Entering the ice cave before it was taken over by hundreds of kids.
On top of the world.
Holding on in case I blow away.
The view from the top of Catedral mountain.
Dazzled by all those tall snow-capped mountains surrounding Barilochè we thought we'd better visit them. 'Cerro Catedral' is the main ski-field in Barilochè and overlooks town and all the surrounding lakes. It is the best mountain to climb because other than being high, the summit can be reached from the comfort of a cable-car and chair-lift making it the easiest climb.
The ski season is all but over here. It was reportedly very poor this year, the main falls only coming several weeks ago - the snow is currently icy up-top and patchy/non existent at the base. The green (Karyn-friendly) runs are all at the bottom and covered with grass. It is a lot cheaper to ski here than back in Oz (less than $100 for a one day lift pass and equipment hire) but we decided to give it a miss because Karyn´s knees are still playing up.
We were told to catch the 'Cerro Catedral' bus from town at 'quarter-past-the-hour' on the high street, or 'quarter-to-the-hour' on the low street. The bus takes you to the base of the ski-slopes from where you catch a chair-lift or cable car. After two hours of missing successive buses we realized the lady at the hostel had confused the high and low streets. Hence at 3pm our bus deposited us at the base of 'Cerro Catedral' just in time for us to shed another pile of pesos and catch one of the last cable-cars up the slope before needing to return for the last car down at four.
At the top of the cable-cart line, a thermometer informed us the temperature was a chilly 5 below zero. There was a small toboggan run, a snow cave, snow man (for the kiddies), and another chair lift to the top of the mountain. At the top of that chair-lift stood a typical alpine style restaurant/bar (closed). From the balcony of the closed restaurant we got amazing views of the lakes and mountain ranges on both sides of Cerro Catedral. The snow at the top was indeed icy though I've skied much worse in Australia. We took all our normal 'tourist pics', sadly aware that this was really the last day of sightseeing before starting to head for home. Tomorrow we would catch a bus back to Buenos Aires before bussing again to Santiago and flying home next Friday.
No comments:
Post a Comment