San Carlos de Bariloche, Patagonia

When we planned our trip to Argentina we knew that we were going to take a couple of weeks to travel after my husband taught his class for a month. We didn't know where we wanted to go exactly, but we knew that we wanted to see Iguazu Falls and Patagonia. And I wanted to see penguins. Well, it turns out that this is a pretty tall order. Argentina is a huge country and what we wanted to do was the equivalent of visiting the U.S for 2 weeks and seeing Niagara Falls, as well as the entire West. There is a lot to Patagonia. Our friends in Buenos Aires seemed a little surprised that we wanted to undertake so much in just 2 weeks. But after consulting with everyone we could (my husband likes to get advice), we finally figured out our itinerary. We would fly to Iguazu falls for 3 days, then fly back to Buenos Aires, and from there fly to Patagonia where we would visit Bariloche for 3 days, El Califate for 2 days and Ushuaia for 3 days with some travel days in between. Then back to Buenos Aires and home to Florida. A whirlwind trip, and miraculously, it all worked out perfectly. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

After our magical visit to Iguazu Falls with the butterflies and coatis, we flew back to Buenos Aires to start the Patagonian leg of the trip. It was quite warm up at the falls (in the 90's and humid) and we were looking forward to cooling down again. But as we talked with our fellow travelers, we started to get a bit worried that we hadn't packed well for summer temperatures in Patagonia. We heard all sorts of temperature ranges, from 50's and 60's down to tens and twenties. One Australian woman told us she had to wear all of her pants to keep warm in Ushuaia. As it turned out, we packed just about right.  (We now think the Australian lady was probably just wimpy.) It was cool, in the 50's when we arrived in Bariloche. We could see the Andes in the distance as we flew in for a landing. We found a cab and marveled at the amazing change of scenery we had experienced in the course of one day. We had woken up in the hot and humid rain forest and were going to sleep in cold Patagonia. The first part of the half hour trip from the airport was through arid and flat land, with hills in the distance. Our cab driver told us all about the area in Spanish, so we didn't understand everything he was trying to explain about the area. Our Spanish was much better by now, but still sketchy. I'm pretty sure he said something about microclimates.

View from Cab

We really had no idea what to expect, but everyone in Buenos Aires told us we had to go to Bariloche so we did. I searched about it online and still didn't have a good understanding of what the main draw would be. It turns out that the draw is the breathtaking beauty of the region. As we got closer to Bariloche and the lake and mountains, the landscape took on different contour and color, with blazes of beautiful yellow flowering shrubs and purple lupines lining the roads. Bariloche is a small city on the shores of lake Nahuel Huapi. The entire region is contained within the boundaries of the Naheul Huapi National Park. The city is built on the hillside overlooking the lake. Apparently there were a lot of German and Swiss immigrants in the early days, and the architecture has a distinctly alpine feel. Swiss chalets. And lots of chocolate shops. The water of the lake is an incredible blue. People told us that the water was so clean you could drink it right out of the lake. I didn't trust them enough to try, though it was very pretty.

Downtown Bariloche

Crystal Clear Water

Later that evening, from our hotel dining room on the hill overlooking the lake, we could see nesting harriers hopping between the treetops, and past the trees, we saw the vast lake and then the Andes. It was a gorgeous place. We were starting to understand what people love so much about Bariloche. That night, the cool started to set in, but we had a heated floor and a jacuzzi in our cozy room!

View across the lake

The next day we signed up for an organized tour that would take us on a catamaran ride to Bosque de Arrayanes and then to Isla Victoria.  The first part of the boat ride took about an hour and a half. The views of the mountains and the water were spectacular. To keep the passengers entertained, the ship's staff had crackers that you were supposed to hold high in the air. They would take your picture as a gull grabbed the cracker. I had my own camera, and didn't think much of stuffing the gulls with junk food, or losing a finger, so I just took my own shots.

Seagulls Chase the Boat

At Bosque de Arrayanes (The Myrtle Forest), we stopped for about 45 minutes and hiked along a boardwalk through an interesting Myrtle Forest. The forest is a preserve for this endangered ecosystem and is apparently one of the largest forests of these myrtle trees. The bark of the trees is a very striking golden color and it was beautiful as we walked through.

Myrtle Forest

Almost more interesting to me, however, were the Beech Trees that we were to see all along our travels through Patagonia. The most peculiar thing about the trees were the galls. These trees had galls growing all over them and lying all over the ground. They were fascinating and looked like weird honeycombed fruits. I had to come home to my computer to figure out what they were though. Nothofagus dombeyi, or "Coihue', in Spanish. There was little information about them in the places we visited. And there is precious little info about them on the internet, either, except to say that they are the "missing link" for the history of lager beer.

Beech Gall

On Isla Victoria (Victoria Island) we hiked with a group of friends we made on the boat ride. Apparently we were the only passengers interested in actually hiking, so one of the guides suggested a trail for us, with the warning that we had to be back on time, or else. The rest of the passengers walked around a bit and had their photos taken at the "Bambi House".  Rumor had it that Walt Disney visited the island, saw the cabin, and was somehow inspired to draw a house for Bambi. But we were also told that the rumor was not true, that Disney didn't visit the island, and that anyway, Bambi doesn't live in a house. So why everyone but the 5 of us stayed behind to get their pictures taken there is beyond me, but, oh well. In any case, we headed off on the hike only to find that the trail was closed. But being adventurers (or at least everyone else in my group was), we crossed the barrier and hiked anyway. It turned out to be fine and we had terrific views of the lake from a nice overlook. We came upon big bunches of the gorgeous yellow bushes we'd seen on the taxi ride into Bariloche, along with the lupines and several other beautiful flowers. We really picked a fabulous time to visit Bariloche. I will always think flowers when I think Bariloche.

Flowering Bushes

Lovely Yellow Flowers

View of Lago Nahuel Huapi from Isla Victoria

The next day we skipped the organized tours and rented a car, which gave us the freedom to stop wherever we wanted. Equipped with our map, we headed out of Bariloche into the arid landscape that reminded us very much of central Utah.

Just outside of Bariloche

20 miles out of town we turned onto the dirt highway that our hotel guide had marked for us, and we hardly saw another soul for the rest of the day. It was great. We decided to follow a little road to a place that the map designated as a birding site. We started to worry a bit when we came to the decrepit and closed bridge, but decided to take the detour through the creek (in our little rental car) and headed out slowly. Hawks and woodpeckers flushed out of the grasses and horses grazed in the road. It was a good choice. Soon we came to a small village, and then to the end of the village and of the road. No bird sanctuary. But there was an old Gaucho gentleman working in his yard. We stopped and asked as well as we could in Spanish if this was the place to look for birds. He didn't seem to know what we were talking about, but said that we should walk along the river to see more. We asked if we could just park our car and walk on his land and we think he said it was fine. He didn't holler at us or anything. So we took his photo in thanks and walked off to look for birds. The trail was non existent and it was hard to know exactly what we were looking for, but suddenly we looked up and saw a soaring bird. It was an Andean Condor. Perfect!

Gaucho

Andean Condor

After that we decided we'd had enough off road adventure and went back to the car to continue our journey. Later along the way we found a place to hike. I was reluctant because the signs all said you had to register before your trek. But we weren't really trekking--just taking a little hike.

Hiking Trail

So we hiked through the forest and up to a nice lookout. This is where I'm fairly certain we saw a pair of Megallanic Woodpeckers. But they wouldn't stay still and I never got a photo. For this reason alone, I need to go back to Bariloche. They are magnificent birds. I did get photos of a Chilean Flicker, though, as well as of hawks and geese and a Southern Crested Caracara strutting along the beach later in the day.

Chilean Flicker

Ashy-Headed Goose

Southern Crested-Caracara

On our way home that afternoon we stopped at a road construction site and reveled in the astonishing beauty of fields of lupines. The colors were almost overwhelming.

Field of Lupines

For our last day in Bariloche we drove to the Monte Tronador area in the Nahuel Huapi National Park to look for some day hikes. The trick was that this section of the park has a one way road. You can drive in, but can't drive out until 4pm. It started out fine. We stopped for pictures along the scenic lower part of the lake.

View from the Bridge

Then we made our way to what appeared to be the main park offices and trailhead, but we had a very difficult time figuring out where to go. The signs were very confusing there didn't seem to be any office or person who could tell us where the trails were. And then it started to rain. It was cold and wet and we began to despair, realizing that we'd have to wait in our car or at the restaurant for hours until 4pm came around.

Nothing was actually open except the restaurant

But eventually we found a ranger. At first, he told us that it was too cold and wet to take any hikes. But I guess we looked so disappointed that he suggested a 3 hour hike to an overlook, Mirador del Valle. As soon as there was a break in the rain, we took off. It was an interesting path, winding up a fairly steep slope, through bamboo groves and beech trees. We passed a herd of cows at the beginning of the trail, freely roaming through the park. We had to watch out for cow piles for the first half of the hike, until we started climbing steps and walking on bridges, where we left the cows behind.

 Wet Forest Cows

Hiking through the Bamboo

The climb through the forest was beautiful. The trees were so tall! We heard tiny birds but saw little wildlife, except for a rabbit. Later we learned that the rabbits were invasive exotics. There were little yellow violets along the path and occasional blueberry-like bushes. When we finally reached the end of the trail, we were tired but happy. And the views were marvelous. We had hoped to be able to see a glacier from the top, but the clouds were pretty thick. We did see waterfalls across the valley that we figured were glacier fed.

View from the Top with Waterfalls

There was a cooperative hawk who posed for me from the branch of a dead tree, and a caracara. And we saw a pair of condors soaring over the valley. At the end of the day as we drove back to Bariloche, we could just make out the craggy tops of the Andes peaking from behind the clouds.

Unidentified Hawk

Chimango Caracara

Andes Peeking Through the Clouds

Click here to see more of my photos from Bariloche.

Parque Nacional Iguazu

After spending 4 weeks in Buenos Aires while my husband taught and lectured for his Fulbright, we decided to take an additional 2 weeks and explore other parts of Argentina. He'd been working hard and earned a vacation. I, on the other hand, had been whooping it up the entire time, so it was 2 more weeks of fun and exploration. Buenos Aires is a wonderful and beautiful city. The food is fantastic and there is so much going on there all the time. It's also pretty crowded and noisy and busy, so it was a relief to be heading to smaller, wilder parts of the country. For our first excursion, we chose to head north to Cataratas del Iguazu, or Iguazu Falls. The falls are located in a national park shared by Argentina and Brazil. Most of the falls are in Argentina, but the best views are in Brazil. So most people visit both sides of the falls, with one or two days in each park.

The flight from Buenos Aires to Iguazu took about an hour an a half. It was neat to watch from the plane as the terrain changed below. The high-rises and suburbs of Buenos Aires stretch on forever. Soon they melt into flat farm land and then you are flying too high to see anything but clouds. When the descent begins, the landscape has changed into pure greenery--trees, trees, trees. It looked from the air like there wasn't a lot of virgin forest. You could see the squares of tree farms below. But it was very green, all the same. 

Once in the airport we could feel the humidity of the jungle. We were very close to the falls and the park, but you couldn't see them. I watched for jungle fauna from the bus to the hotel with great excitement, but all I saw were road signs warning of animals crossing--coaties, agoutis and tapirs! We didn't see any on the road, however.

Coati Crossing

Puerto Iguazu, where we stayed, is a little tourist town with gift shops, restaurants and hotels. Since most of the tourists were busy at the park during the day, it was a hopping place after 5. It was sprinkling when we landed but had stopped, so we decided to go out and explore the city. Suddenly the wind picked up and really started to blow and it got very dark. We could see that the power was out in a lot of the shops. Then sheet metal from the roofs started to blow off of the buildings and we decided that we needed to head back to the hotel. It was rather intense. Safely back in our room, we watched the storm roll through and hoped that the weather would be better in the morning.

And it was. The weather was gorgeous! We met our bus and drove to the park. There were big lines to enter, but once we were through the gates the crowds were not an issue. My husband usually prefers to walk whenever possible rather than take the shuttles or trains. He'd been to the park before and insisted that it would be better to walk up the dirt road to the falls. He was so right, because along that road were more butterflies than I'd ever seen in one place in my life. I was so happy! There were hundreds of kinds of butterflies. A guide told us later that they have over 500 species in the park. The largest numbers by far were of sulphur butterflies that wafted down along the road like a yellow ribbon. Large clusters of butterflies gathered around mud and puddles, extracting minerals from the dirt. It was magical. Then there were the birds. We saw Vultures and Kites, Hawks and Jays, Lapwings and Woodpeckers. There was an Ani, a Cacique, a Trogon, and even some Toucans. We didn't see any Hummingbirds, but I guess that gives me a reason to go back!

Eighty Eight Butterfly

Variable Beautymark

Various Butterflies Puddling

Clouds of Sulphurs

Plush-Crested Jay

Southern Lapwing

Red Breasted Toucan

Surucua Trogon

Cacique 

Greater Ani

Toco Toucan

As if the wildlife was not enough, the waterfalls are spectacular! They are listed as one of the New Seven Natural Wonders of Nature--kind of a silly sounding designation, but they are a wonder. The Iguazu river forms the border between Brazil and Argentina. You can see the falls at several places along the river, but the closest view is gotten from right over the top of the Devil's Throat, or Garganta del Diablo. You walk along a very long metal walkway for nearly a mile. The view from the walkway is peaceful and calm. The river flows underneath, flat and fairly quiet. And then the river suddenly drops off into the huge Devil's maw. It's easy to imagine being a boater or traveler in the past, floating peacefully along and being totally surprised by the abrupt plunge into oblivion. At the end of the walkway, you stand over the edge of the Garganta and experience the roar and power. It's almost overwhelming. Hawks and kites circle overhead and rainbows form in the mist. It's a truly beautiful place. 

The falls from Brazil

Smooth River

Edge of Garganta del Diablo

Iguazu Falls

More of the Falls

More of the Falls (I can't get enough!)

In the areas with people and food, we saw monkeys and coatis. They are cute, but can be pests and even bite. They've learned that people will feed them and they can become aggressive. But we enjoyed them from a distance. We also saw an agouti and some smaller rodents, but never saw a tapir or capybara. 

Restaurant Coati

Monkey

Agouti

Watch Out!

We returned to the Argentina side for another day and saw more birds, more butterflies and some cool insects, including a giant walking stick. Then we spent one day on the Brazilian side. I have to say that I didn't enjoy that day quite as much. The view of the whole falls is good, but the park is much more developed. We took buses most places and didn't see nearly as many butterflies. It felt more sanitized. But it was still amazing.

Bullet Ants with a caterpillar and my husband's finger for scale

Walking Stick and my husband's finger again

Everywhere we walked, in either park, butterflies fluttered around our heads, landed on bushes, and even landed on us. I think that was the most marvelous part. It was like being in a butterfly exhibit at a museum or botanical garden, but these were free-roaming. I could have stayed there much, much longer. But if I'd stayed, I wouldn't have had time for the adventures that followed. I guess I'll just have to go back again. Soon.

I love this place!

Click here to see more of my photos from Iguazu Falls.