 los caminantes by Sara Barth & Erich Pfuehler Greetings from Bariloche, Argentina and Parque Nacional Nahue l Huapi At long last, some news from your wandering friends. When last we wrote we were in Puerto Montt, Chile. We knew we had leftPuerto Montt and entered Bariloche, Argentina when the seafood markets,which are really just fly-covered slabs of raw fish lying on wood boardson the street corner, were replaced by chocolaterias that serve lovingly made chocolates, espresso, and other gastronomic delights in pseudo Swiss, disturbingly Disneyesque, chalets. And that is saying nothing ofthe ubiquitous gnomes (which weren´t alive) and the Saint Bernard's with barrels on their collars (which, unfortunately for them, were alive and were obviously very warm in the hot summer heat waiting for the rare foolish tourist who thought a photo with one of these poor animals was a good idea). We arrived in Bariloche Argentina via an all-day 4 bus/3 boat logisticalextravaganza. The bus-boat route was originally established for the transport of commerce between Chile and Argentina across the Andes. It is an incredible journey, but as we all well know, commerce knows no boundaries! Though the morning started inauspiciously with grey skies, we ultimately had a lovely day for our crossing. Along the way, we passed many snow covered volcanoes, mountains, tumbling waterfalls, tree covered ridges, and alpine lakes. The lakes were interesting, and sometimes startling, shades of milky green and blue from the silt that flows into them from nearby glaciers. The lakes and mountains reminded Erich of the Cascades in Washington State. The highlight for Sara was her first (admittedly long distance) view of six Andean condors riding the thermals above our last boat of the day. Massive, impressive black birds. They were thousands of feet above us, yet they still loomed large in the sky! A special welcome to Argentina. The fact that we had to share this beautiful scenery with over a hundred other tourists should have been our first indication that Bariloche would be a big change from Puerto Montt. Prior to that, we had largely been spared the herd experience. But this was turistas-acting-as-lemmings par excellence. We were amazed that the staff shepherded us all on and off the multiple buses and boats, and got us across the Argentine border, all without bloodshed. And in the small world category, we were actually approached by a fellow passenger who works for REI (he spotted our REI wardrobes from a mile away and pegged us as generous customers). Turns out he was originally from Spokane, Washington very near Erich´s hometown of Cheney! In the middle of the Andes on a boat with less than 300 people, we met someone not only from the U.S., but from Spokane of all places! A reminder that the world is big, but not that big... It is important to note that crossing the border between Chile and Argentina, at least in the minds of the respective citizens of these two countries, means entering another world. Chile and Argentina share many things: language, religion, geography, climate, and parallel histories involving abusive colonizers, abusive dictators and abusive, overly dominant militaries. They also share a border thousands of miles long. Yet, these two groups of people really dislike one another. We are not talking about the gentle joshing that you might hear between Canadians and Americans, (norteamericanos that is). These countries have a history of violent border disputes, including one relatively recent dispute in the late 1970s that nearly led to war until the Pope intervened. The result is that border crossings are harder than one would expect and getting information about one country while in the other has proven nearly impossible. It is ridiculous, yet real. One Chilean recently explained with disgust that Argentines are like corn that you chew, but spit out instead of swallowing. We are sure we lost something in the translation, but you get the idea. More straightforward were two Argentine matrons who tut-tutted to us that Chileans had no spirit, no charisma, and were generally stupid and lazy. In any case, we arrived to find Bariloche, much like Puerto Montt, to be a town on a series of hills running down to water, in this case Lake Nahuel Huapi. But that is where the similarities end. If Puerto Montt is like Olympia, Washington, then Bariloche is like Aspen, Colorado. Clearly, targeting the tourist crowd, Bariloche is home to numerous upscale European style restaurants, hotels, bars, and cafes. But despite the veneer of Euro style, there are constant reminders you are somewhere very different. For example, your hotel room will likely have a bidet (which, being the classy folks that we are, we used to rinse the mud off our boots), but it likely won't have soap, shampoo, towels, or clothes hangers. And on the outskirts of town, far from roving tourist eyes, the underlying poverty is evident. The people that clean the hotels and serve the chocolates live in small tin shacks that can't possibly stay warm in the cold Andean winters. Though the touristy areas of Bariloche showed little obvious evidence of the economic crisis that has slammed Argentina for the last few years, we know from our conversations with people that suffering is occurring. We feel that there are subtle, and not so subtle, differences in the way Chile and Argentina view the world. Chile is like the down to earth blue collar guy from Macomb County, Michigan who works hard to make a living and is just trying to get by - with few pretensions, little concern about how others view them, and only passing interest in much beyond their day-to-day priorities of work, family and local community. Meanwhile, Argentina is like the woman with hand knitted covers for her extra roll of toilet paper, a slightly outdated wardrobe, and overly gaudy makeup. She is always worried about the impression she is going to make on others, always striving to appear more worldly and more sophisticated than she really is, and always looking beyond her neighborhood, even beyond her country for ideas about how to live life. The Argentines have long viewed themselves as superior to the Chileans - they prided themselves on being more worldly, more international, more sophisticated, and more successful on the world's stage. This attitude has made the current economic crisis even more horrifying for them. Chile is thriving economically and recently was proud to announce that it had signed a groundbreaking economic trade agreement with the United States (which given their strong economy and good infrastructure may not have been such a bad agreement after all). Meanwhile, international investors in Argentina have bailed, the economy is a shambles, and there is no sign of recovery any time in the near future. Setting all of that aside, we were in Bariloche to trek, and trek we did. In many ways, our first trekking experience in Argentina was too painful (both physically and psychologically) to re-tell, but that's what these e-mails are all about, right? We headed from Bariloche, on a local bus, to Cerro Catedral (Cerro means something like mountain top or ridge) for what our guidebook described as a ¨relatively easy four-hour walk to Club Andino´s Refugio Emilio Frey.¨ Of course, the trek proved to be neither easy nor only four hours. After the first four hours (yes, as it turns out the book meant four hours one way), of what was actually relatively easy and scenic hiking, we made it to a small wooden hut (Refugio Frey) along a lovely ridge near a small alpine lake. We then made the mistake of listening to the shaggy mountain man who lives year round in that hut when he told us that we could easily go back down a different, ¨easy¨ route. Hah! Let's just say that we spent, in total that day, over 10 hours walking, crawling, climbing, sliding, etc. on rocks that we should never have been on without ropes, helmets, picks, etc. Thankfully our mothers didn't see this and thankfully we survived it so we can now laugh at our idiocy. We literally climbed a mountain and proceeded to walk along its ridge for several hours. Now that it is over, we can tell you that the scenery was breathtaking. But while we were in the midst of it, we were too busy uttering curses against aforementioned shaggy mountain man to fully appreciate it all. The best thing about this trek was that we met Laura, a woman from Buenos Aires, who joined us for the second half of our odyssey up and then down a mountain. By the time we reached our starting point, we felt we traversed every inch of the mountain, it was completely dark (we stupidly did not have a flashlight or headlamp and have vowed never to make that mistake again), and the city buses had long ago stopped running. So much for our reputations as savvy travelers and hikers. At least one of us thought we were going to have spend the night in the dark huddled on the mountain because we were so lost. When we finally did make it back to our starting point, we were lucky to find one lone restaurant still open. Thankfully, the proprietor took pity on us and called a cab to take us back to Bariloche. While we were definitely scared at the end of that "adventure," we did feel like we accomplished an amazing feat. But our moms and dads need not worry, one feat per trip is enough for us. Frankly, one feat per lifetime may be enough for us. In any case, our next trekking experience was much more tame. We stopped along lovely Lake Mascardi for a short day hike. Getting to Lake Mascardi involved traveling in our trusty Red Fiat for an eternity on an unmarked, dusty, windy dirt road. But how magical when we arrived. Miles from anybody, we had a gorgeous lake surrounded by large old trees and nearby mountains all to ourselves. We enjoyed this peaceful bliss for about 10 minutes. After which three busloads of small, yet amazingly loud, children arrived (no, they swarmed) complete with fishing poles, tents and full of energy. What were the odds! We did manage to escape the kids and retreat to a relatively easy trail (this one really was easy) through an old growth forest along the water. It was a welcome change of pace from Cerro Cathedral. We left the kids behind, felt sorry for their counselors and took our Red Fiat south along Route 258. The mountain scenery was very Alaskaesque. Along the way, we stopped for a long observation of a large bird with an enormous red beak, black and white feathers, a brown tuft and long orange legs - a crested caracara. What a creature! Ultimately, we ended up in the small town of El Bolson at the southern end of Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi. El Bolson is described by our guidebook as a ¨hippie town¨, complete with a microbrewery and live blues music. Unlike downtown Bariloche, El Bolson is not a particularly well-off community. There were many homeless perros (dogs) wandering the streets and the cars were old and well rusted (similar to an old yellow pick up truck some of you may remember). Our big adventure in El Bolson was the circuitous route we took to find the microbrewery on the edge of town -- circuitous because once again our guidebook led us astray directing us to the south of town when the brewpub really was north of town and failing to mention that the microbrewery is actually more of a campground with a brewpub on the side. In any case, what was most striking about this microbrewery / campground was the picante cerveza that they served - beer brewed with some form of hot pepper that lived up to its moniker and was actually too spicy for even Erich to consume (or maybe just a really bad mix of tastes). There was not any live blues music to be found in El Bolson (and maybe never was), but the owner of the alleged blues club was eager to talk our ears off about various conspiracy theories - including his belief that George W. Bush actually conspired to make 9-11 happen so he could have access to oil in Afghanistan. While this seemed to us like the preposterous theory of somebody who had been drinking too much from his own bar, we have heard other South Americans assert that the U.S. orchestrated the 9-11 attacks - not to mention the earfuls we've gotten about the war in Iraq. On our way back to Bariloche, we took an all-day side trip to Monte Tronador. The trip involved yet another long, slow, narrow gravel road, but it was well worth the effort. Along the way we had lovely views of a dramatic snow covered mountain range. We also experienced the more gentle beauty of the Saltillo de las Nalcas - a waterfall that tumbles down bare rock face into a lagoon surrounded by lush vegetation and another waterfall that wins the best name award - Garganta del Diablo. At Garganta del Diablo, we saw our first fox of the trip. And finally, Erich got to see his first ever glacier - Ventisquero Negro. His first glacial experience was certainly not typical. This glacier is completely black, stained throughout by the dark bedrock that it has chewed into a fine silt. Our final two nights in Bariloche were spent at a blissful cabana called ¨Pehuen Bungalow¨ on the edge of Lake Nahuel Huapi. The cabana was like a small house complete with bedroom loft, kitchen, and a large barbeque grill in the backyard - all for about $25 a night. It is well known around the world that Argentines are very serious about their beef. But what we didn't know is that the whole barbeque/grilling experience is just as important. Despite great difficulties in getting the local storeowner to understand us when we tried to buy charcoal, ie. carbon, we deceided to barbeque in order to feel like we shared part of the Argentine lifestyle. And actually our chicken, corn and bread all turned out quite well. It is important to note that Argentine grilled meats, known as ¨parrilla,¨ are much different from ours. They don't use lighter fluid, propane or gobs of sauce, but they do use parts of animals that some of us don't even want to think about. Many restaurants specialize in selling only parrilla (grilled meats) or alternately ahumado (smoked meats). While Argentine ahumado products aren't going to drive Oberto out of the jerky business any time soon, we tried smoked trout, wild boar, deer, and salmon - all of which were fairly good. Our final Bariloche trek was to Cerro Lopez - which proved to be an uphill climb all the way! The weather was great and we had amazing views of the lakes below and the nearby mountains. Close to the top, we came across a gravesite. Evidently, it was the man who created the road up to Cerro Lopez decades ago. The road is now only passable with a Range Rover. We wondered what motivated this man to dedicate his life to this purpose. Whatever the reason, he ended up with a wonderful, scenic resting place. Returning to Chile from Bariloche, we flew over one range after another of snow covered mountains and massive volcanoes. It reminded us of our first flight together in a small prop plane over the Brooks Range in Alaska. We were further reminded of just how lucky we are to share this experience together. We wished you all were here with us ... and we certainly wish you well. With warm regards, Erich y Sara |
Bariloche,
Argentina and Parque Nacional Nahue l Huapi Torres del Paine Top Ten Ways We Know We Are No Longer in the U.S. Hola from the Chilean Lake District Erich and Sara's report from Puerto Montt and Chiloe
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