November 2006
From Bariloche we did two day trips in Argentina and one three day trip to Chile.
This was a day tour by bus to see a black glacier. The grey stuff behind us to the right is actually a glacier that has got so much rock mixed in it that it appears black (ok well maybe grey). It is also about 2 miles away. This is at mount Tronador which is off the picture to the right. We could hear this glacier cracking (the word Tronador means noise maker).
We also drove down to El Bolson, 100 miles south of Bariloche for a day and had one of the most spectacular hikes of the trip. The pictures don't do it justice. We hiked up to this refuge. Most of these places are manned and you can stay there overnight, this one was solar powered.
This is from the ridge just above the refuge.
This is the view off in the other direction towards Chile. The town of Bolson is in the valley below, slightly to the right.
We also did a three day trip to Chile from Bariloche. This is a really fantastic border crossing where you take boats on three different lakes with buses in between. The crossing starts in Bariloche, Argentina and ends up in Puerto Mont, Chile. We were told that often you don't see much because of rain and clouds but we had great luck.
The following two pictures are two volcanoes you can see from the boat.
From Puerto Mont we went south and spent two days in Castro on the island of Chiloe in Chile. This part of Castro use to be where fishermen lived. Now the town supports itself with fish farming, salmon mostly.
We took a tour of some of the interesting church architecture in this area. We were very surprise at how different Chile is from Argentina. The countries are so close to each other geographically with similar histories but the culture and people are entirely different.
