Our last weeks in South America were spent in the northern part of Patagonia, called the lake district. This area is mountainous, dotted with cone-shaped volcanoes, and as the name suggests, contains many lakes. Our first stop was Pucon in Chile, where we were shook by the 8.8 earthquake our first night. Unfortunately this meant that during our 3 days there, we didn’t get a chance to hike up the active volcano, peer into the crater, and slide back down on a sled. We’ll have to come back.

Next we stopped in a cute mountain resort town in Argentina called San Martin de los Andes.  We hired a guide (our German B&B owner) to take us mountain biking. It was fun, but we’re both now convinced that mountain biking as we know it doesn’t really exist outside the USA. We encountered this in Europe and Costa Rica and now South America. A town can even be known for mountain biking, rent you a nice bike, and then point you towards a gravel road (or worse, a paved road like in Switzerland). At least in this area of Argentina single-track exists, but there are no signs or maps, so you have to pay a guide to show you around.

Bariloche is a much bigger and busier town, a beautiful 4-hour bus ride south of San Martin. There’s tons of adventure sports in Bariloche – biking, rafting, kayaking, hiking, climbing, canyoning, etc. We skipped most of these, but we had a great time hiking with our friends Jaime & Gareth from England. I met and traveled with them in Ecuador, and since we’re both doing round-the-world trips, our paths will probably cross again in New Zealand or Australia.

Another day in Bariloche, we rented a moped to drive around part of the lake. Someone had suggested this, and we didn’t realize how brave we were until we picked up the moped and started driving. It was intense. Ben drove and did a great job, but he’s not used to driving a moped or motorcycle, and there was tons of traffic. We’re lucky to be alive!

Our route - the "J" circuit

Note: Map taken and edited from http://www.torres-del-paine.org/map-tdp.html

For everyone else, here’s our photos…

The first day, we hiked to a lookout of Glacier Grey and the Patagonia Icefield. Unfortunately the weather was terrible and we could barely look around without being blown over by the fierce wind. Luckily, the second day we had great weather and some of the most amazing views I’ve ever seen while hiking.

Glacier Grey & the Patagonia Icefield behind it

The lake and icebergs from Glacier Grey

Beautiful view as we started our day 2 hike

And we left behind a small rainbow

Alonna hiking in Torres del Paine

Amazing views throughout the hike

Alonna on a fun suspension bridge

Ben

Ben in Valle Frances

Looking back from the valley

Ben & Alonna in Torres del Paine

The cool two-tone mountains of Torres del Paine

 

Interesting tidbit: you can (and probably will) get seasick from an earthquake.  Aside from the seasickness and having to go almost a whole day without internet, the earthquake wasn’t that bad.  Obviously conditions are a lot different closer to the epicenter in Concepcion.