Argentina ranks as one of the most dissatisfying, difficult, and visually beautiful vacations I’ve ever had. It was a series of mistakes, delays, and misunderstandings. It was also stunningly beautiful with stark contrasts: high, snow capped mountain ranges, massive lakes, oppressive humidity, a very young population, high unemployment, and a lot of trash on the street. Looking back, I chuckle at all the problems we encountered.

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Story Text

When Chris and I landed in Argentina, I was excited to use my Spanish. I was not, however, prepared for the Argentine accent! It took my ears a few days to adjust, and eventually I got the hang of communicating with my intermediate level Spanish.

Our itinerary started in Buenos Aires, then we flew to the Lake District and stayed in San Carlos de Bariloche and Junín de los Andes. We also stayed at a rural ranch in Payunia, then went to Mendoza. We ended the trip by going over the Andes to Santiago, Chile. We found it challenging and fun to figure out how to get around. We didn’t realize the distances in Argentina were so big. It’s actually the 8th largest country in the world. 

This story recounts our adventures in Bariloche and Junín de los Andes.

Bariloche is a ski resort in the winter and a lakeside resort in the summer. Since we were there in January, it was summer time. One of its claims to infamy is as a refuge for high ranking Nazi war criminals. Nazis and other fascists fled Europe from 1945 onward and used “ratlines,” or escape routes, to safe havens in the Americas, particularly Argentina. Juan Perón actively invited Nazis to Argentina. 

When we arrived in Bariloche, our first action item was food! At a restaurant, we ordered a pizza with hearts of palm, ham, capicola, roasted bell peppers, olives, and salsa golf. I had never heard of “corazones de palma” and when I looked up the translation as “hearts of palm,” I still didn’t know what it was. It is actually the centre core of a cultivated palm tree. The centre core and base are edible. On a pizza, it looks like semi-melted, whole string cheese.

Salsa golf also makes for a good pizza topping. It’s made with mayonnaise, ketchup and spices like pimento, oregano, and cumin. It’s called salsa golf because it was invented at a golf course in Argentina.

For Bariloche, we had booked a three day kayaking trip. We wanted to camp for two nights and kayak for three days. We weren’t super experienced lake kayakers, but Chris had white water kayaking experience and I figured I could handle it. On our second day in Bariloche, after waiting hours for the tour company to pick us up, we asked the hotel if they knew about our tour.

The hotel told us that they didn’t know anything about our tour and didn't have a room booked for us for that night, which we found odd. When we contacted the local tour company, they said we weren’t on their list of tours. To sort out the tour, Chris talked to three different people and got three different stories about why we weren’t on their tour list and didn’t have a hotel room. The Canadian company we used didn’t put our booking through to the local business in Bariloche! Eventually Chris worked out that we would do a half day of kayaking on Lago Gutierrez and have a two day, one night kayaking trip on Lago Mascardi starting the next day.

The overnight trip was me, Chris, and our guide Joe. Joe was an outdoor tour guide from North Carolina who happened to be visiting his friend, the owner of the local tour company. It was a full service tour. Joe made all our meals, set up our tent, and served us drinks. It was a bit awkward because it was just the three of us and it was a lot of work for him. Chris and I offered to help but he didn’t want any.  

The kayaking was beautiful and very exhausting. We went from secluded beach to secluded beach across the large lake. In some directions we had headwinds making it really hard to paddle. Given that I had almost no experience with kayaking, it was really tough! I had good general fitness, but this kayaking required a lot of upper body endurance. In the end, I was glad that we had a 2 day kayaking trip and not a 3 day trip!

The next stop was Junin de los Andes in Neuquén Province, at the north end of the Lake District. We took a bus along the famed Ruta de los Siete Lagos to get there. These are glacier-fed lakes in the Andes. People can do the journey in a car, stopping at the different lakes and viewpoints. We did the journey on a coach bus, had viewpoints of the lakes, and it took us about half a day to get from Bariloche to Junin de los Andes.

Junin was a much quieter town than Bariloche, with fewer tourists, and we both really liked it. Our main purpose in going there was to explore the Lanín National Park, so we decided to do a day hike to the base of Volcán Lanín. Volcán Lanín is a stratovolcano, or a cone-shaped volcano, that lies on the border between Argentina and Chile. 

What a day it would be. 

Our first challenge came with getting food for the all-day excursion. The day before, we tried to buy sandwiches, empanadas, or something similar to take on a hike. Most of the shops were closed and we couldn’t find anywhere with sandwiches, even though one of the typical lunch items was ham and cheese between two pieces of bread!

We went into one restaurant and in bad Spanish, I asked the waiter if we could have the toasted ham and cheese sandwiches, to-go, but not toasted. The menu item said “toasted ham and cheese sandwiches” I was trying to tell him we wanted to take the sandwiches on a hike the next day and didn’t want them to be toasted. He had absolutely no idea what I was asking. After about 5 minutes of trying to communicate, he walked away, placed the order, and about 20 minutes later we got a 6” pile of toasted ham and cheese sandwiches! 

We kept them, because we had no other food, and in the morning they were one big pile of inedible mush. As it happened, there was one convenience store open at 6:30am. I ran down the street, grabbed two sandwiches, and made it to the bus on time for our 7am departure. Thank goodness! What a relief! The morning was such a rush but we would depart on time!

And then we sat on the bus, going nowhere, for at least another hour. People trickled onto the bus and no one was in a rush. The departure time was just a suggestion. 

Eventually we started on the journey to Parque Nacional Lanín along a pothole-filled Route 61, so rough that the bus could only go about 30-40 kph. We were taking it to the far side of Lago Huechulafquen where we would hike from the south side of the volcano to its base.

Lago Huechulafquen is a glacial lake about 25 km from Junin de los Andes in the National Park. It is one of Argentina’s largest Andean lakes. The name comes from the Mapuche language and means “long lake.” It is 30km long and 5km wide. 

The Mapuche people are a group of indigenous around the south-central parts of Chile and Argentina, including Patagonia. This indigenous group includes peoples in the area related by language and social and economic structures. While they had contact with the Incan Empire, most of them were never under Incan rule. In the mid-16th century, it is estimated their population was 700,000 to 900,000. For perspective, at its height, the Incan empire had about 14 million people.

The Mapuche contact with Spanish invaders started in 1550. By 1598, the Mapuche population decreased due to wars, epidemics, and deaths in Spanish-owned gold mines. Known for their fierce fighting, in 1598, they drove out most of the Spanish from their traditional territories. In 1641 the Mapuche and the Spanish Empire signed a treaty recognizing the territory of the Mapuche nation. However, in the 1880s, Argentia and Chile expanded their territories and once again attacked Mapuche lands. Many Mapuches were displaced and these governments continue not to recognize their official lands.

Getting back to our bus ride… 

With such a rough road, the bus decided it needed a flat tire. All passengers got off and waited on the dirt road, chatting with others, using the bathroom (aka the bushes), and enjoying the morning while the driver changed the flat. We made it to the park and started our hike. It was a fantastic hike through the monkey puzzle trees then up the stark landscape to the snowline. The view from the base of the volcano was one of the best we’ve ever had on a hike. 

We were concerned about getting back for our 4pm bus departure. We figured 4pm was a suggestion, but being on time is a hard habit to break. Our food supplies were dwindling and we were getting hungry. We made it back down to the lake and went to the only open cafe. We asked what food and drinks they had and they only sold Pepsi! No food, no other drinks. 

Desperate, we shared a Pepsi and waited for the bus. Other tourists started to gather around, so we figured we were in the right spot. 4pm came and went with no bus. 5pm, 6pm… No bus. Other tour buses stopped and asked if any of us wanted rides. The other tourists jumped at the chance. I refused all the rides because I didn’t want to pay again for a ticket! But this only exacerbated my anxiety. 

By about 6:30, Chris and I were the only people left waiting for the bus. I was so tense and worried about being abandoned in the park that I had a splitting headache. I was a beast to be around and refused to say anything to Chris. I kept telling myself that if we were abandoned, surely people in the park would help us. These comforting thoughts did not make me feel better.

Around 7pm the bus showed up but it was going in the wrong direction! The driver said he was late because the other bus broke down and he was sent out as a replacement bus. He still had to go out even further, to the very end of the lake, to the very last stop on the route, to get people there, and then come back. At around 8pm, 4 hours late, the bus finally picked us up, near starvation and practically abandoned! 

When I got on the bus, my headache went away and I cheered up! I fell asleep for a little bit, but then my tendency to worry went to thinking about dinner and would we get back in time for dinner? I don’t know why I was worried, because dinner in Argentina started at 9pm and was in full swing at 11pm. 

We made it back to Junin de los Andes at 10pm, went to a popular restaurant crowded with people, and had food on the table by 11pm. It was the only meal in Argentina where we actually ate at the same time as locals! 

The next day we spent around the town. Mid-afternoon, we bought two really big double-scoop ice cream cones, sat on a park bench, and ate them. We hiked up to a nice viewpoint called Parque Via Christi. At the top there was a large cross, some mosaics, and a bathroom. At this point, Chris said he was going to have diarrhea. Not ideal to have diarrhea when you’re out on a walk, but there was a clean public bathroom at his disposal! 

He refused to use it, saying he didn’t want to use a public bathroom, and wanted to walk back to the hotel and use the bathroom there. I was astonished. It was a 1-hour walk back to our hotel! How in the world could anybody hold diarrhea for that long?

During the walk back to the hotel, he was very silent and focused. I made sure not to mention his impending diarrhea. But when we made it back to the hotel, we couldn’t get in. The hotel had us leave our key with them when we left so we didn’t lose it when we went out. For about 5 minutes, we knocked on the front door to get in and no one answered. They were in the back, cleaning. Once the door opened, Chris made a beeline for the bathroom. 

We experienced some spectacular beauty, good food, challenging physical activities, and friendly people. We also couldn’t let go of our preference for, and expectations of, punctuality. Plus our reservations were lost, our bus broke down, and we couldn’t buy food for our hike. I’m not sure I would ever visit Argentina again, but if I did, I’d have to take a course on how to tell time like an Argentine.