Pucon and Around (including Villarica traverse), Chile

April 17 - 28

Pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lotanc/PuconAndAround

Pucon is a nice, small, touristy town close to volcan Villarica.
The main attraction in this city is climing the volcano. This is a day trip - the climb up is a 4-5 hour climb, that requires the use of crampons and an ice axe (therefore I did it with an organized group).

At the top, there are great views of the surroundings, and steam (with a sulfur smell) coming out of the active volcano:

After the hike we went to hot springs (the volcanic area around Pucon, is known for the many hot springs it has):

Another thing I did in Pucon is hydrospeed. This is basically bodyrafting. You get a small boat (similar to a boogy board) and you go in the river with it. The biggest rapid was a grade 3 rapid. The great thing in this is the freezing temperature of the water. Although you have a wet suit, the hands and feet are still very cold. Those of us who were lucky just stopped feeling them at a certain point (luckily we were in the water for less than an hour)
Actually this is a lot of fun, since you feel the rapids a lot more than rafting, and you can actually surf some of the waves in the river. Of course if you are lucky a rock can hit your body while you go on a rapid (if you are really lucky it can hit sensitive areas of your body - this is why one of the rapids is known as ¨The Nut Breaker¨). Personally I was not one of the lucky ones, and I returned with only very minor hits that did not even turn into bruises.

Another day we rented bikes, and biked through remote farms to nice waterfalls. Being very lucky, I had a technical problem with my bike, and had to stop at some farm to ask for a tool to strengthen my handle bar. This, and trying to help an Australian guy with a hole in his tire, caused us to return in the dark. Now I can say that driving at night with no lights on the side of a paved unlit road while it is raining, is not a fun, safe, or smart thing to do.
Luckily we made is safely back (although wet).

Another day we went to El Cani reserve. A day hike through a nice forest to a beautiful view point. Wanting to stay and look at the sunset caused us again to return at night (after the last bus) and hitchike our way back to Pucon..
In the above picture the villarice volcano can be seen (with smoke coming out of its crater).

Villarica traverse
This is a trek in the Pucon area (in Villarica National Park)
There are several versions possible - we did a 3 day trek during April 24-26
Picture links:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lotanc/VillaricaTraverse
The crew to this trek included of (from right to left): Limor, Tomer, Dor, and yours truly.
The trek included hiking to (and sleeping next to) beautiful lagoons:

Hiking through solidified lava, great views of several volcanoes along the way:

Due to the late time in the year we had very cold nights and morning, and we got to hike through snow (although not very deep).


At the end of this hike we hitchiked back to a close by city, and from there a bus back to Pucon..

Staying in Pucon for another day or 2 for resting and running errands (fixing glasses that broke during the trek, fixing my backpack and sneakers etc.) the next stop is Santiago Chile (about an 11 hour bus ride)..

Chiloe and around Osorno, Chile

April 14 - 17

Picture links:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lotanc/ChiloeAndAroundOsorno

Having April 13 as a rest day (in Osorno) on April 14 we rented a car for 3 days and went on a tour around Osorno and to the island of Chiloe.
The team for this adventure included of Oren, Zohar, Shani, and myself.

First we drove to the city of Valdivia.

In the city there is a nice market next to the river, the sea lions are fed with the fish skins as they are cut.

Another important thing in the city is the famous Kunstmann brewery where we stopped for a small beer:

From there we continued through the scenic route (which is by no means the short route) to the island of chiloe, passing by lakes, mountains and generally great scenery.

The road we took is remote, which is great unless you have some mechanical difficulties (which we had). In one occassion a flat tire, in another just getting stuck in the dirt road, suddently realizing that about 10 local people working in the road are on their way to help us (we chose a good place to get stuck at..):

The visit to the island including seeing a lot of old wooden-style churches and houses (for which the island is known for),

visiting another small island, and of course having a lot of great sea-food - in one restaurant we were actually invited to the kitchen to have a look and taste the various things they were making - I now know that hygene was not their strong point :)

From the island we went back to Osorno to return the car, take some stuff we left, and take a bus to Pucon..

Parque Nacional Puyehue - Baños El Caulle, Chile

A 4 day trek in Parque Nacional Puyehue. This is probably the nicest trek I did in Patagonia. The highlights included hiking up a volcano, camping next to hot springs, and nice geisers.
April 9 - 12

Picture links:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lotanc/ParqueNacionalPuyehueBanosElCaulle

The crew for this trek included of (from right to left): Limor, Dor (a guy we met in Bariloche), and myself (here in a restaurant after the trek):
We took a bus from Bariloche to Osorno, and stopped on the way next to the park. A small mistake (made by myself) caused us to walk 2 km with all our gear (including gear we left behind during the trek). As you can guess this was a lot of fun:

Somehow, every night we turned up walking during the night. The first day, we started late due to the bus, the other 2 nights it was because we had great weather, were lazy to get up, and preferred to enjoy the sun. Although it is very hard to navigate during the night (even with a full moon), we still made it to where we wanted, although it took much longer (and made us make a few mistakes). But overall this just added to the adventure..

One of the highlights of this trek included hiking up to Volcano Puyehue, with snow in its crater, and great views including of other volcanoes:
Another highlight was the hotsprings (this is also where we camped during the second night). These hot springs are as natural as they get. There is a river of cold water and next to it a stream of very hot water coming out (as can be seen in the steam in the picture). When you sit you have to sit where the two streams meet and mix them together (moving to much to one side is to warm and the other is to cold). You have to constantly mix the water to the correct temperature that you want. Usually one side of your body is freezing and the other boiling. This is a do it yourself hot tub..The last highlight are the geisers, which have amazing colors, sulfur smell, and smoke coming out of the ground. Walking around the geisers was amazing..
The big geisers were like mud baths that were boiling:


At the end of this trek we continued to Osorno, and Chiloe - this will be in the next post.

Bariloche, Argentina

April 2 - 9

Picture links:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lotanc/BarilocheAndAround

We arrived to Bariloche from the Carretera (see previous post).
It is a huge change, arriving from the rural Carretera (and the not great food of Chile) to Bariloche.
Bariloche is place with great steaks, pasta, chocolates, and ice cream (see previous post for a steak picture, and what I ate for my birthday dinner).
Unfortunately we did not have great weather at the beginning of our stay in Bariloche. This made us travel less and focus our efforts on the important things as eating.
Trust me - eating a steak and then ice cream for dinner every day is not an easy task, especially not after having quit a bit of chocolate at 4pm as a mid-day snack (I had to switch to have some really good fish at one of the nights).
We still went to some short hikes and waterfalls in the area when the weather was decent.
Once the weather improved we did a 1 day hike in the near bye National Park (Nahuel Huapi). We could not do more since we wanted to be back in time for the Seder in Beit Habad in Bariloche.
The hike to the NP was great:

The next day we celebrated the Seder in Beit Habad. It was in a large hall and here were over 500 people. Though I have to say overall the atmosphere was dissapointing (and after the first part of the Hagada most of the people went home and only very few stayed).

From here we went on a trek called Banos de Caulle which will be in the next post.
But it is undecided whether I will come back to Bariloche, either in the next couple of weeks (to try and see some more of its surroundings, and have some more great food), or return later for the ski season (there is a very good ski resort close to Bariloche), or not return at all.. time will tell...

Carretera Austral, Chile (and Route 40 Argentina)

March 26 - April 2

Picture links:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lotanc/CarreteraAustral

The Carretera Austral is a beautiful, remote road in Chile going through Central and North Patagonia. The road is mostly very bad for driving (gravel road in which they seem to dig holes on purpose to make the driving more interesting).

We rented a jeep in El Calafate and returned it in Bariloche (it is very recommened to drive this with a jeep, although possible also with a private car) for a week and went to drive through the Carretera.

The team for this adventure included (from left to right in the picture): Oren´s cousin - Lior, Oren, Limor (a girl we met hiking in the Fitzroy) who joined us , and yours truly.

The drive started in Argentina via Route 40, which is also mostly a gravel road, and where the views are more of a desert then we went into Chile to drive through the Carretera Austral which has more of the green trees and mountains (also with a changing scenery during the drive). Driving this road directly is about 1800 km. Since we made several detours that are not on the way, we drove around 2300 km..

There are many highlights on the way. One of the biggest highlights is the road itself. It is a beautful road, where you see many Estancias (farms) on the way, different types of animals, great mountains, lagoons, rivers etc.

On the way we did several hikes (or just short stops) to see mountains, lakes, rainbows, a hanging glacier etc.

We camped in several places, and slept in hostels.

The way was not always easy:

But I have to say that we got along very well and had a great time..

Another highlight was rafting on the Futaleufu river.

This is what lonely planet has to say about this river:

¨To rafters and kayakers the 'Fu' or 'Futa' river has the same significance Las Leñas has for skiers, Rio has for beach bums, Aconcagua has for climbers, or Buenos Aires has for fashionistas - it's simply South America's best. The crystalline blue and impressively wild waters attract more rafting enthusiasts and kayak-toting travelers every year.¨

After reading this we had to go rafting on the Futa river. It included rapid levels 3,4, and 5 and it was really amazing!!

We also stopped at what used to be a small city called Chaiten, at the north part of the Carretera. This city is next to a volcano that erupted last year. Although nobody was hurt, the river that goes in the city brought a lot of ashes from the volcano to the river, and it covered the city. Today most of the city is covered in ashes (and nobody lives there). This was very interesting (and sad) to see:

We finished the Carretera and arrived at Bariloche on April 2nd (my birthday). Bariloche and its surrounding will be in the next post, but I will just say that it is a great place to celebrate a birthday. It is known for its steaks, ice-creams, and chocolates.

For my birthday dinner I had a 500 gram steak with mashed potatoes followed by 1/4 liter of ice-cream. After that they (the Carretera team together with Yoni Ofir and his brother whom we met in Bariloche) had to carry me (because I couldn´t really move) to a bar / club to continue the party..

This is my steak:

El Calafate & El Chalten, Argentina

El Chalten & Mount Fitzroy
March 21 - 24
Picture Links:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lotanc/Fitzroyandperitomorenoglacier

From Puerto Natales we took a bus to El Calafate (several hours) and then changed to another bus to continue to El Chalten (another 3 hours).

El Chalten is a small city located in Los Glaciares National Park. Next to it is the tallest mountain in the area - Mt. Fitzroy.

Trying to avoid the major crowds (that do either a 1 or 2 day trek to the bottom of the mountain) we decided on a 3 day trek that goes also to the north side of the mountain, and goes up to a climbers base camp which has great views of the mountain:

At night we slept in a great camp-site (though this camp-site costs money, causing this area not to be visited as much by tourists in general and specifically Israelis). There were others in the camp site, but not many.. The next day we went to the area which is more popular for hikers and went up to the lagoon underneath the Fitzroy (it was a beautiful day and we had great views). We camped not far from the lagoon (about 45 minutes).

In the Fitzroy as in the Torres, they say it is great to see it during sunrise. This time (after learning the lesson in the Torres) we decided not to hike up to the lagoon in sunrise (also since we saw it the day before), but to see the mountain from our camp site (in this case, which is not so in the Torres, it is possible to see the mountain from the camp site). Getting up early it was cloudy and we did not see much. We were content with our decision not to hike up..
The third day we did not have such luck with the weather, and it was pretty cloudy.

p.s. When we were up in the climbers base camp, we decided to climb up to the Fitzroy. Due to problems with the camera, there are not pictures from the climb. But we were recorded in the museum in the city. Click the image for more information about the climb we did (along with other attempts to climb the Fitzroy). Our climb is detailed in the bottom right (no photoshop on the picture).


From El Chalten we went back to El-Calafate



El Calafate & Perito Moreno
March 25-27

Picture links (together with El Chalten):
http://picasaweb.google.com/lotanc/Fitzroyandperitomorenoglacier

El Calafate is a very touristy city, where the main attraction is the Perito Moreno Glacier. It is a large, accessible glacier, which grows constantly. It´s movement causes pieces of the glacier to break, causing great sounds, and large pieces of rock falling into the water (a spectacular sight).



After visiting the glacier we rented a jeep and drove through the Carretera Austral..