Week 8 - Rushing northward

It feels like it's been a whirlwind week and when I look back I realise I've seen a lot and done a lot this week.

The first two days were spent in El Chaiten a town that appears to exists only for the foreign trekking and climbing tourist industry. It sits at the foot of Mount Fitzroy and many other extremely hard to climb peaks. Instead of climbs I opted for two, one day walks. The first was up to a small glacier field - with icebergs floating in a lake at it's foot, whilst the second took me to the foot of the Fitzroy mountain.

Having passed a couple of days there it was time to head north with Bariloche in the northern part of Argentina's share of Patagonia my next target. Took three days of solid riding to get there up Ruta 40. Ruta 40 is Argentina's great highway running pretty much from the south to the north of the country. It has a mystic to Argentinians much like Route 66 to Americans or the Nullarbor to Australians. Much of this comes from how hard and tough it was to do in the old days - the reality is time has moved on and at least in the south of the country most of the road is sealed. I did traverse one 70km section that was still unsealed and everyone warned me how bad it was - it wasn't, it was more a reflection of most people's inexperience with gravel roads. What was tough though was the wind - the area is famed for it and for one of my three days it certainly lived up to it. Three hundred kilometres in 70 kph side winds was tough.

Bariloche when I got therether a bit of a disappointment. The Lonely Planet guide described it as this jewel of 1920s buildings sitting beautifully on the edge of a lake. Well it might have been once, but any architectural integrity it had has been lost in the last few years due to massive over-development. It is an object lesson in how unfettered and unthinking developement can quickly ruin a place - it should be compulsory study for town planners!

Fortunately the country side around the town was still gorgeous making the visit worthwhile. Here are some shots from the area - it really was beautiful and I will remember it for a long time.