Argentina Travel

To Volcan Lanin and back to Bariloche

May 13, 2003

Breakfast at the Hostería de Chimehuín was the standard medialunas (croissants glazed with sugar), small biscuits, toasted bread, jam, coffee, and Tang (or something very very similar to it). If there was any doubt that the hotel catered to fishermen, the tremendous number of pictures of men holding their prized catches on the walls should erase that. One from just more than a year ago was of a 9.9 kg (nearly 22 pound) brown trout. That´s a big trout!

We had decided the night before to head out to see Volcan Lanin, so off we went. We cruised through the Patagonia past fields and estancias. At one point in the road in the middle of nowhere were police. One car had been pulled over and an officer appeared to be giving the person a ticket. As has been the case every other time we have encountered police on the road, we were waived through. I still don´t know what they are doing or looking for, but I suspect that they may be checking for current stickers displayed on the driver´s side of the windshield. As long as I don´t get stopped, I don´t mind much, but it would qualify for unreasonable search and seizure in the US. After we got to an intersection some 30-40 km from Junin, it became obvious that something was wrong. We stopped, grabbed and looked at maps, and determined that we had taken the wrong road, so we headed back to Junin to take the correct road. Then 20km or so down that road, the map and the road didn´t agree. We thought we were supposed to turn on a road before we got to a certain river, but we crossed the river before there was any chance to do so. Once again, we headed back to Junin. Just outside of town, we asked an officer and he pointed out that the map was wrong. Just great!

So off we go again, this time down the same road, we had just traveled twice. We crossed the bridge, just as the officer said, and turned left onto yet another unpaved road. Finally things began to make sense and we headed towards the border with Chile and the Volcan Lanin. About halfway there, we realized that we might not be able to see it because the cloud layer was rather low and it didn´t seem to be clearing up. Sure enough, we reached the border with Chile and we couldn´t see a damn thing. So we parked our car at the border, and let Michaela out to play in the black sandy dirt that covered the area.

After a while, we got back into the car (Michaela loved playing in the dirt and cried when I picked her up) and headed back. We turned towards a Mapuche village part way back to Junin where a sign said that we could buy things made by the local Mapuches. So off we went for 6km or so to the Mapuche village, which we found, but couldn´t find any crafts store - or anything that even looked like a store. We figured that since we were traveling in the non-tourist season, perhaps they had closed up, so we turned around yet again without achieving anything for such a long drive. We decided to head back to Bariloche and to stop for the night if it got too late before we returned.

We could take the same Siete Lagos route back or a different route. We decided to take the other route since we had already traveled the Siete Lagos route. I had expected that this route would be paved since Margarita has mentioned that the buses take different routes for the scenic views or for speed. However, this route was unpaved as well and offered views that were equal to or greater than those of Siete Lagos. Some of the views were reminiscent of the Yosemite Valley while others reminded us of the American west with jagged rock formations and high mesas.

Again, we stopped along the route to take in views and at one point, to investigate a cave. The drive back to Bariloche was quick and we were back by about 7:30. Instead of returning back to the Hosteria Tirol with its small room and very small bathroom, we ended up in a hosteria just outside of town (after all, we have a car) with a room essentially bordering the lake. Dinner was late at the Familia Weiss restaurant so we could try the smoked specialities (salmon, trout, and venison). We were forced to sit in the smoking section as the non-smoking section was full, but it wasn´t too bad as nobody close to us lit up. As usual, the waiters interacted with and entertained Michaela. We had smoked trout as an appetizer, which was excellent. For entrees, Margarita had a wild boar dish while I had a venison stew. The boar was dry and not very tasty, but the venison dish was awesome.

Posted by mike at May 14, 2003 07:16 PM