Tronodor, Learning and Relaxing

Pictures first as I can´t seem to move them
And they are out of order
And sideways and upside down
...I am a poor blogger...

Weird forzen dirt! (note: upside down..)

The housemates.

Huge waterfall one of the glaciers makes. When chunks of ice fall off - it makes lots of noise!

More sunrise

More Sunrise

The army´s Helicopter and the Hut

A dude, just chillin' on the Glacier

The Rufuge

HUGE Trees in the forest

April 3rd & 4th I went hiking up Mnt. Tronodor. I went alone, but everyone has to take the same bus from bariloche to the base of it (Pampa Linda), and hence everyone starts trekking at the same time, so I wasn´t really be alone. In the summer apparently it is crazy busy.

Some facts from my guide book and wiki:

Tronador is an extinct volcano on the border between Argentina and Chile. It was named Tronador (Thunderer) by locals in reference of the sound of falling seracs. With an altitude of 3,491 m (11,453 feet) Tronador stands out of nearby mountains in the Andean massif by more than 1000 m making the mountain a popular mountaineering trip. Placed inside two National Parks, Nahuel Huapi in Argentina and Vincente Perez Rosales in Chile (I stayed in Argentina). It hosts a total of eight glaciers which are currently retreating. Refugio Otto Meiling (where I spent the night) is named after a mountaineer who made dozens of ascents and spent years guiding people around it. The hut is located about 1200m vertically above Pampa Linda, at the mountain's base.

The start of the hike is at Pampa Linda, 50 miles south of Bariloche, a 2 hours bus ride. One of the roads we drove on is one way, in different directions at different times. I was asking on of the bus drivers (I was sitting right next to him - the bus was FULL) about how 2 cars drive so fast on such a narrow, twisty dirt road Everyone had to register at the park office before setting off. The hike usually is a path that crosses a ATV road up into the alpine, however, most of the tiny path was fenced off for ´regrowth', and I walked on the nicely switch-backing ATV road. It only took me 3.5 hours to get up to the hut, when it said it could take 4 to 7 hours. I was pretty startled at one point on my wanders, when I looked up and there was 40 Argentinian men from the army marching 2 by 2 down the path. Turns out the army goes and practices on the glaciers up there every year before they are sent out to Antarctica. I ran into 3 other troops on my way up. I arrived early and spent my afternoon drinking tea, checking out the glacier, watching condors, and napping on some rocks in the sun. Made some delicious pasta for dinner, met some German's, and some local Argentinians. The hut was super cozy. They have 4 people working at all times, cooking and cleaning. I think that is more than normal because the Argentinian army was up there camped out for 2 months. we all slept upstairs, there was about 25 of us at the hut. I hear that sometimes in the summer, there can be 50 people sleeping upstairs, which would mean that people would be sleeping on every possible bit of floor space. I got up at 7 am to watch the sun rise. It was gorgeous. I sat outside tucked into my sleeping bag for almost 1.5 hours of solo sky watching. It was super peaceful. The glaciers looked so colourful in the morning light. Ate some delicious oatmeal, then started my way down early. I was the first one to leave the hut. Some super funky ice formed over night, that lifted up the top layer of rock and dirt by about an inch. Walking on it made every step a crunchy one. I took a side trip to check out the waterfalls off one of the big glaciers I slept next to. I think it is called Thunder Mnt., because the falling ice chunks have SUCH a long way to go when they fall, and must echo viciously. I heard some thundering, but I didn´t see anything. Sometimes, I think it was only the glacier groaning, and shifting.

Anyways. Back in Bariloche I continued with some Spanish schooling for a week. Three were 2 other Canadian ladies in my class. Since tourist season is ending, the school was super quiet, only 7 students in total there, while when I was studying earlier, there was about 23. I really enjoyed school this week; i felt like i got over a hump and just started talking! We were all speaking in Spanish for the whole class. Guarantee my Spanish wasn´t fancy or nice to listen to, but we all communicated in Spanish. I really enjoyed going into shops that week and just talking to the store owners, because I could! This week was super chill. I was staying in a host family, that was also hosting a Canadian girl my age (from Victoria, who works for half the year and travels for the other half -wow!), a Californian girl (Massage therapist living in Argentina for half a year), an older man from Vermont (who owns his own apple orchard and makes apple cider and was a elementary middle, secondary teacher and a uni professor), and a very unique dude from South Africa - his stories seem like they came from a different world. All in All we had a good week together. We drank margaritas in the sun and lots of wine to accompany Mara's (our host mom)´s meals. Michele and Liam came down from Mendoza, which was awesome! We visited some ´cold trees´in a bamboo forest, went out for dinner, ate empanadas, hike Cerro companario again, and we hung out on the beach with "john, fred and sam (and antoher...liam do you remember its name?)" a gang of dogs that followed us everywhere. Good thing they were staying in Bariloche longer than I was because I Managed to leave my (read Tim´s) Ipod charging at the hostel. The bad part about that is that I don´t have a plug converter now, and one of my camera batteries is dead now.
So my week ended and I caught a bus to Chile, to Chiloe to meet Jenny :)

the end