Northern Patagonia Travel Update

It is Sunday, 27-March, and we’ve spent the last several days in San Carlos de Bariloche in the lake district in Northern Patagonia. The city of about 130,000 people sits on the shores of Nahuel Huapi Lake. What stands out most about the area for us is how similar it is to much of the Colorado mountains where we grew up. Lots of coniferous and deciduous forests and crystal clear mountain lakes. To give you a taste of the unending views, here is the view on the first day from our patio at the Hotel Tirol (The whole town was founded by Germans, so there’s a ridiculous Alpine theme to all the buildings. Confuses us about which country we’re actually in!) featuring the lake and our little rental car in the parking lot. In the days we’ve been here, the lake has gone between super windy churning surf to total calm. We watched a kite surfer from our room get like 20 feet of air!

Highlights have been mountain drives, a day boat tour, and just enjoying the view from our room. Being founded by Germans, it is also a mecca of micro-breweries. Every single restaurant brews their own beer. Here’s a taste of the German flair depicted in the main town square we walk through to the main commercial area.

Heading North

We decided we were tired of airports, so we’re going to rent a car on Tuesday and take two weeks to tour the area from north from Bariloche to the wine country of Mendoza and back. We’ll take about 5 days to work our way north, taking in more of the lake district and mountains until we break out into the desert landscape to Mendoza. We’ve planned a week in Mendoza visiting the bodegas (what they call the winery/vineyards) and sampling wine and just relaxing. Then we’ll make the 14-hour drive back to Bariloche, where we’ll catch our flight to the southernmost point of South America and Patagonia — Ushuaia.

We have a week booked in Ushuaia from 12-April to 19-April where we plan to sail the Beagle Channel and see more penguins and icebergs. After that, we return to Buenos Aires and will likely take the ferry across the Rio De La Plata to Uruguay and to visit Colonia and Montevideo for my birthday. That’s a whole month off and a tentative plan right now. We still have to visit Salta and the farthest north parts of Argentina, so we’ll see how things work out.

To close out, here’s another picture of Lake Nahuel Huapi from a recent boat trip we took through the central part of the lake around Isla Victoria. It is a big damn lake and was totally calm on the day we chose to tour by boat.

We’ll be back soon with more posts and updates. Thanks for following our travels!

Jake & Ande