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Early mini mid life crisis and time for a change!

Bariloche…come on the weather Gods!

Posted on December 8, 2012 by bexbatorio

I’d delayed my trip to Bariolche by a couple of weeks and reshuffled my itinerary a bit as the weather had taken a bit of a dive. Unfortunately it had taken another dip by the time I arrived. Bariolche is Argentinas main ski resort, and the town definitely has that ski resort feel. Its known in the summer as the lake district, and the mountain and lakes in the area are very picturesque. Bariloche itself is on huge beautiful lake even if the town itself is nothing to write home about it. There’s a very definite German vibe to the place, and a huge number of Chocolate cafes. I indulged on my first afternoon there and real fresh raspberries covered in white and milk chocolate, just a bit naughty!

On my first full day there I went on a five hour trek in a national park to the foot of a glacier. It was a lovely trek, but due to the rain at times the path was more like a stream! I discovered that none of my gear is remotely waterproof, even my hellyhanson rainproof jacket! As we we neared the glacier we heard a massive clap of thunder, or that’s what I thought it was, it was actually a chunks of the glacier breaking off and crashing down. And as we left the glacier we heard more crashes, it would have been amazing to see it break and fall! I had dinner in a Mexican restaurant on my own, and ending up chatting with two Mexican tourists at another table. Very nice people, and went for a few drinks after and it was good to practice some Spanish again. Especially down in these resort tourist towns which attract huge numbers of tourists, I’m finding it harder to practice Spanish as everyone is European or from the states. And even the people that work in the hostels speak very good English, I am trying when I can to speak Spanish when possible!

My second day there I had some logistics and planning to sort, and also bought some warmer gear which I’ll need heading further south. My last full day I climbed Cerros Catedral with a few others I’d met on the bus from town. Most people take a chair lift, it’s only 1km high, and a quick fifteen minute scramble saw us to the top. The views were spectacular, but on a clear day would be even more so! Myself and German girl then managed to get lost on the way down, somehow we came away from the track and ended up pushing through bushes and trees and ended up at the bottom nearly a kilometre from where we should have been. No idea how we managed that! We then hired mountain bikes for a circuit named “circuito chico”. I don’t really know why it’s called that as its 25km of up and downs that in my book was quite tough going! It was good fun, and its good to be doing some exercise. The scenery of the lakes was lovely, and the sun even peaked out at one point, and it didn’t rain so we couldn’t grumble. And I promise I wore a helmet for most of it Mum and Dad. It felt good to stumble in to bed shattered that night.

It’s a bit of a pity that I couldn’t spend a few more days here, as there was so much hiking and places to see and the weather was due to warm up a few days after I left but I had a cheap flight south that only went once a week so I couldn’t stay longer!

Chiloe & Puerto Varas……grey skies!

Posted on December 5, 2012 by bexbatorio

After four perfect days of blue skies and sun in Pucòn the weather Gods reminded me of what I’m missing back home, namely wind, rain and cold! So the last four days have been pretty uneventful as I’ve dodged the rain staying inside a bit and not got up to an awful lot! The bus from
Pucòn took me to Puerto Montt. Its a pretty dour port town, and I only spent two hours here for a quick wonder to check the drunks out on the seafront, have lunch before getting a bus over to Isla Grande-Chiloe, which included a ferry connection. I arrived in Ancud, just before nightfall and went out for food, got back at eleven to a very quiet hostel. The average age of travellers on Chiloe was a little nearer sixty, as I think bird watching is probably one of the main attractions. And I do mean of the feathered variety. In the morning I woke to a pretty cold miserable weather, I also realised I’d slightly made a mistake with my itinerary for the next week and had lost a day. Apparently there are only thirty days in November..who knew?! That meant I only had two nights on Chiloe instead of three. I went for a walk out if the town a long the coast. I hardly saw another soul for a few hours. I headed back into town and checked out the fish market and had lunch at a fish market restaurant, the portion was ridiculous and I have no idea what it was, it was a white fish covered in a sauce of clams, muscles, urchins and other shellfish… But it was very tasty!

I took a bus later that afternoon to Castro which is the largest town on the island. If you google image Chiloe you’ll get lots of photos of colourful houses on stilts by the water, this is the place they all are. They are called Palafito houses, and my hostel was one such property. On a nice sunny evening it high tide it would have been pretty nice to sit on the terrace overlooking the estuary, but when I was there it was very grey and the tide was low so just mudflats! That evening I met up with a Dutch couple (thank you facebook) who I’d met previously in San Juan. They are travelling for one year in their BMW motorbikes from Miami, to Alaska, all down the West coast of America, through central and south, they will finish in Brazil in March. Pretty amazing trip!!! We had a very convivial dinner and it was really fun to meet up with them again.

The Friday morning I had planned to go for a hike but it didn’t stop lashing it down till gone midday. I had a few hours to wander round the town, market and port area in the afternoon. Lunch was very fresh salmon ceviche that was delicious! Caught and prepared on the dock. Chiloe is a very strange and different place to the rest of the places I’ve been to. There is a lot of mythology on the island of Chiloe of Trolls, whitches and mermaids. Unfortunately I didn’t really have the time to explore very much, but I was gutted I didn’t see a mermaid as November is high season for spotting them. I think the best viewing point was on the west coast.

I took the last bus out of Castro, and back to the mainland arriving in Puerto Varas late evening. After a couple of quiet days on Chiloe I fancied a bit of life, on asking the girl who was working at the hostel of any decent bars she told me that it was a really quiet and unfriendly town, and everyone keeps to themselves and it’s not very social. Filled with hope I set off to the little down town area and found a perfectly nice and friendly bar for a snack and a drink. It then transpired (thank you facebook) that a girl I’d hung out with in Pucòn was also in town so we had a few more drinks and agreed to hire bikes and go for a cycle along the lake the next day. The next day was even more miserable, rain and wind and bikes or anything outdoors was out of the question. It also transpired (thank you facebook) that the British guy I’d travelled a bit with in Cordoba and Mendoza was in town. So a bunch of us met up and took over the upstairs of a Pizza cafe to watch Wales loose and England do quite a bit better in the Rugby. That evening the British couple I’d been with the previous week arrived and we all went out for some final drinks. Getting up the next morning for my bus to Bariloche not so easy!

So a fairly uneventful couple of days, and I know I can’t complain about the weather as back home there has been flooding etc. But it was a bit of a shame that I wasn’t able to fully enjoy the places I’d visited. I still had a great time hanging out with friends, and it’s impossible to have an “amazing” time all the time!

Paradise in Pucòn

Posted on November 28, 2012 by bexbatorio

I’m writing this on a bus heading South to Chiloe after leaving Pucòn where I have been for the last four days. It’s hard to think that just a week ago I was in Mendoza were I’d been sleeping with barely a sheet touching me as it was so hot to Pucòn which has been warm in the day but dropping to around 5 degrees at night time. Most people might complain of this but getting into a freezing dorm to snuggle under thick blankets is heaven to me! Coupled with everything I’ve done the last week days I’ve slept really well, and after a fairly hectic week of Mendoza, Valparaiso, Santiago to Pucòn in four days I needed it!

Pucòn is 750 km south of Santiago, and is a resort town for a plethora of outdoor activities. It’s on a beautiful lake with Volcán Villarrica just outside town. It’s coming to late spring here, so still relatively quiet, I hear by January and February the place is buzzing, so I think we timed our visit pretty well. I’d travelled down with the British couple from Santiago, we arrived on the night bus around 11ish, by one we’d checked in and had lunch so we decided to take some bikes out for a few hours. I hadn’t really been paying too much attention and had thought we were just going on a light cycle round town. Luckily they’d encouraged me to wear a helmet, as some of the route was off road single track through bushes and trees, and a lot of it on loose shale road that was pretty slippy in parts. Also quite a few steep incline and declines! I’ve not done loads of cycling in my life, until this summer when I bought a city bike on giving back my company car after leaving work. I really enjoyed my last two months in the UK cycling everywhere, but is was all pretty flat and easy. I actually think this was my first mountain bike I’ve ever been on??!! Anyway I didn’t come off, and the scenery was absolutely stunning. The goal of the ride was to reach some waterfalls. They were beautiful, the water was so clear; it was well worth the two hour cycle to reach them. The return leg was down a main road which we had though was going to be an easy way back, but the head wind was pretty full on! We took to cycling very close together an alternately who was at the front to break the wind. It was a great trip, all though a bit further then I’d banked on…40km.

That evening I joined a group who were heading up to one of the many hot springs in the area. It was a pretty cool setting walking down some steep steps into a valley with the river running past. There were six pools, you started at the bottom and worked your way back up to the top which was the hottest. I think it certainly helped my muscles recover from the bike ride. On our return an Asado was cranked up in the garden of the hostel, a pretty nice way to end my first day there!

Sunday I had a leisurely start, had lunch with a German girl in the town and wandered around a bit. In the afternoon I went Hydrospeeding. I have never heard of this before, it’s pretty hard to describe so here’s a link.Hydrospeeding .I’m not in it. In essence your in a full wetsuit with flippers on holding onto a pretty substantial foam float in a river where they also do white water rafting….so yes RAPIDS! In my group there were just five of us, two Dutch girls from my hostel and two Swiss lads. We had to follow our guide down the river to avoid getting pummelled on the rocks or ending up in the wrong currents. I can’t tell you how fun it was, I loved it! Some stretches were quite calm but we hit plenty of really decent rapids. There was one spot we could paddle back up stream behind a rock and then onto a rapid that was like a wave that you could surf/body board. I was easily the best in our group at it all, I’ll do it again if I come across it.

That night I went for dinner with a few of the girls from my hostel but I wasn’t feeling particularly well, I had a very early night as the next day day was Volcano day! There were nine is us from our hostel that were climbing the volcano we had to be up at 6.30 which these days for me is very early!!! I still was feeling a bit dodgy, and not really in the best way after the two previous days activities. I was half thinking I should delay it till the following day, one of the dutch girls had some Imodium so I went ahead with it. We were kitted up with wind proof jacket and trousers and hiking boots. We headed off and were at the foot of the Volcano climb by 7.30 at 1400 metres. There was an option to take a chairlift the first stint for an extra couple of £$, which with the way I was feeling I did. I was now in a group with just the two Dutch girls and an older Belgian guy. Long story short it was really really really hard. I don’t think I’ve ever done any real “hiking” in my life, and walking on snow/ice and escalating to 2847 metres was not easy at all. I’m not sure why I thought it would have been. I had a lot of chats with myself on the way up to get there, also helped by the guide giving me his ski poles to help walk, and then he took my daypack off me to. It wasn’t so much the muscle work as just trying to catch my breath the whole time. I did feel like a bit of a useless wimp but I got there! At the top the you can peer into the Volcano crater and depending on the lava levels and the smoke you may or may not see the lava. On our day the level was low and the smoke quite thick, but just wondering around it was unreal. And the views from the top were stunning, all though I don’t think the Sony cybershot point and shoot has really done it any justice…. The one thing that kept me going on the way up was the fact I knew that going down was going to be so fun…sledging!!! It was pretty mental, and probably a bit dangerous, but awesome fun! We just had the little plastic seat sledges and carved little paths through the snow. What had taken five hours to get up took less then an hour to get down… Again bit if borrowed video footage to show it. Volcano sledging

We returned to hostel aptly named “Paradise Pucòn”, were we had Chori Pan with homemade Salsa and ice tea. I spent the afternoon sunbathing on the beach by the lake, it felt so surreal to be lying in the sun that afternoon, when earlier that morning I was up a snow capped Volcano in full on gear. I had a final dinner with the British couple who were heading off the following morning.

Yesterday my last day was a day or much needed R&R, bit of trip planning and sunbathing. Dinner with the German girl and a few drinks back at the hostel before my early start this morning.

I’m sure that in part it’s down to timing, and if I was there in four weeks time I’d have a different opinion of the place as it gets busier, and the weather was perfect for my stay, but honestly I felt like I could live there…just beautiful!! And another fantastic hostel, were I felt like I was at home after five minutes. So thank you Pucòn and thank you Hostel Paradise Pucòn and the team for a truly great four days.