Day 53-55 Bariloche

After 19 hours bus from Mendoza we reach the town of Bariloche. Although the whole journey is almost a desert, Bariloche is surrounded by great lakes and forests. As a matter of fact it is called the small Switzerland, is a very important ski centre and home to great food like fondue (really!) and of course "Parrillada Argentina" (argentinian grill) as on the picture!

To be even more in the European atmosphere we camped at the Swiss colony which was founded at the beginning of the centre by Swiss immigrants. The architecture is obviously influenced...

To save a bit of money, we decided to camp with our new tent we bought in Santiago.

We spent our first day in the village of Bariloche and at the ski station of Cerro Catedral.

The ski resort is just like being back in Europe! The altitude is just from 1000 to 2000m, but there seems to be a lot of snow in the winter.

We then had a pic-nic on a lakes side, from where we had a view on one of the best hotels in the Region.

The second day, we went hiking to the Refugio Cerro López at 1500m (ridiculous after the heights we reached in Bolivia, but still it was hard to get to!). The day was really hot (around 30C) but there was still some snow from the last winter. (remember the ski season here is July-August). The view over the lakes was amazing!!

Just before arriving to the Refuge we stopped at a snow bridge sculptured by a river. It was really impressive.

From the Refuge Lopez we had great views too.

From the refuge I went on to the cerro from where there was a good panorama on the wildest mountains! The large peak is Cerro Tronador (3500m) on the border, and the volcano in the distance is Volcan Osorno in Chile.