On Saturday, the 18th, our faithful Buenos Aires contact Florence and driver arrived early at the Soho hotel for the rush-hour drive to AEP, Buenos Aires’ domestic airport, and the 2-hour flight to Bariloche in Patagonia’s Lake District. We have a few days of tours planned there with a free day to relax at our lodge.
We were met at the airport by Monica, our guide for a ‘transit tour’ to our lodging on the remote San Pedro Peninsula. She’s quite enthusiastic, to say the least. Our drive follows along what is called the ‘Circuito Chico’ route –from the airport, along Lake Nahuel Huapi, out to the peninsula and our lodge.
Even with the overcast skies, the scenery is spectacular with chains of lakes framed by Patagonian peaks. A ski lift up Capanario Hill provided a nice 360-degree view of the area. This area is right on the border with Chile – visible on the horizon. One stop was an overlook with views of the famous ‘Llao Llao Hotel’. We lunched at a small, family run brewery, ‘Gilbert Cerveza’. The beers were great and only available on premises. Part of the dining experience included a preparation (by us) of empanadas. The main dish was boar stew. Huge. Excellent.
On our second day in the Lake District, we enjoyed a driving excursion along the ‘Route of the Seven Lakes’. The terrain changes quickly once leaving the peninsula from lake & mountain views, to a wide pampas region, dense forests, then more lakes & mountains. The drive passed through the beautiful village of ‘Villa La Angostura’. If ever back in this part of the planet, we’d stay there. We visited one of the region’s national parks where we hiked along forested trails to a waterfall, crossing a number of really cold streams along the way and had a nice picnic lunch alongside one of the lakes.
Our lodging was at the ‘Hotel Aldebaran’, a 10-room mountain lodge near the end of the San Pedro Peninsula. Gorgeous views everywhere. Many of the sunrise & sunset scenes were unbelievable. Our room overlooked Lake Nahuel Huapi with mountains in the background.
The hotel featured an intimate, gourmet restaurant which we enjoyed for our first two evenings.
We had a local hawk visit us at most of the meals.
For our last day in the area, we decided to visit Bariloche town. There’s no public transit to and from our remote lodge so we used taxis for our 20-plus minute drives each way into town. Once known as the ‘Switzerland of the Andes’, the town’s central district has retained some interesting alpine architecture built by early immigrants from Switzerland and Italy. In the 60’s and for a few decades the town became a hippy-magnet. Alas, now it’s very touristy. It is quite famous for its chocolate and there are buying options on every block. Lots of T-shirt shops, all with the same shirts. Many restaurants, but most close from 3:00 to 7 or 8 – outside our typical dining window. We ended up having a nice meal at one of the few dining places open mid-afternoon, ‘Fundo’. After our early dinner we headed back to the lodge to pack for a long travel day tomorrow.
