Los Alerces

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Camping vacation on Los Alerces National Park

2003 was a hard year (yeah, sure!) so Luciana and I decided to go camping on one of the most beautiful spots on earth: Los Alerces National Park.

First things first: Many thanks to my mother for letting us borrow her car for the journey and giving me money to fill the gas tank ;)

We departured from Bariloche. The 240 Km ride from there to Esquel is in quite good shape. This trip was nice all by itself, since one travels through mountains, valleys, and part of the Patagonian plateau. Once in Esquel we bought some more food (we went camping, but both Luciana and I are very fond of good food, even in "the wild"); some meet for a nice BBQ and some other stuff. As we arrived at nap time it was quite hard to find an open store..

The ride from Esquel to Los Alerces is one of the most beautiful places I've been to. Nice "Hobbiton like" farms are spread all over the gentle valleys, with roaring mountain creeks and rivers finding their way out of the mountains.. It is just too idyllic to describe.. and I'm no poet at all!

The road from Esquel to Los Alerces

Paved roads are a memory by now, but the dirt road is in quite a nice shape..

Map of Los Alerces National Park

The first place you arrive to in the National Park (besides the toll box) is "Villa Futalaufquen" which is at the shores of lake Futalaufquen. The southernmost part of the lake is quite calm, since it has high mountains which protect it from the western predominant winds.

Futalaufquen Lake. Villa Futalaufquen is to the left (not shown).

We decided the spot for our first camp and settled there. Once everything was ready we went fishing. Although the water is quite cold the weather was nice enough in order to get wet and not to die trying.

Luciana Fishing in Paradise.

We camped two days in the spot marked 1 in the map above. Besides fishing (trouts seemed to be able to avoid us with quite some success) we went hiking and sight seeing..

One of may beautiful waterfalls we saw.

Amancay flowers.

The view from our tent (almost) on our first camp site.

"Hostería Futalaufquen"

After two nice days spent on our first camp we decided it was time to move on. We drove through a snaky road which seemed to follow the contours of the lake shores on a very arbitrary manner.. Up, down, left, right over and over again.. If you are to ride through that road remember to eat lightly. ;)

One of the many breathtaking sites on the road... In this case it is "Rio Verde" or green river... mmm... I wonder why they call it like that... :D

The day was a bit cloudy, but still it refused to rain. We were lucky since I HATE putting up tents under the rain! We settled down in the place marked "2" in the map above. That night it rained quite a bit. At 7:00 am I woke up to a beautiful cloudy morning.

Rivadavia Lake on a Cloudy morning.

The next day I was able to catch a trout. Unluckily I was unable to release her and she passed out... That earned me the nickname: "the trout's butcher" I had granted us dinner and I felt like the old cavemen bringing dinner home... I still don't know why Luciana refused to be taken by her hairs...

We visited many places. The sights were so many that it is impossible to describe them. Finally on day 4 we went back to Esquel. After leaving our stuff someplace we went over to Trevelin (a Welsh settlement from the 19th century), went to a couple of museums and to the Futalueufú Dam.

The road back to Esquel.

View from the "Futaluefú" Dam.

After resting in Esquel we decided to take a longer road back to Bariloche. That gave us the chance to see the vast Patagonian plateau.

Luciana, the car and the wide, wide Patagonia. (Note: the car used to be red...)

All in all it was a nice trip. Beautiful sights, some interesting people and many Km later we returned home. We hope you enjoyed our small vacation..

Until our next trip!

ea-brc 2004 - Esteban Glas and Luciana Larocca.