We decided to do a 3 day trek to mark my birthday instead. Since Slovenia, we have wanted to do another refugio to refugio trek because you don't have to carry a tent, and you can eat goulash and thick soups around a wood-burning stove on a mountain. We decided to head for Volcan Tronador, the highest mountain in the area, because you can walk to 2100m between two advancing glaciers, and you can continue on to a valley where some Australian friends had seen chinchillas. The morning we left for the park the weather was awful and just got worse as we got closer to the start point. You couldn't see the mountains through the clouds and the rain was constant. The icing on the cake was when the park ranger said that he was closing the trails because of snow higher up the mountain. All we could do was a short and crowded low-level valley walk and sleep at the refugio by the rangers office. A few other hikers were stuck in the same predicament so we chatted, had dinner and a few beers around a wood-burning stove ... so it wasn't all bad. The main problem was that we had lost a day of the trip and had no way of contacting our hospedaje in Bariloche to let them know that we wanted to postpone the reservation. I had tried to convince the ranger that this was an emergency warranting the use of his emergency radio. He said it wasn't. Catherine was impressed by the Park Ranger's powers and thought that his must be the best job in the world; sitting around in his hut in the middle of a beautiful park, drinking tea by a stove, occasionally closing a pass or two. She even said to the man, in a rather creepy way, 'you have a lot of power, don't you?' Even he looked uncomfortable because she kept looking at his gun.
The weather the next day was much better, and just improved throughout the day. The ranger had opened the passes and we had the best walk of the trip so far. It began following milky rivers flowing along forested valley floors, before rising up the steep valley walls to a high ridge. We followed the ridge until we left the tree-line, passed the snow-line and continued over more volcanic rubble and snow until we got to the basic-looking hut high on the mountain. Throughout the walk up you can hear occasional rumbles of thunder; this is the end of one of the glaciers breaking off and falling 300m from the ridge to the valley floor below (Monte Tronador means 'Thunder Mountain'). Because of the movement of the glaciers, the eastern side of the mountain reaches the valley floors via a series of vertical steps, hundreds of metres high. Each step links a series of waterfalls, sometimes so high that the water turns to mist before reaching the floor. Really spectacular. We arrived at the refugio early in the afternoon, just in time to see a parascender leap off the side of the ridge. we felt jealous because he had an amazing flight right over the huge glacier to the North of the refugio. Presumably because of the temperature maintained by the glaciers, the refugio staff were also able to ski during the day as well. 'Park Ranger' had just been overtaken by 'Refugio staff' as the best job in the world. We met another English couple at the hut called Catherine and John so we took a break from mangling Spanish and had a great afternoon walking about in the snow and sunbathing because the clouds had all cleared, and it was quite warm despite the snow. The hut has an awesome position on the side of the mountain, higher than most of the surrounding mountains, so we were able to see for miles in every direction. The sunset and moonrise were awesome too. When the sun did set and the temperature dropped, we went inside the refugio for a few beers and a steak dinner by the fire. The refugio staff were amazing, and made a beautiful dinner for about 50-60 people in a tiny kitchen, and then accommodated everyone for the night in one huge room in the roof. Admittedly, the accommodation was basic ... quite literally just 40 single mattresses shoved together to cover the entire floor, and then everyone was assigned their personal 75 percent of a mattress. I spent a cosy night, rolling about well beyond the boundaries of my 75 percent, sometimes cuddling Catherine, and sometimes other people. Sorry John.
We descended the next day and sadly had to miss the 'valley of the chincillas' because of the weather delay at the start. The ranger consoled us with the news that we'd have been very lucky to have seen one anyway so maybe not all bad. When we got back to Bariloche that night we went for a drink to say goodbye to Catherine and John as they were continuing north the next day. Whilst out, I also stubbed my toe. As Catherine had found out a week earlier in San Martin, toe stubbing in South America is much more elaborate affair than back in the UK, where even unattended minors are able to take part, stubbing their toes at will. I myself had plenty of experience in stubbing my toes, so thought myself ready to tackle the worst pavements and tree roots that Argentina had to offer. Sadly, we have found ouselves to be well out of our depth here, and toe stubbing always seems to result in unsightly flaps of skin, blood pooling on the pavement, bilingual swearing, black toenails, and more betadine. Maybe even a tear.
The next day we went horse riding. Since horses always bite me I had only agreed to this if Catherine would go rafting, although I suspect she'll back out yet. We booked in with a local gaucho lady with the deceptively English name Carol, and when she picked us up, we shared the truck with two hungover cowboys from Wyoming called Tyler and Frank. Tyler was a younger guy, helping out on the ranch until some friends arrived, but Frank was purposefully in town to buy horses so that he could ride over the mountains into Chile and beyond. Frank was in his 60s and every story seemed to involve drink. Later, whilst we were out on our ride, he had drunk the horse's medicine thinking Carol was 'hiding whisky' from him! Unlike previous horse riding experiences in the UK, they first have to send gauchos out onto the ranch to 'catch' the horses (I'm sure there's a proper term for it). Carol's horses didn't even attempt to bite me so all got along fine and we had a great ride over the hills, spotting a few deer and some hares as we went, and we finished with a beer afterwards. Frank had fallen asleep under a tree but joined us for the beer. We asked Carol about the wildlife in the area and she said that, amongst other things, there were pumas. I asked what they ate, and she said 'deer and small horses'. I said that, as a camper, this worried me, but she said not to worry because 'you never see them'. I explained that this worried me more. When Carol dropped us off back in town I asked if she was going to sell a horse to Frank; She said she was, and she would like to buy the horse back at the end, but after glancing into the truck, she solemnly supposed that Frank would probably never be seen again.
We finally made use of the English cinema and saw Avatar. Catherine lost all her street-cred, and cried like a schoolgirl ... over an animated action film. Never again can she mock me for only crying at Armageddon, the powerhouse emotional rollercoaster set to an Aerosmith soundtrack. Tomorrow we leave for Stage 3 and Patagonia proper.
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