The lake before the wind, storm clouds, rain and freezing weather set in just as we boarded the boat.
Jon in the Bambi Forest.
A house I would like to renovate.
Giant pine trees... in case you were wondering.
We thought we would wait until the morning to decide what to do with ourselves for the day. There was a good chance the weather was going to remain pretty miserable so we didn’t want to book any tours without seeing the morning sky first. When we awoke and opened the curtains it seemed pretty promising – blue sky with patches of white fluffy clouds, although quite windy. ¨Not too bad¨, we thought prematurely and went ahead and booked the boat tour to Victoria Island and Arrayanes Forest. We then jumped on bus number 20 and headed to the end of the line – Puerto Pañuelos.
When we got off the bus we were almost blown across the golf course next to us. ¨Oh well, at least it is still sunny we thought¨ - little did we know what was in store for us. We made our way down to the port as I needed the toilet quite badly and we thought there might be somewhere to take shelter and eat the sandwiches we had brought. There was no shelter but at least there was a baño. We had to content ourselves with a romantic picnic lunch on the steps of a run down coffee shop. A rather strong odour of dog shit wafted over to us whenever the wind blew our way but this was not nearly as bad as the stench of the pickled tongue Jon had between two chunks of bread. I couldn’t believe he was going to eat it and had kindly offered to share my chicken schnitzel sandwich. However, he was adamant he was going to eat a cow’s tongue… so he did. I could smell it on him for the rest of the day… it made me sick.
Finally 1.30pm came around and we boarded our vessel which happened to be an old Dutch boat – ¨Astillero ¨, built in 1937. I wondered how it had gotten all the way over to here. As we sat patiently waiting for the boat to set sail, a giant gust of wind blew in a bunch of nasty looking storm clouds. In a matter of minutes, the whole lake was covered in grey clouds and mist. You couldn’t see a thing. At 2.00pm when we finally set off, the rain started pelting down… ¨Just great¨ I moaned.
Our first port of call was the Los Arrayanes National Park which is situated on the Quetrihué Peninsula, about a one hour boat trip from Puerto Pañuelos. This park was set up to protect the only forest in the world of Arrayán trees which are cinnamon in colour with white patches. Legend has it that Walt Disney himself visited the park and was so enthralled by the trees that they later served as inspiration for Bambi. We only had 45 minutes here to wander around the boardwalk which wound its way through the forest of trees. The place is quite magical and I can see how one could imagine gnomes, fairies and elves living here, not to mention Bambi who you wouldn’t be able to see, as he (was Bambi a he?) would camouflage against the trees.
We then sailed through the rain across Lake Nahuel Huapi to Victoria Island. Here we had one and a half hours to kill. There were lots of walking tracks so it wasn’t hard to fill the time if you didn’t mind getting wet. We walked to the other side of the island. On the way we passed a derelict house that would have been wonderful to restore if it hadn’t fallen so far into disrepair. I believe it was built around the turn of last centaury but I am not sure who lived there. I don’t think anyone except park rangers and loggers live on the island now. We passed through woods of amazingly tall and straight pine trees, some of which were being logged which was sad to see. I thought it was a National Park so I am not sure why they are allowed to chop the trees down.
If the weather had been fine the views from the island of the lake and beyond would have been spectacular. As it was, we had to content ourselves with the use of imagination. We were well and truly ready to go by the time the boat blew its whistle calling everyone aboard. We were cold and hungry and looking forward to a hot shower. The 200 metre sprint to the bus warmed us up a bit and served to remind me how unfit I am and that I probably shouldn’t be eating so much chocolate – I didn’t listen to that little voice inside my head.
It was a real pity the weather was so crap as the lake and the mountains are beautiful in the sunshine and we would have had amazing photo opportunities. Some Canadian snow boarders we shared a dorm with in El Chaleton had raved about the boat tour which only made me more disappointed with our experience. As it was, if we hadn’t done the boat trip when we did, I don’t think we would have had any spare time to fit it in on another day. I guess when you are travelling with a strict time frame you don’t have much flexibility, especially when it comes to weather. Oh well we have seen so many amazing things I really can’t complain, plus less photos to edit is not a bad thing. I think we have 10,000 odd to sort through.
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