Days on the trip: 270
At 8:30 pm on 7th March, it was time for our first mega long bus journey – a 24 hour ride to Bariloche, along the legendary Route 40. Unfortunately, pretty soon after we had departed, we were told that part of the road had washed away and we would need to take a little detour, but since there aren’t all that many roads in Patagonia, this detour added 6 hours to our journey!
After an enormously long, but comfortable journey, we arrived in Bariloche at around 2 am. They had fed us ham and cheese sandwiches continuously, so we were well fed, but not in the mood to wait for a taxi, so we walked straight to our hostel, through a rain shower, and crashed in bed.
The plan for our three days in Bariloche was pretty packed: Cerro Campanario with the Llao llao peninsula, the seven lakes road, and a trip to Cerro Tronador. And in between, lots of chocolate (a speciality in Bariloche) and steak. All of these activities (except chocolate and steak) required pretty decent weather… something we unfortunately didn’t get during our time there. So a change of plan was necessary.
Day 1 focused on chocolate. After a quick visit to the windy lago Nahuel Huapi, we went to the main street, checked out the window decorations of all the chocolate shops, and then bought some at two of the smaller shops and two of the more well known ones (mamushka and Rapanui). Obviously, the chocolate was yummy and for dessert: a steak restaurant.
On day 2, whilst repeating day one sounded fun, we felt like a stroll, even though the weather was still very unpredictable. We decided to get the bus to the rickety gondola at Cerro Campanario, where the view from the top was absolutely stunning.
Back at the bottom we hired bikes and cycled around the Llao Llao peninsular. Andi foolishly assumed that because the route took us around a lake, it would be flat, and promised Martin as much. But it’s fair to say it was not, and the shock took a while to settle. Luckily we had plenty of time, and when we felt like it, we could push the bike up. (Of course, only to take in the scenery more slowly ;-)) The ride was beautiful though and Andi certainly enjoyed it. Martin enjoyed the lunch stop at the brewery too.
By the third day, the weather still hadn’t cleared, so we turned it into a restful planning day. It was a shame to miss so many things due to weather, so we resolved to return in the future and plan more time in this stunning area.
After our rest day, we got the bus back over the impressive Andes, once more crossing the border to Chile, once more having all our bags checked (by dogs this time rather than a scanner), and once more were we held up by a couple of Germans trying to smuggle in a rucksack full of fruit, cheese and meat.
Approaching Puerto Varas, we were impressed by the Osorno volcano. It’s a beautiful cone shaped volcano with a pretty snow cap, providing quite a back drop to the germanic town. They had lots of German immigrants here in the 1850’s, and as a result had some German restaurants, kafe und kuchen places, and a Bavarian brass band. Andi felt at home… at least until Martin suggested we go to the Irish pub for dinner.
On our first full day in Puerto Varas, we took a tour up the 2652m high Osorno volcano. We drove to a high base camp, where there was a cable car, but instead walked for a few kilometers through the rugged landscape, climbing for another few hundred meters until the cable car ended. Here we had a final push to the snow line, after which there would be a much more technical and long (4 hours?) climb to the summit for those of that persuasion. The views from the volcano of the lakes and the other volcanoes nearby were really lovely and as we were hiking in the snow Andi got to throw her first South American snow ball.
We heading down to the base camp, and from there we would cycle for around 20km downhill. Martin got his speed and adrenalin fix! The brakes got pretty hot and we might have swallowed a few flies, but we had a fun time. A lovely day was to be rounded off by a proper German schnitzel in a proper German restaurant with proper German music and German beer. Okay, not quite. Beer: tick, music: tick, schnitzel: nooooo, Bratwurst had to be the replacement.
The following day we had a long tour to Chiloe, a large island and famous for its colourful houses on stilts, called palafitos. We saw plenty of palafitos and we also had some lovely walks around Ancud, Castro and Calcahue. Also, we saw churches, the main squares of all the little towns on the island, plenty of arts and crafts markets, a museum with blue whale bones and an old fort (or the remains of it). It was a nice little trip, but also a fair amount of driving.
For our last day in the lakes, we were planning on going to the Petrohue waterfalls or have a tour around one of the lakes. We also considered fly fishing but that was quite expensive. Unfortunately, given that the area is starting to close down for winter, none of the tours were possible and so instead we walked along Lago Llanquihue with some pretty views of the volcano, a freaky looking museum and then went bowling. A few days earlier Martin had complained that we hadn’t been bowling in ages, so this was the chance to get him his fix. It was a tiny little bowling alley with probably the noisiest machinery we have ever heard. And despite it being daylight outside, inside everything was pretty dark with the lane and the pins lit up.
We had a bit more time to chill in the hostel that night before it was then time to get our next overnight bus and leave the lake region.
Road Monkeys 