Lakes, Mountains and Forrests.....Paradise?

After developing a solid appreciation of the Malbec grape it was time to embrace the Argentinian summer and head to the lakes district for some outdoor time. The bus ride was tremendously painful, I'm not sure why but both myself and a Dutch girl i met on the bus agreed. Twenty hours is along time to be on a bus but when the bus stops at random places for an hour at a time it makes things longer, as does playing the same 10 music videos back to back for three hours (don't use Tramat is the moral of the story). However the last couple of hours went some way towards redeeming the trip with amazing views of lakes on one side and mountains on the other that continued all the way into Bariloche, the so called Switzerland of South America. This seems to be almost the perfect location between the mountains, the lakes and then the forests in full bloom, this is definitely a place to be outside.

The first day here was predictably poor weather and whilst the howling gale vetoed the biking option it didn't stop us from hiking out to one of the many lookouts on offer. The hike was pretty steep taking us about 20 minutes to go up a kilometre and the lack of a solid path made the hike down a bit interesting. The views from the top out over the lakes to the mountains were really amazing with almost every angle looking like a potential postcard. The view is that incredible that I will be amazed if even an amateur point and click guy like me can't come up with some gorgeous photos.

The second day the weather improved so back on the cards was the biking circuit 26 kilometers of lovely hilly roads doing a circuit around the forests and lakes. This was a really beautiful ride but was pretty hard work in a couple of spots with the hill quite steep leaving most people walking their bikes up. We decided to make our lives a bit harder and do the six kilometre extension out to the Swiss colony for lunch. The bad news was that required us to ride down a dirt road, the good news being that it meant some quite delicious empanadas for lunch with the waffles just not quite looking up to scratch.

My third and final day was my first solo mission here, taking in a hike to yet another of the lookouts, this time closer to town and therefore providing views of the town amongst the surroundings. The hike was pretty hard going with a solid 2 hours uphill through a combination of main roads and goat tracks but the view from the top was amazing, especially with almost perfect weather. I had planned to have my lunch at the top, I had not planned to seriously upset a falcon who seemed quite bemused at my efforts to take a photo of him in attack position as he was attempting to scare me from the area (I guess I must have been close to the nest). After his fourth attempt and getting quite close I decided it was time to stand up and upon seeing how big I was he aborted his attack run choosing to circle above me as I left the area - in the end face was saved my everyone. The rest of the walk was less exciting with a stroll back down the hill completing both the trek and my time in Bariloche this time. Approximately 2 hours south there is another nice little village called El Bolson that I want to visit with apparently better hiking than here.

Returning back after El Bolson was easy as this was certainly a idyllic location and if you wanted to rest for a couple of day this was as a nice place to do it. With a few days I hiked up to the beach within the Llao Llao national park which is a really gorgeous setting that seems to be mostly private as well which adds to the appeal. We also hiked up to sort of the top of Cerro Cathederal which offers spectacular views of the lake, town and Andes. The hike is a fair way out of town and a steep in parts but the it mostly suffers from the fact that it is easier to get to other view points that offer similar views. In truth anywhere around here that you hike upwards offers incredible views of the lakes and mountains.