I first went to the very small town of El Bolston (located in the Lakes District in the northern part of Patagonia) where I heard you could go and stay with families. Staying in hostels is great, but getting the opportunity to stay with a family was an experience I didn't want to pass up. I got to stay with this adorable little family who had two little kids that were so fun and could play with you all day The kids always get so much attention because there are always backpackers staying with the family and that means there is someone new to play with.
At the family home there was another backpacker, Mariano, who I ended up spending the next few days with hiking with. Mariano was born and raised in Buenos Aires so I got to meet up with him again in that city a couple weeks later. We spent our next three days hiking. We hiked up to Pt Panoramico from there to Mirador del Azul and finally to Cabeza del Indio for beautiful views of the Rio Azul. Our next day we went to Lago Puelo and were hiking around and suddenly we sunk into the mud like quicksand. Mariano was stuck in mud up to ankles, which was quite funny to me as an innocent bystander.
One of my highlights of Argentina was going to the family asada party that the family threw for their friends and us backpackers staying with them. Asadas are very typical in Argentina and consists of a lot of meat, asada in this case, lots of wine, and lots of friends and family. The amount of meat that they prepared was immense, but when I asked if there was other food being prepared the answer was, nope just meat and some bread- sorry vegetarians. The meat and chimichurri sauce were so good and there was so much of it that I didn't need much else. It was just a special night to be allowed to participate in such a festive dinner that is so traditional in Argentina.
Next I headed up to Bariloche to meet up with the Swedish girls to do some more hiking. We stayed at a cute hostel with amazing views of Lago Nahuel Huapi surrounded by lofty mountain peaks. I had hoped to do some skiing while I was there because there are great ski resorts, but the snow had not yet come. On our first day we rented bikes to explore the lake areas. We hiked up to Llao Llao point and Lago Moreno Oeste before the huge rain storm began. It was raining so hard and we were almost being blown over by the intense wind. Lucky the guy from the bike rental shop drove by to get us because the storm was so fierce.
We also decided to do a little two day climb, staying at one refugio that was still open at this time of year. After stopping at the very helpful tourist information center we were off on our adventure. We took a bus over to the start of the trail and spent the next two days walking, enjoying nature and the amazing views. As we walked up the mountain it started to snow which made our task much more difficult. We had to abandon mission half way up because of the snow and the fact that we didn't have proper hiking equipment for the snowy weather. We did find a cute refugio near the bottom of the trail and stayed there for the night and headed back to Bariloche the next day.
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