Couch Surfing, Trekking and Biking Bariloche

The past five days I have spent hanging out in the city of Bariloche, Argentina. It has been a wonderfully relaxing way to spent some time following my big hike in Torres Del Paine.

I arrived in Saturday afternoon and had my first experience with an organization called ¨couch surfing.¨ Couchsurfing.com is a website similar to myspace or facebook that connects people across the world. The major difference with couch surfing is that part of that connection is offering up your couch (or extra room or floor) for the other person when they are traveling to your area of the world. My host in Bariloche was Santiago, a Columbian cook living in Argentina. His apartment is located in the center of town on the eighth floor, with a view that is indescribable. Also surfing on his ¨couch¨ (he actually had three extra beds) were Barabara, a Polish girl and Christina, a German girl. That night Santiago invited us to join him at a party on the beach by the lake with all of his friends from work. We all tagged along and had a wonderful evening drinking beers by the fire watching the stars shine over the lake.

That next day we all went our separate ways for the morning, each of us with different tasks we hoped to complete. For me it was running around town figuring out bus tickets, updating the blog and sorting out how I would spend the next few days. In the afternoon we all met back up to relax on the lake beach in town followed by a group dinner at Santiago´s place.

The view from Santiago´s apartment

My new friends at our group dinner

The following morning, Barabara and I had planned to start on an overnight hike in the nearby mountains. Joining us would be Mateo (a friend of Barbara´s from France, studying in Buenos Aires) and Nuria (a girl from Buenos Aires Mateo met in his hostel). The hike was up to the Refugio Italia, about an hour bus ride and four hour hike from Bariloche. After a final steep ascent we all arrived up to the Refugio in time to spend the afternoon relaxing there and taking in the scenery. During this time we also met up with another hiker, Nir, a guy traveling alone from Israel, who ended up joining in on our group.

On the way up to Refugio Italia

Nuria happily arriving at the top of the long ascent

A view from the top

Me diving in for a quick swim in the very cold lake outside the Refugio

That night we cooked up a wonderful dinner of rice and pasta and drank the two bottles of wine we worked so hard to carry up to the Refugio. After dinner we finished our wine sitting out by the lake watching the sun go down. One interesting thing about the experience, that we realized while sitting out by the lake, was that all five of us came from different countries that spoke different languages. The opportunity to meet so many people from so many different cultures is one of the aspects of traveling that I really love.

Drinking wine by the lake

The sunset over the lake

After finishing off the wine we all headed inside the refugio to listen to some live music (played by those who dragged their guitars up to the refugio) and met lots of other people staying there that night. I actually ended up getting in on a poker game with some guys from Buenos Aires I had met earlier in the evening. We played tournament style with rocks we found outside. I of course lost my 10 pesos (like 3 dollars) fairly quickly but it was fun none the less.

That next morning Nuria, Nir and I all hiked back down the way we came up, and Barbara and Mateo were headed further along the trail to another refugio. We took our time coming down, taking lots of breaks and enjoying the outdoors. I didn´t arrive back into Bariloche until late in the afternoon and decided to take it easy that night and rest up for the big bike ride I had planned for the next day.

The bike ride I did is called the ¨circuito chico¨and it involved riding from Bariloche out to and around some lakes and then back to Bariloche. There was an option to rent the bike out by the lakes (skipping the ride out there and back from Bariloche), which I did consider doing, but in the end I decided to do the entire ride, which ended up being about 70 kilometers.

I decided to take my time on the ride and make it a whole day event. So I stopped often, once for lunch on a lakeside beach and another time to do a chairlift up to a mirador that overlooked the mountains and the lakes. I was pretty excited when I finally arrived at the ¨loop¨ part of the trip because it meant that the traffic would lessen significantly but the scenery would only get better.

A view of the lake from just outside of town

One of the amazing views from the top of the chairlift

The ride involved a few fairly steep and long hills and while taking a break at the top of one of them I met a girl from Germany who looked exhausted and frustrated. I asked her how she was doing and she didnt seem to happy. She said it was her first time riding a mountain bike with multiple gears and was having a hard time figuring it all out. I took some time to explain to her the bike and gave her some hints on how to get up the hills, and we were off. I decided that I would hang out with her for the remainder of the ride, as I was starting to worry about her a bit. She ended up doing great, but was still very relieved when she was done (she had rented the bike at the loop, not in Bariloche). I finished my ride back to town and immediatley rewarded myself with a nice cold Fanta (my drink of choice on a hot day in Latin America).

A break spot on the top of one of the hills

Me at one of the major panoramic vistas along the trip

Unfortunately last night, 5 hours of so after finishing my ride and having dinner, I ended up getting sick and spent the majority of the night either lying awake in pain or throwing up in the hostel bathroom. It was the first time I have gotten sick during my travels in the last 3 months, so I guess it was about time. Hopefully I have 3 more months before it happens again.

I had already booked a bus ticket out of of Bariloche for this morning, and it took all the energy I had to drag myself out of bed and make it to the bus station. Originally my plan was to spend the entire day in El Bolson, a town 2 hours south of Bariloche, known for being set in the 60´s and full of hippies. I wanted to do a day hike in the mountains around the town before catching a late night bus into Esquel this evening. Because I was still feeling very ill this morning, I opted to change my ticket to Esquel and left much earlier, only spending a few hours in El Bolson. They have a really cool market there a few days a week and fortunately I was able to muster up the energy to walk around a bit and make a few purchases.

I arrived into Esquel early this evening and found myself a hostel for the night. While on the bus I met Michael, a sea kayak guide from Michigan, who it turns out knows a lot of the same people I do in the kayaking world. We ended up grabbing dinner and having a nice evening in Esquel.

Tomorrow morning I will be catching the 8am bus out of here and headed back to the Futaleufu in Chile. I am very excited to be spending a few weeks on the river and getting back in my boat again. Its been over a month now since I´ve been kayaking and I am beginning to have withdrawals. The plan is to help Jon out with an NOC trip for the next ten days or so, then spend another week or two exploring the area for myself.

By Sunday I will finally be paddling on what is known to be one of the best whitewater rivers in the world. I can´t wait!