Our trip falls naturally into two segments of Patagonia, the first in the north at ~40°S and then at the southern end at ~50°S. The southern segment is reported in a subsequent blog entry.
Bariloche and Nahuel Huapi National Park
For the prior nine months, tour groups had been unable to fly directly from Buenos Aires to Bariloche. First, the Chilean volcano complex at Puyehue had spewed ash to disrupt air travel. Then we were told Bariloche, near the volcano, decided to take advantage of the disruption to remodel its airport. Ours was the first week that air service was restored, saving us from a 17 hour day, overlanding by bus. This good luck, combined with mostly favorable weather, meant the only real glitch on our entire vacation was the 18 hour two stop flight from LA to Buenos Aires.
Bariloche rests on the south shore of lake Nahuel Huapi, our entry point to Patagonia. In the distance, one can see the wind-blown ash plume from Puyehue.
The area was founded in a modern sense by German-speaking settlers, beginning in the late 1800s. For much of its history, it was accessed from Chile rather than Argentina and even in the early 20th century, trade was mainly with Chile. It was in the 1930s that a real town began to emerge, built with the look of a European alpine town of stone and timber, a good example of which is the town museum.
Now primarily a tourist destination, Bariloche is also known for its chocolate. Debby received samples wherever she went - mmmmmmmmmgood.
As an outdoors recreation area, there are chairlifts and gondolas around to take people up onto the local hilltops for good views and access to trails. The peak in the background is Mt. Tronador, the thunderer, named by the natives for the sounds of seracs as they fall. At 3500m, Tronador, an extinct stratovolcano, is the tallest peak in the Patagonian Andes. It hosts eight glaciers and is the mountaineering highlight of this destination.
Note the following two pictures are of the same scene, the first with my camera, the second with Debby's new camera, her FOV matching the right half of mine. The pictures were taken a minute apart, so the color difference is apparently due to in-camera processing.
The hills are covered in an open nothofagus forest (distant relative of European beech). The forest floor is home to flowering vines.
We posed for pictures before descending on the chairlift (Debby was very brave!).
Our hotel was across the road from the lake and offered a nice buffet each morning. A flock of black-faced ibis would busy themselves on the grounds morning and evening.
Bariloche is located in and adjacent to the oldest National Park in Argentina, Nahuel Huapi. While zoning restrictions are in place in the law, they appear to be widely ignored as developers and locals keep encroaching on protected lands. This gives credence to Argentina’s rumored legal 'flexibility' for politically well-connected people.
We made a lunch trip to a local craft brewery and enjoyed three kinds of homebrew with lunch. Outside were some examples of an ornamental tree that is used around this area and is unlike any tree we northerners know.
I went on a hike in a park and the group stopped at a small lake to sample some local schnapps the guide brought along. The forest here is filled with a native bamboo and the guide reported a tall tale that the seeds are fatal to local rats who consume them in quantity.
Bariloche has a central plaza where people come to catch some rays on nice days. Debby saw two local women on a bench sharing a drink. She went over and struck up a conversation and learned they were drinking yerba mate, a standard afternoon drink shared by many peoples in South America. One adds sugar and a strong herbal tea to a small gourd and then hot water. It is drunk through a metal straw and passed around in small groups, a form of social interaction that guarantees a mild buzz (mild enough that our bus drivers indulged every afternoon we were on the road).
The plaza has painted head scarves on the surface, as do most Argentinian city plazas, to commemorate the places where the abuelas march for their disappeared children and grandchildren, the result of a dirty little war begun in the late 1970s, but with roots much deeper in Argentina's history. Several movies have been made about the desaparecidos. The Argentinian movie Cautiva is a story of the impact of this strife on the families of victims. [The military junta is attributed with ~15K desaparecidos and the leftist terrorists believed responsible for a similar number of murders, making it not such a little war.]
The next day we went to a local ranch for lunch and horseback riding over the open range. They grilled the lamb and beef in an enclosure outside. Eight horses were available for guests, so our group split into two sets, one hikers and the other riders. The groups met in the middle and switched places for the ride/walk back for lunch. Debby was planning to walk both ways, but it was a strenuous walk for her, so she opted for a horse coming back.
Note the stands of pine trees in the distance. There was major planting of pine plantations (non-native) across NW Patagonia in the 1970s. It is known these will eventually lead to pine invasions of the natural ecosystem, resulting in overtopping and loss of native biodiversity, together with altered fire regimes and detrimental effects to hydrology, soils, and native fauna. Oops.
We left Bariloche in early morning for the day-long bus ride over the Andes to Chiloé island off the coast of southern Chile. The route goes around the eastern end of the lake and then west over the pass and the border. First up was the Argentina customs. There was about a half hour wait before we were passed through immigration.
The pass is near the Puyehue volcano complex, and the ash blankets the forest there. The ash is cleared off the highway as if it were snow, piling up in banks along the roadside.
At the Chilean customs, a no-nonsense kind of place, we encountered soldiers and contraband-sniffing dogs. Four of our group's bags were selected for further search. One of our group, a Holocaust survivor, was shaken by the experience.
We then rolled on uneventfully for another half day, stopping for lunch at a restaurant with an attached auto museum. The collection was surprisingly large, mostly American, and specializing in Studebaker. The number of models awaiting restoration exceeded the show models, making my car renovation aspirations seem like very small potatoes.
On reaching the Pacific, it was a short ferry ride to our first Chilean destination, our hotel at Ancud on Chiloé Island.
Chiloé Island
Chiloé means land of seagulls in the Mapuche language. The people of Chiloé are called Chilote. They have historically been farmers and fishermen. They are a primarily a mix of Mapuche and Spanish. Potatoes and shellfish are staples of their diet.
On our first day on Chiloé, we bused south to old capital city of Castro, on the eastern shore where the Gamboa River flows into the Corcovado Gulf. On this river estuary are located the brightly-colored stilt houses known as palafitos for which Castro is noted.
Our morning included a visit to a wooden church and adjacent cemetery that is over a century old and awaiting reconstruction. There are many wooden churches on the island, several being UNESCO cultural heritage sites such as this one. The originals were built with wooden pegs rather than nails. Note also the ceiling of this church, which is built like the inverted hull of a boat.
I tested the closeup capability on Debby’s camera before catching Debby and René hamming it up as they broke into a jig. Across the street Debby spied a small interesting house, perhaps for two families.
We visited the main town square and then kept our noon appointment with a local Mapuche healer. We shared mate while the healer conducted a small ceremony for us. It seemed a blend of indigenous and Catholic rituals, all the while the hand drum tapping out a rhythm like a heartbeat.
The Mapuche culture is rich with mysticism. One myth is of a diminutive troll-like creature called a trauco that lures virgins into the woods and seduces them. So when a young girl suddenly becomes with child and without husband, it is certainly the handiwork of a trauco. Thus does illegitimacy become bestowed with a certain panache, a child with magic in its veins. This story may work with the neighbors, but I would imagine the family would still have a problem with the local priest.
We next caught collectivos (shared cabs) to the town market. There are three levels of public transport in Castro, regular cab, collectivo (cheaper), and bus (cheapest). Up to four people can share a collectivo.
We were each given a slip of paper with some local Chilean specialties to buy at the market, to ensure we interacted with the vendors. Rolls of seaweed were a popular item on the shelves, as well as cheese and fish. Debby and I were to find queso chanco. We discovered it is a delicious, buttery cheese somewhat like a muenster. It is a tasty filling for empanadas.
I also entered into big time negotiations to buy a single banana. After accidentally ordering one bunch, I notified them of my interest in a solo banana. Apparently solo means something similar in island speak, so I ended with a single banana like I wanted. I also bought a cheese-filled empanada. (We ate local food everywhere and did not get sick, although some trip members had mild intestinal issues.)
Debby liked the local knit dolls, and snapped a photo of two of her purchases being cradled by their maker.
From the market, we bused to a local primary school that the OAT tour organization supports. We were hosted with tea and home-made sweet pastries. Then the children each met one on one with their guests to show us their school. Finally, there was a dance exhibition by the students, after which each guest got to learn one of the dances with a student. Debby danced with my student (8) and I with hers (7) and we got a group photo with their older cousin.
Following is a short video of them dancing:
Next we went to a small local ranch for a curanto meal, which consists of several types of food cooked together under turf and leaves on hot rocks in a hole in the ground. Shellfish, potatoes, and vegetables are placed on the rocks and covered with plant material. Then meats and potato dumplings (milcao) are layered, covered with straw or leaves. When the shellfish release their juices, steam rises through the covering to signal the feast is ready.
The hosts entertained us by having one of us make potato dumplings. They also staged a pretend romance between our lone single guy and the matriarch of the host family. They both were very convincing actors and our laughter, chased by a few pisco sours (lemonade with a kick), got us in the mood to eat.
After the meal, some went on a short hike to an overlook of the river, while others remained to check out the knit items and other handicrafts for sale. There was also a demonstration of dying yarn, boiling it in a pot of water with green apples and leaves.
The following day we went toward the Pacific coast southwest of Ancud to visit the Puñihuil Wildlife Sanctuary. We climbed onto a small wagon that was pushed into the water so we could do a dry board of the small boat. The driver then took us out around some small islands frequented by penguins and other birds. My bird gallery has photos of some of the bird species found in this sanctuary (use the right arrow to step through, up to the double crested caracara). The water was choppy and the boat small, so the boat’s motion made a hand-held long lens of dubious value, but I did get some decent results, including a lot of penguins, a Magellanic oystercatcher, red-legged cormorants, and a chimango caracara back on the beach.
We lunched at the beach, then bused back to the ferry for our short trip to our next destination. The guide had the bus stop to pick up an elderly woman with a large bag who had been waiting in front of her small farm for the local bus for over an hour. She was delighted to ride with us in our big, comfortable, air-conditioned coach, and said she was on her way to Ancud to visit her daughter and to sell some cheese she had made.
Puerto Varas
We spent our last day in northern Patagonia in Puerto Varas on the southwest shore of Lago Llanquihue (yankee-way). Founded in 1854, Puerto Varas was the center of an area set aside for homesteading of German-speaking peoples from Europe. The town, in the Chilean lake district Los Lagos, is 20km north of the biggest Pacific port in the area, Puerto Montt. The town today is a tourist center and gateway to Vicente Pérez Rosales National Park. It is also a suburb housing workers in Puerto Montt.
The setting is spectacular, with views of volcanoes Osorno, Calvuco, and Tronador on the horizon while Chile’s largest lake spreads out before you. Debby gets credited with the nifty sailboat shot with the active stratovolcano Osorno in the background. Although only standing 2650m tall, the upper cone of the mountain is covered in glaciers, a tribute to the moist climate.
Our day trip was to the Petrohué Falls in the national park. We crossed the river on a small launch near the falls to have a home-hosted fresh trout lunch before taking the short hike to the falls, which are more of a chute for rapids than a waterfall.
Prior to heading for the airport on the next day, a group of us hiked the local hill in the town to reach a viewpoint. Our Hotel Solace is lower center of the close-up view. Seen above the town in the close-up view are social housing projects that provide less expensive living quarters for the lower-income workers supporting the tourist industry of the town, and also for workers commuting to the nearby fast-growing Puerto Montt. This seems quite a different approach to housing, contrasted to the ‘villas’ of Buenos Aires, although there still seems a possibility for segregation of the population into have and have-less components.
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