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The morning of this day was a disaster, and it left me grumpy. It was raining and dreary in Bariloche. We visited the tourist information office, the Nuahel Huapi national park office, several bookstores - and no where could we find a contour map showing the hiking trails of the national park. I am really surprised, but apparently such a map does not exist, despite the fact that the national park is the primary reason people visit Bariloche. It was also frustrating trying to extract information about the Bariloche bus system - they don't have a good map showing the routes, or schedules showing when the buses run. When we visited the bus station office, the lady there gave us the timetable for the #10 bus, but for some reason she didn't show us the return trips, so having half the schedule didn't make sense. None of the bus stops in Bariloche are labeled, so you don't know where to stand for which bus. If you are visitor, you must buy a pass and then charge it up with the proper number of pesos, you can't pay with cash on the bus. It was the lunch hour before we finally rode the #20 bus out to Llao Llao Hotel on the peninsula. We had decided that due to the rain and clouds, that there would be no point in hiking in the Nuahel Huapi mountains. However, at the western end of the shore, is the Llao Llao Municipal Park, which has trees and views of the lake - we hoped to be able to see some views of the lake beneath the cloud layer. The rain stopped at midday, and the clouds rose higher in the sky, so it turned out that we had half a day of decent weather, we didn't get rained on at all in the afternoon (though we did start our hike wearing our full rain gear, anticipating that the rain would come back.) We followed a counterclockwise loop of trail around Llao Llao park. The first mirador was at the top of a small mountain (a Cerrito) - from the top of this mountain, we were able to look out over the forest and see the lake to the west and the north. It is a big lake! More hiking through the forest of Coihue trees brought us to additional viewpoints, looking out to the north at Mirador del Tacul and to the west at Bahia Lopez. We also stopped at a "Roman Bridge" and tiny Lago Escondido. On the return trip, we hiked along the northern shore of Lago Perito Moreno Oeste, with more lake views. We were definitely in the Lakes District of Argentina. For the rest of our trip we would see numerous lakes each day - and as the weather got better, the lakes looked prettier beneath the blue skies. On the final segment of our hike, we passed through a small forest of Arrayanes trees. These are conifers with trunks that appear to be twisted. Their bark is a bright cinnamon color, so the trees really look unusual. At the Hotel Llao Llao, we caught the #20 bus and rode back into Bariloche. Panorama Photos
MapsThis map shows downtown Bariloche and it is supposed to show their bus routes - can you see the little red and purple symbols of buses scattered about the map? That is supposed to tell you where you can catch a bus. Good luck. I labeled some important Bariloche points - Hotel Tirol, the Information office (right next to the hotel), the national park office, and (very important) the Budget rental car office. Forget the buses, rent a car while you are in Bariloche.
This map also contains clues about the Bariloche buses, you can see little bus symbols with route numbers on top of them. Bus #20 runs all the way from downtown Bariloche out to Hotel Llao Llao (upper left corner of the map), which is how we got to Llao Llao Municipal Park.
I zoomed in on the Llao Llao peninsula portion of the previous map so you can see the hiking trails and view points in Llao Llao park.
Videos
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Click on any thumbnail to begin the slide show at that photograph Llao Llao Park Photos
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