Laguna Trebol, Our home away from home

Packing, unpacking, repacking, packing . . . Doing this every few days does not help you feel settled. After our first 5 weeks of moving around every few days, we thought we would try a new method of travel, staying put. Since the Lake District is somewhere we wanted to spend a good portion of time, we searched for a place on Airbnb (if you haven’t heard of it, look it up, excellent way to travel!). We found a great place about 20K outside of the city of Bariloche, meaning it was closer to the activities and sights that Bariloche has to offer (biking, kayaking, hiking, boating, etc).

Our home away from home: The place we picked was a private room in a house on a Lagoon. The place was very well reviewed on Airbnb, so our expectations were high. When we arrived even our highest expectations were blown away! The place was gorgeous and perfectly located. We’re still trying to figure out how we can get a place like this in Seattle;  a custom home on the water is totally reasonable, right?

View of the house, the grass roof helps keep the temperature inside cool in the summer and warm in the winter

View of the house, the grass roof helps keep the temperature inside cool in the summer and warm in the winter

Great lake view from the bedroom!

View of our bedroom

Around the house: As you can see from the pictures above, hanging around the house is not a bad way to spend a day. We enjoyed our home away from home by: hosting our own Superbowl party (with Spanish commentary), cooking every day and even making some local cuisine (we made our own chicken Empanadas!), swimming at least once a day (the exception being one day we just floated with life jackets on after a long hike – No judgment please kvh and sam :) ), and kayaking around the lagoon.

Karen making pizza for the superbowl party!

Karen making pizza for our Superbowl party! You can see the dining room and living room in the background.

Kayaks waiting for a ride at sunset

Kayaks waiting for a ride at sunset

Arlen perfecting the chicken empanada. After a month of eating empenadas, we decided to make our own. Great success!

After a month of eating empenadas, we decided to make our own. Great success!

Daily Adventures:  Aside from just a lake front view, our place was accessible to many other activities, as it was right next to Nahuel Huapi National Park. We had time to do most of what we wanted: we biked the Circuito Chico loop, went to the top of Cerro Campanero lookout, visited Puerto Blest by boat, hiked to the top of Cerro Catedral mountain, and explored the Sunday market at Colonial Suiza.

Map of the Lake District. The orange star is our house

Map of the Lake District. The orange star is our house

  • Circuito Chico is a 26K loop that weaves its way through most of the lakes in the region and through Nahuel Huapi National Park. You pass by Llau Llau the most famous hotel in Argentina; Arlen would not recommend this place because on our way up to see the hotel the entire pedal to his bike fell off (gotta love rental bikes!)! Needless to say, the staff at Llau Llau were not eager to help him out. Luckily, we found someone to call our bike rental shop and they brought him a new bike.  Once back on the road, we entered the National Park and found our favorite part of the loop, Villa Traful beach. The beach was tucked away down a mile long dusty dirt road, but when we got there we were stunned by the crystal clear turquoise water. It didn’t take us long to put on our suits and go for a swim! To finish it up we enjoyed 3 for 2 frozen margaritas and the view at Punto Panoramico, the highest point on the loop.
Villa Traful beach, to swim or not to swim . ..

Villa Traful beach, did we go swimming?

Definitely SWIM!

Yes!

and YES!

and YES!

The proof

Back on the bikes

The view from Punto Panoramico - highest point on the Circuito after the steepest climbs on the bikes

After a several steep hills, we made it to Punto Panoramico, the highest point on the Circuit

  • Cerro Catedral is the biggest ski center in South America. Karen wondered why we decided to hike a ski mountain (when it seemed like something we should be doing on a snowboard), but once we started making the climb, she realized that the trail wasn’t right under the chairlift, but instead went through the forest on the backside and to a small mountain lake surrounded by jagged peaks. The lake was much needed as it was close to 95 degrees!
Found some wildflowers for Karen's Mom's Birthday! Happy Bday Mom! :)

Found some wildflowers for Karen’s Mom’s Birthday! Happy Bday Mom! :)

Great reward at the top of this hot hike - chilling by the lake

Great reward at the top of this hot hike

Her first catch!

Her first catch!

Lake District 2 13 2012 029

We don’t want to bore you with too much more writing, so here are some pictures of the other activities we enjoyed.

Boat trip to Puerto Blest

Boat trip to Puerto Blest

Unfortunately our fellow passengers were more interested in feeding the birds instead of looking at the beautiful mountains.

Unfortunately our fellow passengers were more interested in feeding the birds instead of looking at the beautiful mountains. If you look close you can see the person on the right holding a cracker hoping a bird will eat it from his hand. This kept the passengers entertained for the entire hour boat ride. This was a nice reminder to pick our tours carefully : )

Puerto Blest

Puerto Blest

The Sunday market at Colonial Suiza. We enjoyed our first Choripan (Argentine's version of a hotdog, but much better)

The Sunday market at Colonial Suiza. We enjoyed Papas Fritas and our first Choripan (Argentine’s version of a hotdog, but much better)

Cerro Campanaro lookout, only a 45 minute hike to the top from our house

Cerro Campanaro lookout, only a 45 minute hike to the top from our house

Lake District, Argentina 142

Lake District, Argentina 140

Cerro Campanero on a cloudy day.

View from Cerro Campanero on a cloudy day.

After two weeks in the Lake District we are heading east on a 20 hour bus ride to . . . Buenos Aires!

 

 

 

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