Bariloche and the Argentine Lakes District

Last stop before Buenos Aires was in Bariloche. I'd rented a car (strictly speaking not necessary, the public transport is quite adequate in this area, but it meant I didn't have to bother with figuring out transport schedules and stuff.

Even here, once one gets away from the lakes and the associated streams it rapidly turns into a flat barren steppe. I'd more associated the main body Argentina with the Pampas, but this is quite different.


First stop was the national parks office in the center of town. There a very helpful person gave me lots of useful information and maps and stuff. Later that night, the waitress at dinner was one of her friends, and apparently had been informed about the crazy foreign tourist. One of the nice things about this region is that the majority of the tourists were domestic (or at least Spanish speaking), which is quite a change from the very high proportion of foreign tourists in Tierra del Fuego or El Calafate

First stop Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi. About an hour's drive on a dirt/gravel track from the entrance to the national park one gets a very nice view of Mount Tronador and its glacier


From here things went a bit astray. The rangers office was empty, and the nice person from the tourist office didn't well explain which of the many paths were the ones to view the black ice glacier. She just said it's a 5 km up the hill. I'd thought it was on the walking path, and I should have just kept driving. Oops. Nevertheless it is a nice forest and I did make it over to the black ice glacier later on.

That is ice, but it's dark from all the gravel and dust that it picks up from the glacier.


And there were lots of little waterfalls and things all over. I'd wished I'd taken some more time in the national park itself, there were a few hotels inside the park. It would have been a nice break too. But since I didn't I wound up driving back after dark along that same dirt and gravel track for over an hour to get out. There were lots of hares or something similar along the road, but I'm not as fast with the camera as that.


Next was to drive around the lake in order to to Villa la Angostura. On the other side there is a nice park on a pensinsula 11km long. You can take the boat one way and walk the other. I'd missed the last morning boat, but a couple from Buenos Aires had overheard me asking for information and we'd chatted and had Yerba maté (c.f.). People are very hospitable in this part of the world, particularly when they're not overrun with foreign tourists !


At the national parks office they were really emphasizing this peninsula, which was a very nice relaxing walk. It's only 11km but I wound up taking almost four hours to do it. Apparently these arranyes trees are quite rare, and that peninsula is the largest remaining forest of them. 

And I finished off the last day in the area doing the Circuito Chico which is just a driving tour around the lake shore just west of Bariloche. I didn't stay at the Llao Llao which is supposedly the most luxurious hotel in Argentina. Also apparently from here you can cross by boat to Chile if you want to take a day to do that.