Thu 20th Oct: Bariloche to Rio Foyel

October 20, 2016

I had everything I wished for from an early stop yesterday in Bariloche, namely I'd got abreast of uploading photos to the journal. I'd taken some reasonable photos of the town as a pictorial record of being here. And now it's time to go further.

Hotel in Villa Mascardi, a small roadside place 35km south from Bariloche, with a petrol station and various campsites.

Getting out of town southbound is to be dreaded cause of a ridiculously steep hill away from the lakeshore. It's not a long hill, it's just, perhaps that it's a busy city street with all the fumes that goes along with it. More annoying than anything.

Anyway, it doesn't take overly long until I'm on a less steep gradient on the edge of town heading toward impressive snowcapped mountains the road will pass through. The sky is near enough cloudless. The air with a sharp nip from the snow on the mountains.

I soon have the company of a local man about sixty on a nice eighties touring bike. He introduces himself, Miguel, as he rides abreast of me on the inside gravel shoulder having already looked at my bike and said "English?" and when I say no, adds "oh, a British bike." Then asks have I any problems finding tyres for it?

When I tell him I'm from Ireland, he says his eldest daughter lives in Ireland and he has been there visiting her. He and his wife borrowed a tandem in Dublin and rode south through the Wicklow mountains.

He goes on to tell me before coming to his turn off that the bike he is riding he built himself: he used to run a bike shop where he built frames, but now he only makes racks for touring, just as a hobby. His real profession is a music teacher.

The road south is a repeat of the way I rode last November, though I'm a month early for the purple, pink and white blooming lupins which add a colourful contrast to the wooded hillsides.

I lunch like I did last year at the petrol station by Villa Mascardi. Today making friends with the dog who wanted to eat my sandwich. He even gets up on the tree stump behind me to see into the bowl of leftover lentils from last night. The dog is so insistent until waddling over to a group of girls that have sat down nearby.

Beyond Lago Mascardi, the road climbs out upon a wider valley with unfenced wild pasture dotted around the edges and upon the lower slopes of craggy hills with dwarf pine trees.

Further, the road plunges into a deep canyon with dark wooded sides interwoven with lighter greens contrasting with grey granite mountain ridges, looking like upturned seashells.

It's a long way down. Perhaps over ten kilometres of winding around the sides of the deep hollow to reach the lowest point with a road turning off on the right, a dusty ripio road that follows the river, Rio Manso to Chile. By the junction is a small settlement, a scattering of clapboard houses that have seen better days. From here the road climbs for about fifteen kilometres to La Foyel. A village with a shop and restaurant called "El Vejo Amacen" The Old Shop. The rest is a scattering of houses on spacous plots of land that blend into the surrounding woodland and mountains beyond. It must've been what El Bolson was like in the 1960s before the flower power hippies came and settled, creating their alternative self-sufficient lifestyle.

The descent down to what must be the lowest point on the way to El Bolson, at Las Villagas, and the turnoff for Rio Manso.

"El Vejo Amacen" The Old Shop, by the roadside looking south.

It isn't too far more until I reach my goal for the day, Rio Foyel at the bottom of a long descent, to the right of where the road bridges the river there's a laneway down to the riverbank, where I find a sandy plot by the river to pitch the tent surrounded by not in bloom yet lupins.

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