After our first night bus experience, we spend two days in San Carlos de Bariloche to hike a couple of trails around the lakes.
We got to Bariloche from Malarguë via San Rafael, by taking a Buttini bus to San Rafael, then killing about 8 hours there, before getting on the night bus to Bariloche. We’d been on several long bus rides in Argentina before, but this was the first overnight one. We picked the cama ejecutivo option with CATA bus, which gives you a blanket, a very comfortable leather seat which reclines to nearly horizontal, a couple of USB ports to charge devices, and a screen built into the back of the seat in front of you, with movies and series to pick from, much like on a long-haul flight. It had the potential of being a quiet and smooth ride.
Unfortunately, the airco was on full whack for most of the time, making the provided blankets a necessity, and the row in front of us had a mother with 3 young children – one of which had a hearing handicap and seemed to have little control over her vocal chords. She obviously couldn’t help that, but the random shouting made sleeping rather difficult. Additionally, the screens for the first row are high up against the dividing wall, where pretty much everyone can see them. The kids had them on constantly, and so I’ve involuntarily seen most of Disney’s animated films – dubbed in Spanish – at least twice. The breakfast of some instant coffee out of a styrofoam cup and what looked like a pink Oreo covered in sugar (or a Jammy Dodger dipped in icing according to Heather) didn’t lift our spirits much.
Still, a solid 14 hours later we found ourselves in the Bariloche bus terminal, got a taxi, checked in to our hotel, and napped. Later on, we went for a bit of a look around the town, and happened across the best empenadas we’ve had so far, at Cerveceria Gennow (their beers weren’t bad, either).
Looking around the centre of Bariloche, you could be forgiven for thinking you’re somewhere in the Swiss or Austrian Alps. It is a tourist hotspot, and has taken to a very Alpine style of building. Bariloche owes its tourist status to the mountains that surround it, and the lake on which shores it is built. In winter, when the nearby slopes are covered in snow, it is a base for skiing; and in the summer, it becomes a centre for hiking, mountain biking, sailing, and climbing.
We were here for the hiking – but most of the trails start outside of the town, so we needed yet more buses. At some point we’re going to have to change the name of this blog to Bussing About.
The local bus system in Bariloche is easy to use once you know how. You need to buy a Sube card from a kiosko, which will set you back 140 AR$. You then need to put money on it – which you can also do at most kioskos. A useful tip is that you can use a single card to pay for multiple people – so there is no need to buy one per person. Each journey is 35 AR$ regardless of where you’re going. We found the Moovit app useful to figure out which route buses took, what the exact location of the stops was, and to what schedule they’re supposed to run. When you get on the bus, you need to swipe the card until the machine beeps satisfactorily, and it will tell you your remaining credit. You need to swipe once per person.
Trying to get on the bus for our first hike showed us just how popular this place was – the first one was already completely full when it arrived. The next one had more space (maybe because we moved up a couple of stops to beat the crowd) and we made it to Llao Llao, where most of the people seemed to head off to some sort of marina for a relaxing cruise on the lake. We headed off to the trailhead, which was fortunately less busy than the marina. The hike itself had one climb in it, so we thought it would be a good warm up. It turned out to be not only that, but also a good exercise in navigation, as the trail was closed in several places, and some sections didn’t match the map. There were a lot of confused people along the way, and here and there a few who had just decided to leave the trail for what it was, and go full cross country.
It did lead us to a couple of nice spots though, and was well worth the effort – we even have some pictures to show for it.
For our second day, we envisioned a shorter hike and then a bit of sitting around with a beer on the shoreline of one of the lakes nearby, but it didn’t quite work out that way. We again started with a bus ride, but this time to Villa los Coihues. We got off at the stop right next to Lago Gutiérrez and started a fairly short and simple walk to a waterfall, Cascada de los Duendes. The downside of having been to the Iguazu Falls is that after that, it becomes difficult to be impressed with other waterfalls. This one would have been a bit sub-par even without the Iguazu visit, yet it was still teeming with would-be Instagram models churning out selfies. We didn’t linger long.
Returning from the mediocre falls, we took the turning for Mirador Lago Gutiérrez, which is around 2.5km there and back, and 200m up. Compared to the previous day, this viewpoint was a bit mediocre as well, and we headed back down to initiate part two of the day’s plan: beers by the lake. The first option for refreshments got discarded on account of not really being near the lake, and we figured we’d stroll along the lake until Villa Lago Gutiérrez, which we expected to have more choice, and then take a bus back from there. Along the way, we did a spot of urban exploring when we encountered an abandoned hotel overlooking the lake, and wondered how such a property could go bust.
Even though the walk along the lake was along the main road, there was an unpaved ‘pavement’ and we got plenty of opportunity to enjoy the crystal-clear bluey-green waters. So far so good…But as we took the turning for Villa Lago Gutiérrez, we wondered why the main road to it was a dirt road. Further on, our confusion grew as all we passed were a few tattered houses on a sandy hill, with no sign of any kind of lakeside activity. Further investigation showed that this place can hardly be called a town – it’s more a haphazard collection of houses, either still under construction or old and with a ton of junk in the front yard. This collection is spread over a sandy hill, with a few dirt roads to get to them, and some shrubberies to keep them apart. With roaming dogs circling us on the ground and vultures circling above our heads, we learned not to judge a place by what it looks like on Google Maps.
Heading back was too far to walk, so we concluded we’d just take the bus back to Bariloche and get our beers there. Unfortunately, I’d made a slight mistake when checking the bus times, and the next bus wasn’t due for another couple of hours. At this point, our walk was already longer and further than we had wanted to do, and we only had half a pack of salted peanuts and a small bottle of warm pear juice to sustain us. Looking for a way to get to Bariloche without a 2 hour wait along a dirt road under the burning sun, I found an option about 2 kilometers away in Barrio El Pilar, where there was supposed to be a bus every 40 minutes. We walked there mostly along Ruta Nacional 40, which crosses Argentina north to south, mostly parallel with the Andes mountain range.
Barrio El Pilar turned out to be another dusty place, consisting mainly of some kind of farms, with absolutely nothing to indicate that a bus would stop there, or indeed that one had ever passed through it. We were happily surprised when a bus did turn up, in the right direction, bang on time. Its passengers were visibly wondering how two gringos had managed to end up at this stop. This bus’ route took us through the part of Bariloche that you don’t see if you stay by the lake. It has more of a shanty town feeling, in contrast to the Austrian/Swiss aspirations of the area just over the hill.
We hadn’t done any hiking in months due to Heather’s ankle injury, and the efforts from two days hiking demanded that we sat down for a bit. We gladly obliged, doing so in the first place that looked like it could pour two pints and conjure up something to eat. A choripan and two pints proved enough to make it back to the hotel, get out of our sweat stained clothes, shower, get proper dinner, and end our last day in Bariloche.
It had been more than two days since we’d been on a long distance bus, so it was time we got going again. This time, we walked from the hotel to the bus stop, stopping at Maleza Coffee & Beer, which turned out to be another contender for the best empenada so far.
The particular bus we were going for was an Andesmar one, and had Puerto Varras in Chile as destination. The drive took us past Villa la Angostura, which is another tourist hotspot in the area, but it looked like more of the same as Bariloche so we didn’t mind giving it a miss. The pass through the Andes here wasn’t as high as it was west of Mendoza, but still made for some gorgeous scenery on the way up. Officially, you leave Argentina before you physically cross the border. This is because the Argentinian border control is a few kilometres before the border. Getting your exit stamp is fast and straightforward, we weren’t asked any questions. Then you get back into the bus, officially out of Argentina but not allowed in Chile yet, and cross the pass, to try your luck at Chilean border control.