El Bolson & Club "Neanderthal" in Bariloche

The actual plan was to go to Neoquen to the Museum. I really would have liked to see the biggest Dinosauriar ever found as a fossil. However, it is 6 hours bus drive for one way from Bariloche, nothing for a day-trip.


This kind of kobold is living in the forests of El Bolson, as they say... El Bolson is particular recommended if you are into hippie cult, pot-smoking and hippy-music.

Hippies playing Tibetan style in the park.


View into the next valley, Rio Negro.

In the night I took the bus home to Bariloche and went out with José to a club called "Neanderthal", danced like crazy to Techno... Alexandra, as well a CouchSurfer, stayed in the same Hostel. We met again in Santiago de Chile and in Medellín, Colombia :)

Bariloche, Refugio San Martin, Valley Casa de Piedra

The next day the weather was not as sunny, which was a release for the hiking. Leonardo decided to get the same track home as we came, as he had to hurry to get back to Buenos Aires for work.

Josue´s American colleague Natish from the hostel was hiking in the evening to the same refugio. This is him "boldering" (rock-climing sidewards so no need for security) in the early morning hours, close to the Refugio Frey:


Yes, exactly, all the way down through this dirt just to get up again on the very end of other side. :)


From the next edge: Refugio San Martin (hard to be seen on the button right of Laguna Jacob). It's nicer, bigger, less people, but no El Torre. I cooked there my Pasta for Lunch and continued home to Bariloche the same day.


Valley Casa de Piedra:
Crossing just before a waterfall. I took a small bath. Freezing :)

Valley Casa de Piedra, very beautiful, relatively easy to hike and recommended very much by myself!

Arriving on the first dirt-road I auto-stoped. The first car passing took me with him until the city boarder of Bariloche where I could take a bus to the Hostel. A perfect trip.

I was proud to have made it, as two days are recommended for the hike that I did in only one.

Bariloche, Villa Cathedral, Refugio Frey, El Torre Principal

Leonardo and me on our way to Villa Cathedral, which is 20 kms from Bariloche and about 900 meters above sea-level.


The ski-industry in Villa Cathedral.


The path around the first mountain to reach the valley; a bushfire had distroyed all the trees some years ago.


In the valley I rich forrest appears! I love the smell!


700 meters higher at the Refugio Frey. You can camp for free, use the kitchen for 15 pesos, get a matress for 30 Pesos and an all-inclusive for 90 Pesos, with 3 course meal and breakfast.


The view from my matress: Laguna Toncek and El Torre Grande.


On the button left the valley where Refugio Frey and Laguna Toncek are located.


On the way to El Torre Grande (2405m). See the last step before the peak from the right side, to right of my hand waving hello to my Mum. Until there we walked or rather climped.

Just 50 metres below the peak, our highest point, and higher than everything in 30 km distance, view on LLao-LLoa.

You might have to click on the picture to enlarge: A Condor flew over us when we reached the highest point. In the distance are four other Condors, which can hardly been see on the picture.

The view down to Lago Gutierrez, the white line is road to Bariloche. Above my head the grey field: The city of Bariloche. I point on the shadow in the forrest of El Torre Principal.

In the distance the only higher mountain in this region, covered all year with snow, about 3500 metres above sea-level. That's already Chile.

To be honest, after hiking in Ushuia I did not feel the kick of experiencing nature as hard as it used to be. But this hike that day was the most dangerous but as well one of the most beautiful nature experiences in my life.

Later in Chile, the DVD backup of my pictures from that hike broke. Therefore those, which I uploaded the same week as the hike, are my only memory.

Bariloche, Cerro Otto

View from Cerro Otto

I actually found the Fun Patagonia Hostel by contacting my fellow CouchSurfing Nomadic Ambassador Josue, a Mexican who could not offer a couch, but works in this Hostel while stranded in Bariloche for the last three month. A very friendly, very nice and funny chap that I was able to spend quite some time with.

As almost every other traveler experiences: Patagonia is huge, but there are some spots were all the tourists gather. There is a very strong tendency that the majority of these tourists are 19-24 years old Israelis, who just finished their military service. It's a tradition. As there are problems in Spain of Germans traveling in groups, similar behaviour is seen by Israelis in Patagonia. Well, and the Fun Patagonia Hostel is recommended in the Isrelian Lonely Planet. Hope you got an idea :)

Being deadly racked from over 30 hour bus ride I had my first laugh with Josue when checking in. Afterwards I hiked "Cerro Otto", more or less the house mountain. They have a ski-lift (which stopped working that day 5 minutes before I arrived). The mountain is 1405, while the "Lago Nahuel Huapi" is at about 700 meters above sealevel. The path below the lift was extremly dusty-dirty, extremely steep and the feet sung in the dust,... bad grip, no pleasure.

However, just when I reached the peak the sun set, I saw some birds hunting insects. I returned to the city via a dirt-road. Again my head-lamp did a great job, one of the top 5 major investments you should consider for traveling!

The hike did the job, I had a great sleep! I shared the room with Leonardo from Buenos Aires, who invited me to join him on his hike the next day...

Arrived in San Carlos de Bariloche

30 hours on the bus.

Worst thing is the quality of the "Fox" movies,... Who is creative enough to write such bad stuff?

We were watching a movie where two hot blond American backpackers traveling Paris, get tricked at the Airport and kidnaped, forced to take Heroin and work as prostitutes for the super-rich... But one of the girls dad is a pensioned US special super agent and kills 123 bad Islamic looking criminals in Paris and all the French Police is corruptive, but there is a happy end, thanks god :P

The movie made me actually feeling bad, remembering my experiences with my theft in Buenos Aires and the Argentinean Police.

---

The climate in Bariloche was far nicer compared to the very south were I actually spend the longest bit of my travel so far... Less try and warm, just like a lovely European late summer weeks.

Carneval in Rio...

Well, Rio Gallegos :) Looks like a nice quite night out with the Argentiniens :P

I got invited by my couchsurfing friend Linchen to check her brother´s band, which was planned to play on Saturday. This did not happen, but there was a cool BBQ party at her cousin´s place and, again, I ate too much meat. And as usally, it is only meet. Just meet. Beef, Pork, Chicken. No Ketchup, no BBQ sause. But it does not matter, as the meet is really nice spiced and saucy...

Possibly because of some lost international futbol-games in the last decades against Germany I found myself to be challenged of keeping up beer-drinking... (Some reputation of Germans, but I should send them the Irish lads!) We ended up with Dosenstechen in the backyard and went to a bar/club untill 4am,... when I really had to go (The others stayed until the bars closed at 6am).

-

I have to commite: Argentinia 6:4 Germany

-

It was an extremely welcoming and friendly atmosphere, all dispite my limited Castallanio language skills. Thanks as well to Carolina´s family! I would have loved to be able to communicate better!

left Ushuaia

After camping for two nights I staied another relaxed day in Ushuaia. Well, for those thinking about the travling, Ushuaia, is very far away from everything. It´s hard to get connections there and it´s quite expansive. I was surprised how much the city is actually developed, compared to many other places I saw. The reason for this might be the cruisers, which bring thounds of tourists for some hours, which are flouting the city and spend spend spend...

The actual exciting thing was the nature, which is still kind of intact. Well, the glaciers are seriously melting here, the forrest grew extremely slowly and every impact is visible.

We camped in the nationalparc, and had a kind of a nightmare experience with city travellers from Isreal. There people come there, the more the nature will suffer. I feel partly bad of going so deep in this sensitive envirement. Micha and me did a atour to some peaks of the last Ants in the south. Not really hight, just some 1200m altitude, but starting at 300m and finishing at 0m above see level. It´s advance terrain and not for city travellers!!

We were very lucky, on the day of our mountain hike we had excellent weather, very little wind and my noise good again sun burned ;)

The rest of the city is not too bad, I found. The Yakush hostel in the centre was excellent, the supermarkets are full of verything you wish for,... the only thing is... it does not really feel like "el fin del mundo".

I liked the Yamana museum, the others were really bad (and overpriced).

Ushuaia = camping

I meet my travelbuddy from Puerto Mardyn, Micha. We are going for a hike and camping in the Ushuaia national park for a night or two...

Will have to update the blog at a later time...

Ushuaia, Terra del Fuego

Arrived at the end of the world, and I am very tired! The bus takes forever, crossing the border to Chile twice takes forever, the roads are really bad. Made a boat trip, which was expensive and alright...

Couchsurfing in Rio Gallegos

I was invited for dinner by couchsurfer Carolina, at their tiny place for 7 people, 9 dogs and a cat! The food was really good and everybody was very nice, openminded and interested... However, I seriously reached my limited of spanish skills. Thanks again to all of you!

Rio Gallageos

1- To the lost soldiers of the Islas Malvinas (Falkland) war in 1984, somehow political Argentinia pretends to have won the war and still claim owner ship (as well as for Antarctica)
2- Pre-Jurasic Dinosaurier
3- The winner for best Calafate icecream is Rio Gallegos!

Couchsurfing in El Calafate

The best part of Calafate was, again, Couchsurfing. I met Amy and Luis, with great chats, cooking action, cañjon hike, coffee, Calafate cake, some beers andlastbutnot least,... Mate! Great couple, it was a pleasure meeting you!

Pertito Moreno (the glacier)

1-3: Homo Touristicus

Well, I had a tour to the Glacier today and it´s really phantastic what typ of cameras are around. Those big once where for about 80% Nikons, from the basic models up to the high-end stuff. Same Canons, some Panasonics, and lots of compact ones. It was a lot of pieping and snapping digtal noises and "there", "aqui", "esta", "DaDaDa" yelling...

We did the boot as well, which was worth it. Well, the dimensions of this thing is just not possible to be understand by a human brain, and particular trying to understand the timeframe is just out of space for humans to be understood...

The bigger event for me was the glacier Grande next to El Chaltén. It was closer, colder, and just more intensive, more nature. Well the galcier Moreno is hugh and in our 2 hours we stayed a couple of big ice pieces well down with a lot of noise. They say it is still crowing, to me all evidance says something different. Olderpostcards from 10 years ago sho clearly a contection to the peninsular, which is gone since 2005.

Glacier Perito Moreno

El Calafate - 14.159 kms from home

1- I arrived in El Calafate and it´s a nice climate here. It´s locted just outside the clouds trapped in the Ants. The village is very touristic, worse than whatever I have seen so far. Well, it´s not a bad place, just very touristic. Me included, see the picture above

2- The homies in the hostel admiring Davide´s photo skills. He caught a Puma hunting a rabbit in el Chaltén. Hardly any ever sees a Puma! I believe it´s just luck :P

3- From my hostelroom I can see Flamingos, at least 30 or 100, or so...

El Chaltén, Cerro FitzRoy

1-When the weather was alright, 200m deep cañyon, glacier on the top right, which are dificult to picture, as they are so white, the camera does not focus on them in glowdy conditions.

2-"Lagos de los 3", hail, the jacket proofs to be waterproof

Today we went by taxi for some 12 kms, getting with our camping stuff to the food of FitzRoy (3700m high) and hoped that at some stake the clouds will lift. The camping was just no option - heavy rain and really cold... It gave me a climps of how the camping is here, as I consider to do the Torre del Paines in Chile, another 400km (estimated) south from here at the end of this week. I gave the idea up. We ate some pasta on the camp side and hike the major track to "Logos de los 3". The weather was just bad bad and no sight of Fitz Roy, who was just 400 meters away from myself, rising another 2.5 kms into the sky...

But the idea to see it, was cool too :)