Patagonian Update

Just a quick update on Bariloche... It´s been raining here since we arrived and the forecast doesn´t seem to change. We may see if we can move our flight to El Califate up to escape the weather. Yesterday we braved the weather and did a six hour hike up in the mountains to the first ¨Refugio¨ (mountain shelter) and back. The hut looked like a little Troll´s house as a giant boulder served as the back wall and half the roof. We got a little wet but the hiking kept us warm. We decided against doing an overnight hike as the thought of returning to a hot shower and warm meal sounded good. The snow capped mountians were mostly obscured by clouds but we did make it to the snow line before retreating. The only really sketchy part was, what Doug called, a ¨slip, fall and die¨ bridge over a raging mountain river. The bridge looked like it was made out of lincoln logs - it was sturdy but only had a single hand rail for half the span. It really was a nice test of balance and something to get the adrenaline flowing.

Today we took a bus trip up further into the mountains to Pampa Linda at the base of Mt. Tronador, the highest peak in this area. Again it rained most of the day and the views were cloudy but we did see the base of a glacier that is slowly tumbling down the mountain and calving into an alpine lake. It´s called the black glacier as there is a lot of dark, volcanic rock mixed in with the ice and snow. The lake looked like a giant bowl of Cookies and Cream ice cream. It would have made me hungry if it weren´t snowing, windy and as cold as a bowl of ice cream up there! Nope, a hot bowl of soup sounded better! Back in Bariloche we went for a fondue for dinner! I had wild boar stew last night and Doug had the venison. Yum, yum. We´ll do another soggy hike if we can´t get out of town tomorrow.

That´s it for now!
-Dan