Siete Lagos Tour

So, just finished a round of drinking mate. I’m hoping it will help me to get a blog together to post. Among the many qualities attributed to drinking mate are; increased alertness, greater mental acuity, improved digestion, and a host of other great things! Considering how much mate the Argentines drink, if these were all true they should pretty much rule the world. Still, it is a good drink. I’ll still take my coffee in the morning, but mate is not bad for the afternoon.

Well, I have been well away from the blogging sphere the last few weeks as some of you may have noticed. That’s because upon arrival to Bariloche, we quickly decided that the right thing to do was rent a car and get out into the surrounding parks and reserves. So, for the past two weeks we have been out exploring and camping. It was a super great time; a really good way to change up a trip of hostelling and eating in restaurants. It also meant that I could go fishing!

Our first stop was the Rio Limay. Not far out of Bariloche but gives you a good idea of what it’s like just to the east side of the Andes. This is the drier steppe habitat, with a super clear Andes glacial melt river running through it. It is also amazing trout habitat.

Now for those of you that know fish, you may have realized that it is not a trout I’m holding in that photo. It is a small landlocked salmon. The Rio Limay, along with the rio Traful and Lago Traful are one of the few areas to catch these fish. Apparently, someone at some point planted salmon in this river system… in fact in many of the river systems here, but this is one of the few that they really took off in. I was caught off guard when I pulled it out, I wasn’t sure what it was. Then I read up on the rivers later and it made sense.

After camping on the Limay a few days, we drove up to Villa Angostura to start the famous “Ruta de los siete lagos” or seven lakes tour. Before starting we went hiking in Arrayanes National Park to see a larger forest of Arrayanes trees. They are present along many of the waterways, but only here form a pretty extensive forest. They make for yet another “Tolkien-esque” type of forest. The rails of the walkway, and some of the bases are made of Arrayanes too, so you can see it is a nice looking wood.

The lakes of the region are all basically like mini (or even large) Lake Tahoes; beautiful super blue lakes, surrounded by forested mountains and rocky crags. The surprising thing is that they are all natural (no reservoirs), and that outside of Bariloche, thay don’t have the crowds or development that Lake Tahoe has. Most of them are within the National Park. However, a National Park here is a bit more like a national forest back home. Meaning that you will see plenty of livestock and have lots of private inholdings, including those for indigenous peoples.

So they are not as pristine as they first look. It is mainly thanks to the low population pressures and poor road and trail system that helps them maintain their protection. That plus unlike the Sierras, things go from lakeside to very steep very quickly, so having trails and roads, or even houses becomes a problem. The understory of much of the forest is also quite dense. The main component of which is bamboo. I’m still at a loss to say what is native and non-native here. The park infrastructure didn’t really give out much information on species or ecosystems. I’m fairly certain that the bamboo is a native and not an invasive. You will however see lots of non-native pines, firs and doug firs… most of these are outside the parks though.

We spent most of our time camping near rivers… yes so that I could fish! I will break here and do another blog to finish out the trip showing Lanin Volcano and the Araucaria trees. Cheers!