, there wasn't too much going at the ski area. It's always interesting to see ski runs in the summer when there is no snow. 

As a twist on our refugio Frey hike, and to make it more of a loop than out and back, we took a gondola and chair lift up to the top of the ski area. A short walk later, we found ourselves on the top of the ridge line, scrambling through rocks with a deep valley off to our right in order to approach refugio Frey from the backside. After a couple hours of blazing our own trail through all the rocks on the slope, we had to then scramble down a very steep section from the top of the ridge to a beautiful lake formed from snow melt. Once we reached that part, we had to then scramble down a steep set of rocks to reach the second lake. 

Looking back towards Bariloche from atop the chair lift

A sample of our scrambling and lakes towards refugio Frey

A panoramic view from the ridge looking down into the valley below

Don't look down!

When hiking it's important to pack only the essentials! Like a guitar.
This also shows how steep our descent was into refugio Frey

Refugio Frey was at the opposite end of the second lake. Once we reached there, we found a couple chairs in some rocks outside of the wind and set down for a nice lunch overlooking the lake. On the cliff face just off to our left was a climbing area so we were able to watch some climbers trying to scale the cliff faces as our lunch entertainment!

Refugio Frey. No signs of Lannisters or Starks

Our view from lunch

After lunch we refilled our water from the fresh mountain water tap and set back towards the resort. Our decision to use the ski lift was a good one as the trail out was a bit more traveled and a little broken down in some spots with makeshift bridges holding things together. We managed to make the bus back into town without much delay (they only ran once an hour).

The valley on our way out

 After we got back, we cleaned ourselves up (after doing the previously mentioned laundry) and set out to see what Bariloche had to offer for dinner. It turned into a mini bar crawl with Bariloche's finest local brews. Our first stop was Manush. I had their red lager and IPA, while Jess had the honey ale and pale ale. All were delicious and we paired them with a huge plate of fries (chips) smothered in ham, cheese and chives. I think we set the trend that night because after we had them we looked up and saw three other tables eating them too! Dinner followed at Bachmann with another great red and some BBQ ribs! After a filling dinner, we set off to see if our clothes had dried so we could pack for our early morning flight down to El Calafate.

-Nick (words) & Jess (photos)