November 2006
We returned to Bariloche from Chile by bus and took another bus 5 hrs south down to Esquel. We were suppose to go on to Los Antiguos by rental car but the car wasn't ready and by the time we found another one we were looking at a 10 to 12 hour drive on a deserted gravel road (the infamous Ruta 40 which runs down the Andes all the way to El Chalten) starting at 2 in the afternoon. So we decided to stay in Esquel and spend the three days there going out to Los Alerces national park which turned out to be a wonderful decision.
This was an old narrow gage railroad car that takes tourists a short (20 km or so) distance outside of Esquel. Here we finally read the camera manual and learned that there is a sepia setting ....
Most of the Alerces park is inaccessible, this was the least developed of the parks we went to. We stayed in the park one night and did two day hikes. This is a short hike up to an overlook. Chile is on the other side of the snow capped mountains in the background.
This same day we stumbled onto a guy renting canoes. The weather in the Andes is very temperamental. The canoe trip started out well, as you can see from the picture but by the time we got back there were two foot waves and a ton of wind. Still it was fun.
This is the second day hiking. This was a 6 hr hike (round trip) up to a spectacular overlook. Behind me you can see the river that connects the upper lake on the right with the lower lake on the left. The picture doesn't do justice to the overlook, you are perched on a rock with a near vertical drop below you of 1000 meters.
At the top we got to rest by a mountain lake...
