Bariloche, January 13 to 15

 January 13 – Today we flew to Bariloche, our entry to Patagonia. I had always thought of Patagonia as the mountains in the south, but it is a much larger area, encompassing the lakes region of Chile and Argentina as well as the southern mountains. Our hotel was beautiful, overlooking Lago Nahuel Huapi, a bit outside of town. Alex sent us off in 4 different taxis for our orientation walk in town and each taxi dumped us someplace different, so there was a bit of panic while we tried to figure out where everyone was. The town looks very Swiss, due to the preponderance of immigrants from Switzerland, Austria, and Germany. There are several chocolate factories here too. We had dinner in town with several others from our group, then decided to walk back to the hotel. 

The view of Lago Nahuel Huapi, from our lovely hotel, Villa Huinid

The weather was really quite nice – much warmer than expected, but that created its own difficulties. When we left the US, the forecasts for areas outside of Santiago and Buenos Aires was mid 50s and rainy, so we were ready for the worst. We ended up with one entire large suitcase with warm/rainproof clothing we had little use for and washed out our 4 short-sleeved shirts constantly. It was exciting when it finally got cool enough to wear long sleeves! However, from the standpoint of photography, the mostly sunny weather was terrific.

January 14 – In the morning, we met our local guide, Marta Jereb, a blonde with European heritage. Our first stop was a chairlift that took us to the top of Campanario Hill with marvelous views all around. We got there early before the crowds showed up, and on our way back down the lift, watched the chairs being used to bring up beverages of all types to the snack bar at the top. We drove to a local park that featured a couple interesting trees. One was the false beech, a tree that was originally misnamed. A fungus grows on this tree, cutting off its interior circulation, so the tree grows around it, creating big ugly-looking growths all over. There was also a unique grove of arrayan trees. These are a relative of the eucalyptus and are found in many places, but this grove is apparently the single largest collection of them in Argentina. The bark peals off, leaving an interesting mottled reddish-orange color, and they twist and turn a bit. Very unusual looking. From the park, we headed to a local microbrewery for lunch. The Gilbert family has been making beer here for a long time, and if you like  beer, I guess it was pretty good. Too bad they didn’t do wine on the side!

Lynn and Jim at the top of Campanario Hill, overlooking the lakes

Lumpy beech trees

Arrayan tree

Learning to make beer from Tomas Gilbert

We headed back to the hotel for an afternoon off and Jim & I signed up to do a raft trip down the Limay (Clear) River. This was kind of fun, but it was pretty tame compared to other river trips we’ve taken. From that standpoint, it was good for photography, but not so much for excitement. The river is not far from Bariloche, but the vegetation could not have been more different. Just a few miles out of town, the rainfall drops dramatically and suddenly we were in high steppes that looked a lot like Mongolia without all the animal herds.

Getting ready to raft....

 January 15 – In the morning, we met with a Mapuche woman and learned about many of the challenges the original peoples faced. The Mapuche were amazingly good at fighting off the early Spanish conquerors and were not overcome until there was a tremendous arms advantage. There was a campaign to kill them all, so they tended to blend into the countryside, marry out of their natural groups and submerge their historical knowledge. The people are now reclaiming their heritage effectively and fighting government efforts to eliminate schools in the areas where their children are.

Afterwards, Jim & I walked into town to shop and pick up our laundry. I looked at a lovely red leather coat soon after we arrived and decided to see what else was available before committing. It was clear that if I were going to buy leather in Argentina, I would be better off doing it in cash, which I didn’t have enough of for this jacket. We found a very good artisan market and I got a rhodocrosite necklace (the national stone of Argentina, also called ‘Inca Rose; because if its color). We had looked in 2007 for a pendant that was not outrageously priced and had looked on this trip in Buenos Aires as well – the one I liked there was $500 – no way! I was very pleased with both the stone and the price of the one we got –no where near $500! I also found another pair of earrings I couldn’t live without. I may have to purge my earring rack when I get home to make room! Since this was chocolate country and some of my SF friends are into chocolate, we also made a stop at Mamuschka, a chocolatier that Alex raved about, and picked up some goodies.  On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at the leather shop again (which was about to close for siesta) and looked at the red jacket, but I became concerned that it was too yellow a shade of red for me, so I passed (and proceeded to mentally kick myself for about a week).

In the afternoon, our group headed inland to visit a Patagonian family for riding or hiking plus dinner. They have German heritage (Haneck) and are hosting visitors with horseback rides and hikes while they wait for their newest venture – tree growing – to progress enough to generate income. Jim and I enjoyed our ride – everyone had to wear a helmet. It would seem that some of the US tendencies for lawsuits may have made it down here too. Afterwards, we learned about a popular drink called Yerba Mate. It is made with a bunch of herbs into which a bit of water is added. Some people also use sugar or honey to conceal the cigarette-butt natural taste of the herbs. The mate is stirred with a metal straw and then shared a sip at a time with a group of people. Water is added to the small vessel with the herbs. This is VERY popular and we realized that one of the objects we had seen earlier in the artisan market (and had no clue what it was) was a yerba mate straw.  Dinner was primarily grilled meat and wine was served from a penquin shaped pitcher that wore a bandana. I was quite taken with the pitcher and looked for one to buy on the rest of the trip.

Marta with the Yerba Mate

Jim and Lynn on our riding adventure -- helmets and all

Our hosts, the Haneck Family