Week 34: Argentina

We kicked this week off with a big bucket list item: Iguazu Falls! We flew into Port Iguazu on Monday night, enjoying the first exit row seats we’ve had this year, and checked ourselves into the huge apartment we found on AirBnB. 

We stocked up on groceries for our time there, and then wandered the streets a bit. In the morning, we set off for the bus terminal close by, and caught the bus to the park. Once we were in the park, we saw that there was a number of different trails we could walk, so we started the day with the lower circuit. This route along a metal walkway provided amazing views of the waterfalls and wasn’t busy at all. 

Once we completed this route, we did the upper circuit and enjoyed the sights and sounds from above the falls. While we were walking along these paths, we saw a lot of coaties walking around. The coaties seemed very similar to our raccoons, only with a slightly different shape. 

We then took a break and waited for the train that would take us to the top of the park. We piled in with lots of other tourists and enjoyed the slow ride through the forest. The train let us off in a spot that allowed us to walk out on a very long boardwalk in the sun. It was an extremely hot and humid day, but it was made much more tolerable by the hordes of butterflies and birds flying around us! The most incredible view of the day greeted us at the end of this boardwalk. We were absolutely mesmerized by the sounds and views of this powerful waterfall. Everywhere you looked, more water was tumbling over the edge! 

After taking a ton of photos and feeling ready to leave the crowd, we headed back on the train and walked back to the entrance. We finished off our day with a delicious ice cream treat back in town. It was an amazing day exploring Iguazu Falls!

The following day was a lovely lazy day. We had thought we would need two days to explore the park in Iguazu, but we had covered everything in one day, so we ended up with a bonus day! We ventured off for a very hot walk in town, and then enjoyed reading, watching a couple shows, and chatting with some friends. In the evening, we went for dinner at a local restaurant. While we were there, we learned that Argentina’s two most popular football teams, River Plate and Boca Juniors, were competing for the Super Copa that night. We watched as River Plate fans geared up for the game at a local bar, yelling and singing and jumping around, and decided we had to join them for the match. Now, I can’t say that I actually saw the TV screen very often, but I thoroughly enjoyed watching the fans celebrate throughout the entire match. When River Plate scored a goal, everyone went absolutely crazy. People were really welcoming, including a guy standing near us, dancing around with a baby in his arms for the whole time! River Plate won the Super Copa with a score of 2-0, which was celebrated with more dancing, yelling, and fireworks in the street!

On Thursday, we had a full on airport adventure. We were travelling on a low cost flight back to Buenos Aires, which was delayed by a couple hours due to inclement weather. We watched from the windows of the airport as it poured rain, feeling so grateful that we had had such sunny weather for our visit to the falls! When we boarded the plane, we got the exit row again! We landed in Buenos Aires, found a great spot to sit outside, and enjoyed some sunshine and singing birds. We took turns walking around the terminal, and later found a place to eat dinner. Will scoped out a great spot for us to set up for the night, as we would be waiting here until our flight out of another airport early in the morning. I managed to get a few hours of sleep, but Will didn’t fare so well. At 3:00 am, we got a taxi from the airport and requested he take us to this other airport that our flight was supposed to be leaving from. The taxi driver thought our flight plans sounded strange, so he looked up the flight schedule, and found out our flight had been moved to yet another airport without notifying us! This taxi driver saved us a lot of headache and running around. He dropped us off at the right airport, and we played the waiting game there for a few hours. This flight was delayed a few hours, and ended up being even more delayed because we needed to wait for people who had travelled to the wrong airport for the flight. Whew!

We ended up arriving in San Carlos de Bariloche around 11:30 am, and were whisked away to an amazing cabin in the woods by our AirBnB host. This cabin was everything we had hoped for and more. We had originally booked it for three nights, but upon seeing it, we requested two more nights here. It was raining quite a bit when we arrived, so we spent our first day cozied up in the woods. We had stopped along the way to get groceries for our stay, so we felt like we were set.

We spent the rest of our week thoroughly enjoying San Carlos de Bariloche. The weather here was a lot cooler (8-10 degrees), and we were accompanied by a fair bit of wind each day. Our first full day in Bariloche was spent exploring the town, made up of many wood and stone buildings with a heavy Swiss influence. We visited the famous Mitre Street, lined with delicious chocolate shops, and did our best to find the ones giving out samples. San Carlos de Bariloche is known for their chocolate, ice cream, and beer, and we enjoyed trying it all! We walked along the water’s edge and enjoyed watching the mountains begin to appear from behind the clouds. Since it was St. Patrick’s Day, we found ourselves a great cerveseria artesnal to hang out later on that evening!

The following day, we packed up our bags and headed out to Lago Gutierrez to do a hike up to Refugio Frey. The hike started with 4km across the bottom of a valley, and then headed up. We gained about 800m in elevation over the 10km hike up to Refugio Frey. Most of the hike took us through a beautiful forest, and we enjoyed hiking along with lots of other travellers. The last couple km’s were particularly tough, climbing up over rocks and steep sections, but the clear blue sky and views of mountain tops motivated us onward. It was extremely windy at the Refugio, but we still wandered around to take in the stunning scenery. The staff who bring supplies up to the hut were celebrating their last day of the season with a massive barbeque outside. We toured the hut, chatted with some of the staff and other hikers, and then headed down again. We took the trail to Villa Catedral on the way down, and had a bit of a wait for the bus at the end. We ended our day sore, but so happy!

On Monday, we decided to do a couple shorter hikes in the area. Our first stop was Mirador Llao Llao, which started off quite gradual and then became steeper near the top. The views along this trail were spectacular, and it just seemed to open up more with every step closer to the top. It was a very clear day, and all we could see was water and mountains and islands. We had a great chat with another traveller at the top, swapping stories of hiking in Nepal and learning about her travels through India. There is just so much to see in this world! 

We then headed down, stopping off at Hotel Llao Llao for a quick peek before catching our bus out of this area. Our next stop was CampAnario. This steep hill features a chairlift that takes you to the top for some incredible views, but we opted to hike up instead. It was a really steep, but short, climb, and the views at the top were certainly worth it. We treated ourselves to a couple coffees and dessert at the top, as we soaked in the view. 

After a good rest, we headed back down, and caught another bus. This bus took us out to the stunning Patagonia Brewery, set on the water’s edge, facing the mountains. We finished another great day with a few drinks and snacks, and a great chat with a couple travelling from Uruguay.

On our final full day in Bariloche, we tackled the mountain our cabin was sitting on the side of. This is another one of those mountains with a cable car to the top, but where’s the challenge in that? We headed up Cerro Otto, climbing an extremely steep trail up to the top. Of course, the views at the top were definitely worth it! We spent some time wandering around the top before heading down. We rewarded our efforts with some delicious ice cream before returning to enjoy the final moments in our quiet cabin in the woods!

Act of kindness: Bariloche is pretty well equipped with a good bus system, but our cabin was quite far off the beaten path. We were fortunate enough to be offered a ride two of the days after hiking, which was a very welcomed treat.