If someone asks me what comes to mind when someone brings up Bariloche, it is probably dirt. Dirt on my shoes, dirt on my legs, dirt in crevices of my neck I’ve only started to notice since turning thirty, dirt in my hair and dirt that requires intense scrubbing to remove from the souls of my feet only to reappear minutes after showering. Finally there is the fine layer of dirt that would constantly coat the inside of my mouth no matter how much water I would drink.  Dirt in Bariloche was inescapable, but perhaps that is because we did not stay in the city centre of, but instead opted for a campground 13.5km outside of town to be closer to the area’s hiking trails.

The Lake District

After spending a day of downtime on New Year’s Day, attempting to tan by a lake so cold that we only managed a 30 second dunk before retreating back to the hot sand, we were itching to get back to hiking. Llao LLao Park offered various trails around the lakes as well as a walk to a refugio on the side of a peak with stunning panoramic view of northern Patagonia’s Lake District.

The Refugio

It turned out that getting to the park would prove to be more difficult than the hiking itself. We walked down the road and boarded the bus we thought we needed to be on which was bus 10, but the driver said we needed to get on the 20. We waited for the 20, but when we got on the driver said we needed to get on bus 10. Another 20 came by and pulled over so we tried to wave the driver off, but he stayed and insisted we needed to get on with him to get to where bus 10 would pick us up, which made no sense since we had seen a bus 10 go by on that route 30 minutes prior. We went with the 20 since the driver wouldn’t take no for an answer, but soon found ourselves only a few kilometers closer to our destination standing in the heat waiting for the 10 which was nowhere in sight.

After our failed attempt at hitchhiking in Esquel we decided it might be easier this time without our big bags and stuck out our thumbs, hoping for the best. A few cars passed us by, offering apologetic waves, until finally a truck with a mountain bike in the back pulled over. This would be Steph’s first time hitchhiking in a foreign country and my first time hitchhiking ever. It was just our luck that the man who picked us up spoke fantastic English and ran a restaurant like me, but was also passionate about mountain biking, having visited British Columbia multiple times for the Crankworx Mountina Biking Festival in Whistler with his friends. While we had wasted an hour waiting for buses we gained the hour back since our driver brought us straight to the start of the trail which we would have spent forever trying to find on our own.

Steph previously trying to get a ride with her 90L backpack

The hike to the refugio was challenging and we lost the trail multiple times while being attached by some type of Argentinian wasp, but the view of Bariloche’s lakes from the top was stunning. After our descent we found ourselves in a Swiss inspired town and were lured into a small shop selling locally crafted beer. It wasn’t the best beer we had ever had, but it felt like a much deserved reward after the hike.

When we returned to the camp site our two friends from New Years had been joined by 4 other’s. While one prepared the meat for their asado (barbeque) another played the guitar and all 6 men sang Argentinian Folk songs under the starry sky as we drifted off to sleep in our tent.