Refugiomania VI...

Our first real hike was a three-day tour around a couple of very pointy mountains south of a place called Colonia Suiza, which is about 25km west of Bariloche along the lakeside. We packed our bags and set off down the hill from our house to catch the colectivo (public bus) to the trailhead. About halfway down the hill we had both had enough, but we refused to admit defeat and continued heroically to the bus stop.

The first day was a nice 30-degree amble up the side of a mountain to an alpine cabin (refugio) perched on a promontory at about 1500 meters. Refugios are a new concept to us. In Canada you don't generally find places that serve cold beer, wine, and deliciously rugged meals on high mountainsides. We quickly realized that about 80% of the gear we had lugged up the hill wouldn't be necessary after setting foot in Refugio López, but that was okay, because they had cold beer. So I resolved to drink the weight of our unnecessary gear in Heineken before leaving the refugio.

Refugios are not super-deluxe. They are generally very rustic, woody places, but they have everything you could possibly need to restore your strength, warmth, and sleep during walks in the mountains. So if you were to forget to pack something important while preparing for your trip, like food and sleeping bags (don't laugh, that has almost happened to us), refugios would allow you to continue hiking without dying.

We met a couple of nice people that night at Refugio López, most of whom had crossed over from Refugio Italia that day. This was the route that we were going to do in the opposite direction the following day. They all warned us about the loose rock on the other side of the first high pass the next day's hike. It was very windy and rainy all night, so we were prepared to turn around and head back out the way we came if the weather looked nasty, but the next morning white puffy clouds were drifting over the peak, so we decided to go for it.

It was a beautiful day of alpine hiking. The loose rock descent was no problem at all, though we could see why the people who had ascended it would expect it to be difficult. We got that section out of the way first, and the rest was mostly smooth sailing, sort of.

The last stretch to Refugio Italia skirts an alpine lake called Laguna Negra. It is possible to see the refugio from about 6km away, and looking at it from that distance, one thinks that the last little walk should be easy. What you can't see from 6km is the sheer rock face that you have to traverse before enjoying the wood stove and cold beer.

At one point during the traverse of the rock face, Jen's water bottle slipped out of its holster, and she had to get rid of it before continuing, so, cleverly, I suggested that she throw it to me. The wind was picking up, so her 20mph changeup quickly became a 103mph fastball which sailed high, tipped off my outstretched hand, and landed in the laguna.

I removed my backpack and, creeping like a skilled crab to the water's edge, dipped a toe under the water bottle and tried to flip it to myself. This didn't really work, so I needed to scoop and flip, and lunge and grab. Something happened between the lunge and the grab, so what should have been a scoop-flip-lunge-grab was a scoop-slip-splash-yell-scramble-laugh-undress-posedown-dress.

Like a newborn hippo, I had fallen into the Laguna, and it wasn't just a little soaker. I had been completely submerged. But somehow I knew that the stakes weren't that high, since the refugio was in sight, so I was very proud to have been part of something so incredibly stupid. More on that later.

So I slipped into Jen's underwear, and we continued the walk around the Laguna. The wind was really howling at this point, so the footing and our general mood was getting worse and worse. The last five minutes of that day's walk was the least pleasing, but in a way it made sitting down in the refugio all the more satisfying... and I need not mention the cold beer again, although at this point some nice mulled beer might have suited us better.

We met a very well-travelled and sweet English couple in the refugio, and we hit it off with them. There names were Allan and Jessica, and they have abandoned their management-consulting jobs for another travelling stint. They've already seen about 75% of the world, so at this point they're just filling in the gaps, as far as I can tell. The story of falling into the laguna was a very effective ice-breaker, and we shared many laughs and beers with them that evening.

After a couple of beers with the refugiero (dude who runs the refugio, a nice young guy named Nahuel), I told him the story of falling into the laguna in horrible broken Spanish, thinking that maybe he hadn't caught the entire story in English. He gave me a wry look and said "I know... I watched the whole thing through the window", as if to say: "I watch silly gringos do that kind of thing all the time. You are silly gringo number 873."

I put my wet clothes out to dry on the rocks outside, and had to weigh them down with 100 kilos of rock to prevent them from blowing away. A street dog who had followed Allan and Jessica coming up the other way from Colonia Suiza promptly fell asleep on my pants. So my pants ended up being wet and smelling like wet street dog, but that did not prevent me from wearing them the following day.

The wind howled all night, and for some reason Jen and I picked the bunk directly below the flapping aluminum portion of the broken roof. So it wasn't a great sleep, but by morning the wind had subsided and more puffy white clouds were ready to shepherd us back to Colonia Suiza. It was a beautiful walk with Allan and Jessica, and on the way we proposed to them that instead of staying in a hostel, they stay with us in our spacious apartment.

So we had house-guests for a couple of days which gave us an opportunity to test the parrilla. That was a barrel of monkeys, of course. There's nothing like building a fire indoors. We were very hungry, so we were a bit hasty with the embers and our first attempt at cooking the chicken wasn't very successful. I found in testing the embers that I was able to hold my hand directly over them for about 4 minutes without feeling pain. We concluded that more power was needed... MAS FUEGO. So we made a bigger fire, and about 4 hours after realizing the first desperate pangs of post-hiking hunger, we sat down to eat beautiful barbecued chicken! We are now total parrilla experts and can barbecue human hands whenever we want.

After another week of work and Spanish school, we hit the slopes again and hiked to a beautiful alpine lake next to Refugio San Martin. This took us along a river through beautiful lush forest full of lizards and bamboo-like greenery. It was another very cool walk, much less challenging technically than the last one, but longer, so our feet hurt afterwards. We tented next to the refugio, and enjoyed their beer during dinner on rocks next to the lake. The stars were as bright and numerous as we had ever seen them, and we were both moved by the strangeness of the unfamiliar constellations. There's some kind of famous nebula or cluster in the southern hemisphere that we should be looking out for; we need an astronomer to tell us what it is.

During the walk back Jen came up with this gem: "I would rather lay an egg than give live birth to a child. So I could lay the egg, sit on it and read and knit for nine months, then... poof. Baby."

Allan and Jess have left us and moved on to Chile, and Jen has started 4 hours a day of Spanish at a new school with comatose instructors, so hopefully she can awaken them and get some quality lessons out of the deal. I'm hoping that she brings home friends from school, and we can barbecue them!