Bariloche hiking tour - day II

On our second day we continued our hiking tour to Refugio Jacob. The weather was perfect, but the hike was very exhausting...

"Packesel Joemul"

This was the first exhausting, steep ascent.

Laguna Schmoll

View towards Lago Nahuel on top of the first mountain

...and all the way down to the valley. There was no real trail and it was very steep.

Climber Eva

We came down that mountain..

The view on top of the next mountain.

Our destination: Refugio Jacob

Bariloche hiking tour - day I

The evening before our hiking tour we made "Parilla" (Argentinian barbecue) for the first time. The beef filet was awesome! Even a little bit better than in Australia...

Jo at the beginning of our hiking tour next to the Lake Guitarrez.

The first day was quite warm and the last bit was steep and exhausting...

But finally we made it and arrived at Refugio Frey.

The view from our campspot

Junin de los Andes

Back in Junin de los Andes there was a Gaucho festival in the evening. They sold lots of crap clothes, souvenirs etc.

But the Gaucho parade was nice.

There were plenty of horses with beautiful horse gear and gaucho-like dressed men, women and children on top. The national anthem was played and probably the mayor of the town hold a speech.

That is a "Super-Pancho": a hot dog with three different sauces and crumbled chips on top... disgusting! But as it is very popular (something like the "Döner" in Germany), we thought that we have to try this once.

Too much toothpaste?!

No, just the right amount to distinguish the super-pancho taste... our Australian 1 Dollar toothpaste broke :-(

Parque National Lanin - part III

After the 28km hike to the Lanin Vulcano we needed to relax a bit. In the afternoon we walked to one of the waterfalls, which was nearby.

Unfortunately the weather was quite bad in the afternoon.

So Jo made a tea for us back at the campground.

Parque National Lanin - part II

The impressive Vulcano Lanin

Jo is filtering water

Eva is crossing a dangerous river ;-)

Hearts on our way back to the campground...

Parque Nacional Lanin - part I

But we didn´t come to that region because of Carneval, we came to that region because of the Lanin National Park together with the gigantic Vulcano Lanin. After a 1 hour busride and a 1 hour walk we arrived at our campsite at the Lago Paimun. 

 

Here the Vulcano Lanin with glacier on top. 3747m. Of course this vulcano isn´t active anymore.

The campground with a horse and our Hilli and...

...a chicken family.

She was a little bit scared...

On our second day we started with our one day hike to the base of the Vulcano Lanin. It was a hard piece of work as we made 28kms in the end.

On our way we saw many monkey puzzle trees.

They were sometimes really big.

In the end we reached the base. If you want to climb up to the summit you need two days and a lot of experience.

The view from the base was gigantic.

Junin de los Andes

After Sierra de la Ventana we went with the bus to Junin de los Andes in the Lake district that is situated near to the border of Chile in the Andes. Unfortunately we missed in Neuquen our bus connection to Junin de los Andes. So we had to sleep in the bus station. In fact it wasn´t so bad as it may look in that picture.

But finally we arrived in Junin de los Andes... And it was really a nice little village. Here inside the church.

The weather was also perfect!

In the evening was a kind of carneval party at the main square... And one thing must be part of such a party: The super pancho. The Argentinian hot dog. Not really good and not really healthy. The one we had consisted out of a roll, a sausage, three different sauces and crumbed potato chips on top. Yuck!!!

Sunset in Junin de los Andes.

Hiking to the summit of Cerro de la Ventana

For our first hiking trip we choose an easy track to the summit of the Cerro de la Ventana. It´s an easy one day hike. We started in the morning with the bus from Sierra de la Ventana together with Lena a girl from Switzerland who we met on the campground.

Eva and Lena.

The Cerro de la Ventana is supposed to be the buissiest mountain in Argentina. So we were not allone and hundreds of people climbed also up to the summit.

Here is the famous window (Ventana).

We also spotted some wildlife: Guanacos. You can find them nearly everywhere in the south of Argentina.

La Ventana from below.