This was my fourth trip to South America. The first time was a two-month bike tour in Chile and Bolivia in 1999; the second was a backpacking trip in 2002 (no bike) to Perú. The third trip was in 2007 by bike to roughly the same area as this story. So why go back to the same place? Simply it was because I really liked the place, and I wanted to see more of this part of Argentina (The Lakes Region) that I missed the last time. What we did see, that I missed before, was well worth another trip.
We were in Chile at the beginning and end of the trip since flying to Santiago was the best city as far as price and location. Even so, Santiago is 700 kilometers north of the town of Temuco, where we decided to start riding from. My original pan was to see as much of the east Argentinian side as possible. I thought we could go over the high Andes into Argentina and the city Mendoza, more or less directly east of Santiago. Mendoza is a famous is a wine-growing region. Yet, it’s in a high desert much like the Mojave in Southern California with not much more than scrub brush. Another problem was that many of the passes in this area were still snowed in at this time of year. After a bit more research, we find the lower passes in the Andes to the south are open. So the plan is to go take a pass in the south to Argentina.
There were six of us, which is a large group perhaps. Yet we were all experienced with solid gear, good fitness and travel experience. All but two of us could go anywhere on our Spanish let alone get into trouble at the bar. (Take that statement how you want.) There was Scott my neighbor down the street, Roper the redneck, Sandy and Dave, who I built bikes for, and John from Marin, California who I’ve known since high school. The personalities on the other hand one can never predict. The group did eventually break up. Dave and Sandy took their own route after a month, and Scott decided to go on his own only with about a week left. Fortunately there are no real hard feelings with anyone afterwards.
Heavy Gear
The major aspect of preparing for a bike tour is the gear. There are more gear intensive sports, yet for cycle touring and flying to another place, it can go to the limit just for weight limits on the airlines. Just my bike itself was very heavy at 19 kilos. That is without the front and rear panniers, handlebar bag, water, food, clothes and dozens of other nick-nacks (that I cannot seem to go without) so the total package is over 45 kilos. I weighed my fully loaded rig with water and food at 56 kilos. The frame alone is 3.5 kilos since my touring bike mind is durability obsessed.
Typically I like to ride dirt roads from gravel, washboard to heavily rutted jeep roads so much of the weight is for rigidity and durability. Pavement is a luxury, smooth fast and of course the easiest way to get from point A to point B, yet the traffic can be the primary annoyance. Trucks and buses blasting by can be nerve wracking at times.
I like the bike to handle the weight load confidently, thus it being over-built. Going down a mountain pass on a sketchy gravel or jeep road from hell is much more reassuring then the bike is solid. On an early trip many years ago, I slid off a mountain switchback because of the ambiguous steering of the standard weight bike I had. It all depends on what you want to ride with how much gear and how fast. I prefer the rougher back roads and would rather take a Land Cruiser rather than a Honda Civic. For pavement and smooth dirt roads then perhaps I would go lighter, yet the weight just makes for more of a workout.
I like the bike to handle the weight load confidently, thus it being over-built. Going down a mountain pass on a sketchy gravel or jeep road from hell is much more reassuring then the bike is solid. On an early trip many years ago, I slid off a mountain switchback because of the ambiguous steering of the standard weight bike I had. It all depends on what you want to ride with how much gear and how fast. I prefer the rougher back roads and would rather take a Land Cruiser rather than a Honda Civic. For pavement and smooth dirt roads then perhaps I would go lighter, yet the weight just makes for more of a workout.
For me being a gear freak the parts are critical. My biggest problem is not obsessing over every detail. Yet I’ve had enough failures that my concern for all the details has saved me from many troubles I think. For instance, I’ve had a rear axle break, dozens of broken spokes at various times and the spokes in a wheel completely loosen so now I only use 14 straight gauge DT spokes and brass nipples with thread locking material. I cut a few tires one badly enough that I had to sew and glue it together with a piece of canvas, and another time I had so many flats that I used up all my friends tubes and patches that left me walking: “See you in the next town.” I said, “I’ll be fine”. I walked for hours in the dark arriving at 10PM or so. Not fun, so his means heavy, durable and reliable parts.
Curiously, many bike tourists run the Rohloff 14 speed internal hubs, which seems to be a kind of European touring standard. Many of these tourists I ask all rave about the performance and reliability. They are heavy and expensive, yet as for the rest of what bike tourists use, you can get away with standard mountain bike stuff. Personally I’m paranoid of something failing in the middle of nowhere, so I run a beast of a bike and much of it is obvious overkill.
On my latest bike I fitted it with the new 10 speed XT kit which includes the shifters, crank derailleurs, cog and chain. (CN-HG94) The chain did have a SRAM 10 speed connector link because I have a break-apart frame (called the Foggy Mountain breakdown) that I built to put half of each bike and all my gear in two smaller boxes. What this means is that I can both avoid the oversize and overweight baggage fees that all the airlines are charging now. Yet the best thing of this is that I can carry two smaller boxes than one large bike box. Either box needs to be no more than 23 kilos. It’s a lot of weight, not including my small backpack as a carry on.
A Colder Than Normal Spring.
One factor affecting most of the tour was that Patagonia was having a late spring. Three days into our tour we became stranded in a snowstorm for two days near the pass into Argentina. Fortunately, we found a rancher who allowed us to stay in his barn. The night at the height of the storm it sounded like the roof might be blown off. I had all my clothes on. Once in Argentina, which is dryer than Chile because of the rain shadow effect of the Andes, even then we encountered rain and for most of the trip it remained colder than normal.
Regardless, my second time to Argentina did not disappoint. We rode though much of the lakes region which is one of the most scenic area in Argentina. Of course continuing south toward Tierra del Fuego with it’s glaciers and wind swept mountains are some of the most scenic places on earth. Yet, for bicycle touring making it to southern Patagonia requires many months, the weather is colder and the strong persistent winds are famous. So this part of Argentina is where I wanted to ride and camp, in beautiful country and nice weather in the time available.
We did meet many other bike tourists, many who were either headed south or returning from the “end of the world” which is Ushuaia, the most southern town of South America. Perhaps I’ll do it someday. Although it was late Spring and unseasonably cold, this area we later found would be filled with tourists. We again we were fortunate to have much of the place to ourselves.
Into Argentina
Once over Icalma pass the Andes divide after holding up during the snowstorm and into Argentina, the landscape quickly becomes drier and more open. I feel we are finally in country I wanted to go and our plan to cross over at this point in to Argentina was a good one. It’s north of the where we’re headed south into Lakes Region and apparently much of the land to the north is desert and desolate and everything south becomes greener and more inviting. We are finally covering some distance and the weather appears will remain reasonably dry. Even so it remained cold, yet I was getting thick skinned or something like that as the cold did not seems to bother me as much.
This place looks much like the Colorado Rocky Mountains. There are rugged snowy peaks, lakes and rivers where large trout can be seen through clear waters. Heading south was our first real town Aluminé. We had three days of very light traffic on well-maintained dirt road. We decided after many days camping in the dirt to grab a hotel room with a hot shower and some dinner at a parilla, something I was looking forward to.
Eating in Argentina
I love a good steak and Argentina could possibly be a beef-eaters destination in itself. Argentina beef is traditionally not the corn-fed fat marbled beef that North Americans are familiar with. Much of the history of Argentina is the southern cowboy, the gaucho and pampas raising the traditional grass fed cattle. I mentioned to a restaurant owner in Argentina that in the USA we feed our cows corn and he
could not believe it. Even though there is corn and grain feedlot beef in Argentina, Many Argentines are aware that grass fed beef is lower in saturated fat and higher in omega 3 This might explain the lower heart and colon disease despite the high meat consumption. A person consumes more beef in Argentina than any other country except for a much smaller neighbor, Uruguay. Argentina is the 8th largest country in the world and a large part of it is Pampas or grasslands to raise cattle.
The way they prepare beef is on a wood fired grill or parilla. Not all parilla is the same. Some parilla are organ meats, blood sausage and the hacked up spine and ribs. I prefer the high end steak “bife de lomo” which is a tenderloin or rib-eye cut that’s charcoal grilled. Another method is the Asada, which is the entire carcass spread out on a rack and propped up close to the wood fire. Typically you will find an large salad bar and Argentina has some of the best wine anywhere at the price I’m used. I soon realized that no matter how awesomely good the meat and wine, the amazingly low price, I could not eat this way every night. This worked for a week or so, yet laboriously sweating out it only works for so long. Eventually we had to balance our diet with more vegetables.
We make our way south encountering ever more pristine rivers, beautiful lakes and mountains. We have now entered the national park named Lanín after passing a striking cone shaped volcano much like Mt. Fuji in Japan. (Later at end of our tour we climb over another volcano in Chile that proved to be one of the best parts of our journey.) Volcanoes are a major feature of the Andes. Many are smoking cones towering above the landscape with a solid white year round cap of snow.
Imagine taking the west coast of North America reversed and that is the west coast of South America. One can compare the area we are in to Oregon. The latitude is 41 degrees south. (Portland is 45 degrees north) Our South American airport in Santiago is comparable to Los Angeles which is a sprawling smoggy city in a dry desert climate. In the south are the endless mountains, glaciers and fiords like British Columbia.
The Sun
One factor of some concern to me at least was the intense sun. My skin is sensitive to any amount of sun. Either slather on the sunblock or burn in an hour. The story of the ozone hole over the south pole was a big story decades ago and even today you hear that the problem has subsided from the worldwide phaseout of ozone depleting chemicals. Regardless of how much the problem has been solved, many down here say that it's indeed still a problem. For me I had some SPF 30 or so, yet even with re-applying two or three times I was still getting cooked. I found some SPF 50 (although I've heard that 35 SPF is as high as it really gets regardless of what the labels say) and it infact did work better. After a month being in the nuclear sun and constant goo on my face, arms and neck it was getting tedious. I did get some relief when it was raining or when we took the day off from riding.
The Sun
One factor of some concern to me at least was the intense sun. My skin is sensitive to any amount of sun. Either slather on the sunblock or burn in an hour. The story of the ozone hole over the south pole was a big story decades ago and even today you hear that the problem has subsided from the worldwide phaseout of ozone depleting chemicals. Regardless of how much the problem has been solved, many down here say that it's indeed still a problem. For me I had some SPF 30 or so, yet even with re-applying two or three times I was still getting cooked. I found some SPF 50 (although I've heard that 35 SPF is as high as it really gets regardless of what the labels say) and it infact did work better. After a month being in the nuclear sun and constant goo on my face, arms and neck it was getting tedious. I did get some relief when it was raining or when we took the day off from riding.
San Martín de los Andes
Later we make our way to what became my favorite town San Martín de los Andes. Not long after arriving to the center a guy is shouting at us and we meet Maxi of the Bike Hotel. It turns out to be one of the nicest hostals I’ve ever stayed. It’s an old house on the main street, a bit run down, yet a comfortable three-story place with a washing machine and kitchen. We cook up some good food and meet some local characters. San Martín is a picturesque town perhaps what Telluride or Aspen could have been 30 years ago. There is a ski area right above town Cerro Chapelco, so there are the typical ski shops and related tourist trinkets. The town sits on a long lake and is surrounded by vast mountains and forest. We like the place so much that we return a couple of weeks later.
A few days in San Martín and we continue south and some pavement. Unfortunately it turns to two days of gravel and intense dust even when a small car passed. I resorted to stopping and covering my face with a bandana whenever a vehicle passed. The country continues with even more striking snow encrusted mountains, full flowing crystal clear rivers and turquoise lakes. The turquoise color in every lake coming from volcanic minerals. Our next town was a cute town Villa Angostura on largest lake in the region, Nahuel Huapi. The lake is a windy expanse with the vast rugged Andes in the background. We have our most scenic camp on the lakeside here. The cold weather persisted, yet the view seemed to keep our mind off this.
The next day we cover the most distance in one day because of two factors: smooth pavement and a fierce tail wind. At one point with the wind and a long decent, John read 75 KPH. I was completely spun out in my 44 X 11 ratio, awesome. We reach the end of large Nuapel Huapi lake take a left at another highway and now we are full-on into the wind. On top of that it proves to be and a hellish highway loaded with busses and trucks blasting by on our way into Bariloche.
San Carlos de Bariloche
Roper and I arrive far ahead of the rest of the group and find an “Irish Pub”. Inside beer signs for any of the pub beer covers the walls and whatnot, yet we told there is only one beer. It’s a “rubia” or local blond beer from a local brewery. The rest of the group manages to find us and we order pizzas and they were very good as well, or likely the long road made it all taste great. One of the best things about bike touring is that food tastes better than usual. So what would normally be mediocre food is now some of the best you’ve ever had. (This does not apply to parilla since it’s truly awesome.)
Sitting on the southern end of the lake, Bariloche is a windy town built on a hill with a great view of the Andes in the distance. There is a popular ski hill, Catredal, and like San Martín, has it’s share of shops for skiers and other tourists. The weather again turns wet so we find a cheap hostal. I wish we has chosen another the since it there was a noisy nightclub next door.
We learn about the nightlife that stays up until 6AM. How can these people stay up drinking, music and socializing until the sun comes up and then function the next day? It could be explained by the hours that many Argentineans keep. We discovered this from the first town in Argentina we arrived, as it was 3PM. It was deserted and like we arrived during a major holiday. What happens is that stores open in the morning and people are out and about. Then by 1PM everything closes down and the town is deserted. It’s not until 5 or 6PM that things open up again. So if you stay up until 6AM at the discotecha, which is a bar or pub. The younger crowd typically goes to work in the evening perhaps at a souvenir shop waiting tables until midnight. Then it’s time to hit the clubs until dawn, sleep until noon and start over even during the week! What a lifestyle.
The Italian-Argentinians
John is Italian-American and speaks fluent Italian combined with his outgoing nature and extreme Italian identity. He has gone to such effort to be Italian, learning the language, the food, the customs you name it, that I think he more Italian than people from Italy. So it's inevitable that he meets many Italians in Argentina. Italians are one of the largest nationalities that to this day has emigrated to Argentina.
More than once he meets someone who’s family is from a town in Italy near where his parents are at the least some town he knows one way or another and they enbrace like old friends. John will meet and talk at length with anyone he meets so we end of calling him the Mayor of Patagonia. This reaches a fever pitch in Bariloche as there are many people of Italian decent there.
The more I thought about it, the more I think that Argentinian Spanish even sounds Italian. Argentinian Spanish has got to be the most difficult to understand of any Spanish I've heard as they pronounce the Spanish ll, not as y, but as z. They also pronounce the Spanish J, which is normally almost a silent h as z also. And they slur everything just to make it even more
More than once he meets someone who’s family is from a town in Italy near where his parents are at the least some town he knows one way or another and they enbrace like old friends. John will meet and talk at length with anyone he meets so we end of calling him the Mayor of Patagonia. This reaches a fever pitch in Bariloche as there are many people of Italian decent there.
The more I thought about it, the more I think that Argentinian Spanish even sounds Italian. Argentinian Spanish has got to be the most difficult to understand of any Spanish I've heard as they pronounce the Spanish ll, not as y, but as z. They also pronounce the Spanish J, which is normally almost a silent h as z also. And they slur everything just to make it even more
The Blest Brewery
Coming to Barloche we come to a point of our tour where three years ago Roper, Dave and I had come. Previously we went to the Blest Brewery where we had good beer and the largest and best “picada” we’ve ever seen. It’s usually a plank of meats and cheeses. This time we discover the “torre” or a 3 liter tower of beer. I think we consumed six of them at least.
South to El Bolsón.
Retracing our previous route, the weather clears and we head down the Ruta 40. Ruta 40 runs the length of Argentina. Here it’s pavement and we enter another national park with more of the beautiful mountains, lakes and rivers. A cold night camping and the next day arrive in El Bolsón. It’s a beautiful town surrounded by jagged peaks. It’s in a big valley where fruit trees are grown and the finally the weather is warm. We arrive at the El Bolsón brewery and campground. There is a restaurant with good food. The beer is brewed and bottled one at a time there. Needless to say we drink plenty of it.
There are many hippy types in El Bolsón. There is a local handcraft and food market four days a week in the central park. I would say much of it is ordinary handmade stuff although there are many handmade maté cups and bombillas. Maté is a tree leaf mostly grown in northern Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia. It’s dried and ground up to make a kind of tea. A small kettle is used to heat the water to a good drinking tempurature and is taken through the straw in the maté cup, which is traditionally made from a small goard called a “maté”, thus the name. You see more so the down to earth and hippy types drinking it all day refilling the maté with hot water from a thermos. It's seems a bit of a production carrying the apparatus around all the time.
The brewery campgound was a bit shabby so we found a much nicer campground on the other side of town. Also nearby there was another brewery named Otto Tipp down the road. Although the beer was tasty, it gave me a headache and foul stomach the next morning.
The warm weather has become quite welcome now, so we take the gear off the bikes and do day rides for a couple of days.
The warm weather has become quite welcome now, so we take the gear off the bikes and do day rides for a couple of days.
Butch Cassidy
We took a day trip south to visit the home of Bitch Cassidy. There is nothing more than a sign that says “Butch Cassidy” on a gate and absolutely no one around. Really this place is out in the middle of nowhere even today which explains why they basically hid out here.
We go down the road to the remains of their (in)famous cattle ranch. What remains are three rough-hewn buildings which are the house and two barns, some old farm tools some dried up cow skins and not much else. The setting is remote and wonderfully scenic.
We go down the road to the remains of their (in)famous cattle ranch. What remains are three rough-hewn buildings which are the house and two barns, some old farm tools some dried up cow skins and not much else. The setting is remote and wonderfully scenic.
The story is of Robert LeRoy Parker (Butch) and Leroy Longbaugh (the Sundance Kid) fled the US to Argentina (along with Longbaugh’s girlfriend Ethel "Etta" Place) in 1901 after many bank robberies and numerous times in prison. Their largest take ever ($100,000 current value) was at a bank in Río Gallegos, 1,130 km south of the ranch in Tierra del Fuego. Soon the Pinkerton agency from the US, and other local authorities were likely to find them, so they sold the ranch left for Bolivía. Ms. Place returned to the US and after another robbery, Parker and Longbaugh eventually were cornered and killed by the Bolivian army, although the true story of their death is uncertain.
Return to San Martín.
We had a couple of weeks left so decided to take a bus back to San Martín and make our way back to Temuco, Chile and the eventual bus ride back to Santiago. (We had our bike boxes stored at a hotel in Temuco.) We returned to the Bike Hostal and now the weather was warm decided to stay and do some local rides. The Hostal sports a collection of eclectic bike. Many vintage European road bike, a Specialized carbon 29er, a German Porsche full suspension bike built by Votech from the mid 90’s and a bamboo bike built by the owner of the hostal Maxi. Maxi loans me the Porsche for a couple of days. The others rent some cheapo Raleigh bikes from a shop in town.
We ride singletrack with Maxi to the ski area Chapelco above town and another ripping series of horse and hiking trails back to town. Also there is Tiani, who raced at the 24 Hour Solo World Championships in Canberra, Australia the previous October. The next day Tiani takes us on another great singletrack ride on the other side of town.
Wind and Rain
We leave San Martin toward a three-day ride to a pass back into Chile. It’s a steep climb out of the valley and into more awesome mountain country. By the middle of the day the wind is blowing strong. It’s mostly a tailwind until we go round a mountain ridge and meet the gale full on. It’s a grind to the Argentina customs and a place that sees few visitors since the road over the pass is closed to traffic. The officer questions our motives yet we explain we have sufficient camping gear. We grind on and it begins to rain. Luck would have it that we find a hunters cabin by the roadside with a table and a crude wood stove.
The Luxury Resort
The weather clears and we make our way into the heart of the Andes. There are even more stellar mountains and amazing lakes. The forest is more wild and pristine than we’ve seen so far with towering Cohihué trees, which are much like a giant oak. We then arrive at the hot springs resort of Lahuen-Co. We are dirty and hungry as we meet Gustavo who runs this five star resort. Without much thought, we go for the complete package, which is room, breakfast, lunch and dinner; the natural hot pools and massage all top notch.
The Friendly Carabineros
The next day we are fully relaxed, clean and fed. We make the last push over the pass into Chile. The mountains here are absolutely beautiful and the road is devoid of any traffic at all. We reach the summit, which typically, the divide of the drainages of the Andes is the border between Chile and Argentina. Then we take a steep decent to the Chile customs office. Again it’s another quiet outpost in the mountains.
My previous experience with the Chilean police is that they are serious and professional, not typically approachable. Yet this time possibly because of the lack of visitors they are curious of our journey and we all end up staying for lunch and taking photos.
Eventually we make it to the next town Liquiñe, far down the valley out of the high Andes. This area is dotted with numerous hot springs and we take some local advice and ride up a steep road to one hot springs resort. It’s shabby and they are many families and screaming children running about. Yet the campsite is OK and there are private wooden tubs that are excellent.
Another day to the next town, Coñaripe, over a very long and steep pass. We find a restaurant with decent food and proceed to party with the locals. You will not find a more easy going and friendly people than in a small town such as this. It’s a rough time after a long night the next morning, yet our plans are to ride up the flank of the Volcano Villarica a massively striking perfect cone of a mountain. It’s completely snow covered white against a bright blue ski. We begin our climb of about a 1000 meters and my bike is heavy with water and food for the next few days. Eventually we arrive at the El Rincón hot springs. It has nice wood tubs and clean tidy campsites in the tall forest high up on the volcano.
Aruacarias
One of the highlights of the trip were the Aruacaria or Monkey Puzzle trees. We passed through many places where they grow wild. They are also planted all over Patagonia in cities and towns. Which made me think I wanted to plant one in our yard, yet not sure if one will grow here in Flagstaff. (I need to look into it.) The Araucaria Araucana are only found in a small area in the Andes of Chile and Argentina. (distant relatives are the Norfolk Pine and others.) As we moved among them it was like Land of the Lost and are considered a living fossil dating from the Mesozoic Era which was 250 million years ago. They are tough to survive so have survived so long and do look burly. The bark reminds me of The Thing from The Fantastic Four. They are very tall and some of the oldest trees on the planet and flaunt their toughness by growing on exposed ridge tops exposed to the worst of the elements.
Aruacarias
One of the highlights of the trip were the Aruacaria or Monkey Puzzle trees. We passed through many places where they grow wild. They are also planted all over Patagonia in cities and towns. Which made me think I wanted to plant one in our yard, yet not sure if one will grow here in Flagstaff. (I need to look into it.) The Araucaria Araucana are only found in a small area in the Andes of Chile and Argentina. (distant relatives are the Norfolk Pine and others.) As we moved among them it was like Land of the Lost and are considered a living fossil dating from the Mesozoic Era which was 250 million years ago. They are tough to survive so have survived so long and do look burly. The bark reminds me of The Thing from The Fantastic Four. They are very tall and some of the oldest trees on the planet and flaunt their toughness by growing on exposed ridge tops exposed to the worst of the elements.
The following day it’s into the park and the road is rough and generally impassible. We climb up into more Arucaría forests and a short hike to a glacier. The road down the wild and rough through more awesome forest. Eventually far down off the volcano we get to the paved highway and a few hours to Pucón. This is a tourist town and a few days ride from our finish in Temuco. We would have had a nice cruise on the pavement back there, yet it rains heavily for the next two days. So a wet end to a tour with even more adventure than hoped for.
