Today I was supposed to meet Rachel to hike to Refugio Lopez, but she missed the bus (and there's only one every 3 hours) so I went solo for the day. It was a 45 minute bus ride out and then a short walk over to the trail head. The weather report had said that it was supposed to start raining at 5pm this evening, and it was only 11pm so I figured I'd make it back just before the rain hit. Little did I know that Bariloche weather is as unpredictable as Nevada weather and the Argentinian weather reports are even less dependable. I started the hike up and within 10 minutes it began to rain. I hoped that I would get lucky and the rain would stop so I continued on up the trail for the next hour. The rain started to get worse, so I found a tree and made a snack for myself to try and wait the rain out. The trailhead markers had said that Refugio Lopez was closed and, being alone, I felt pretty uneasy about hiking 4 hours out without a working cell phone, in the rain, and without the possibility for shelter once I got to the top. So, I took a few photos from the trail and headed back. Of course, I took the wrong trail back home and had to climb down a rock face and ended up having to climb under a fence to get to the road. Whoops.
Three more hours and I would have been golden!
The view from the trail
Hm... I think I may have taken a wrong turn
I had forgotten to check the bus schedule back into town, and I ended up waiting nearly 3 hours for the next bus. Don't ever hitchhike if you aren't good with rejection- I tried for a good hour and no one stopped. A bit disheartened, I walked 3 km over to the nearest bus stop and was relieved to see the bus finally arrive after about 40 minutes waiting there. I returned at around 4pm feeling having accomplished nothing for the day, so I went into town and walked around the center. Bariloche is famous for chocolates and beer and they have a street entirely filled with chocolate shops. I spent an hour walking up and down the street getting free samples at around 15 different shops. I bought a bottle of wine at one of the shops and shared it with a few people at my hostel that night over dinner.
30/4
The group is in Bariloche and so we went to an estancia for a full day of horseback riding. Carol Jones is a local rancher with about 2,000 hectares of land that she uses for horses, cattle, and sheep. Her land looked a lot like the Carson Valley, actually. It was still raining, but we still did the ride because we hoped the rain would stop eventually. Of course, it didn't, but it ended up being a pretty fun day! My horse was sick and stubborn so when I tried to turn in a direction away from the group, she shook her head and got snot all over me. It was pretty gross. After about 3 hours of riding we stopped for lunch: asado (steak) with carrots, bread and cabbage. Sasha was still sick from food poisoning the night before, so we rode back right after lunch and as we waited for Carol to put the horses away, munched on some cake and tea as a snack.
Carol's ranch
Heading out to the hills
Going up the hills- too bad my horse didn't like going up hill
Some of Carol's horses came over to greet us and walk along with us (teasing the saddled-up horses)
Asado lunch! Thank god for the fire- it was getting pretty chilly
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