Bariloche is often called Little Switzerland, or the Switzerland of South America.It’s an appropriate nickname for this city located in the northern part of Patagonia. It has snow-capped mountains, crystal clear lakes, Alpine architecture and cuisine inspired by the German, Austrian, and Swiss immigrants who settled here in the late 1800s. At the time, Argentina and Chile were both trying to establish their claims to Patagonia. The Argentine government sought to strengthen their claim by bringing Europeans to populate the land. They gave them free land as an incentive.
The official name of the city is San Carlos de Bariloche, and its population is about 100,000. The city is located nearly 1000 miles from Buenos Aires on the shores of a very deep lake called Nahuel Huapi, inside a national park of the same name. The park, established in 1922, is Argentina’s oldest national park, and one of the country’s largest, with an area of 2720 square miles. Nahuel Huapi means “tiger (or jaguar) island” in the Mapuche language and it refers to the group of native people who lived north of the lake. According to native lore, they were ferocious as wildcats.
The town of Bariloche is the center of tourism for the region. It began to develop into a tourist destination in the 1930s. But it became truly popular in the 1970s, when train service linked the town to larger cities. Students quickly discovered that it was an ideal location for their parties. The 1990s saw a major increase in summer tourism from Brazil. Nowadays, Brazilians make up eighty percent of Bariloche’s visitors. Because tourism is Bariloche’s main source of revenue, Portuguese, as well as English, is taught in the schools.
After our two and a half hour, 980-mile flight from Buenos Aires to Bariloche, we were relieved to find cooler temperatures here in northern Patagonia. The mid-day sun was shining brightly as we made our way through the tourist-oriented downtown area, past a multitude of restaurants, ice cream and chocolate shops, stores selling outdoor gear and souvenirs, and tour agencies. Since schools were out for the summer, the town was filled with vacationing families.
The European influence was obvious from the architecture.
An equestrian statue of Julio Roca (the general and self-proclaimed King of Patagonia who was responsible for the massacre of the native people) stands in the main square. Javi told us it’s frequently vandalized.
It was already lunchtime when we arrived, so Suzanne and I quickly made our way to Punto Empanada, the empanada shop recommended by Javi. After looking at their long menu of empanada options, I settled on three varieties: carne dulce (beef, green olives, raisins, hard boiled eggs); calabaza (pumpkin, cheese, sprinkled with seeds); veggie (a variety of spinach, peppers, zucchini, and onions). All were delicious, and not greasy at all since they were baked rather than fried.
Along the main commercial street, we found Rapa Nui, one of the most popular ice cream shops in Bariloche. Even after three empanadas, I couldn’t resist indulging in crema ice cream with swirls of dulce de leche. On the same street, we were tempted by Mamuschka, one of Bariloche’s many chocolate shops, where I purchased a few chocolate bars to bring home.
I’m glad our hotel was in a quiet location, a short distance from the touristy center of town. On the expansive lawn that stretched out in front of the building, we saw some unfamiliar birds. Using the field guide to plants and animals that OAT had provided, I was able to identify a cluster of female upland geese. We also saw several black-faced ibis placidly pecking at the grass with their long, curved beaks.
The terrace of our hotel was the perfect place to relax with some of our fellow travelers while we looked out at the blue waters of the lake and the snow-capped peaks of the Andes.
During our time in Bariloche, we explored several areas of Nahuel Huapi National Park. One of our first adventures was a chair lift ride up to Cerro Campanario. After ascending over a forested hillside, we reached the summit (3450 feet), where we were rewarded with gorgeous vistas in every direction. The highest peaks we could see reached 6000 feet. In winter, this is a popular area for skiing, with 39 different chair lifts. Gulping in the crisp, cool fresh air, I felt like I was in paradise.
Afterwards, we boarded our bus for a drive through a heavily wooded area. Our local guide, Joanna (aka Chiqui) told us that the pine trees were brought to the area and began overtaking native trees. Along the side of the road, wild yellow alstroemeria flowers were blooming. Alstromeria are native to this region, and they’re considered a symbol of eternal love by the native Mapuche people.
We stopped to take an easy trail hike in the Llao Llao Municipal Park, where Chiqui identified some native trees.
We learned to recognize coihue trees, a native beech tree with small waxy evergreen leaves. These trees require a large amount of humidity to thrive and they grow quite tall, up to 100 feet or more. Chiqui told us that coihue trees host an edible fungus called llao llao, which means very sweet. We found some growing on a coihue tree, but no one was brave enough to try it.
Other native trees in the park included the monkey puzzle tree and arrayán tree. The arrayán was easy to identify. It has a cinnamon-colored trunk and no bark. Without bark, the tree has no insulation and is very cold to the touch.
The forest was filled with birdsong. Austral thrushes were flitting among the trees and white-crested alenias were chattering in the tree tops. Both are native to the area. Chiqui noted that the introduction of non-native animals such as trout, beavers, and deer has caused problems in the park.
Once we emerged from the forested area of the park, there were some beautiful views.
Lunch was an educational experience at Gilbert’s, a family-owned restaurant/brewery in the countryside. When we arrived, a smoky aroma was wafting in from outside and a long table was set with several pitchers of beer. Javi told us that smoked food, such as fish, cheese, and spices, was brought by Europeans and is typical of Bariloche. After we dined on pumpkin soup, corn empanadas, locally sourced wild boar, and calafate (a type of Patagonian berry) ice cream, we learned about beer making from the brew master. He makes 600 liters of beer a day, using only four ingredients – glacier water, barley grown near Buenos Aires, hops from different kinds of Patagonian flowers, and yeast. The beer is only available on tap in the restaurant. I’m certainly not a beer connoisseur but I tried all three varieties: pilsner (my favorite), porter, and IPA.
After a windswept photo stop, we finished up the day with a delicious dinner of pink trout and a luscious dessert at our hotel. (5847,8)
The following morning, we met with Dario, a leader of the Mapuche community that lives near Lake Nahuel Huapi. Mapuche means people of the Mapu land. The Mapuche were a militaristic tribe that lived on both sides of Andes, i.e. in Argentina and Chile. After fighting the Incas, they fought the Spanish for over 400 years and then fought the governments of Argentina and Chile. Both countries tried to take their land by force. The struggle was more violent on the Argentine side. While Chile repressed the Mapuche and forced them to move from their homelands, Argentina killed a large number of Mapuche and jailed many others before taking them to be slaves in the north of the country in the 1890s.
In the early 1930s, the small surviving number of Mapuche in Argentina began to establish new communities and demanded that the government return their land. However, this was a complicated situation not only because the Mapuche land was part of the newly established Nahuel Huapi National Park, but because oil and gold was found on the land they claimed. (Does this sound familiar to what happened in the U.S.?)
As Bariloche was growing in the 1940s and 50s, the Mapuche living on the outskirts of the town were used as cheap labor. Discrimination against the Mapuche continued throughout the period of military dictatorship. Baptism was forced on them, they were required to change their names to Christian names, and their language was suppressed. Like in North America, native children were taken to mission schools in an effort to wipe out their culture.
Starting with Argentina’s return to democracy in 1983, conditions began to improve. Native ethnic groups were officially recognized and they began to receive support from religious leaders as well as the government. The Mapuche were finally free to maintain their language and culture. Today’s Mapuche community does not accept the Catholic religion or evangelical Christianity. Rather, they continue to practice traditional rituals based on their strong ties to nature.
In 1994 Argentina’s new civil code gave the Mapuche more rights but we learned that the laws are not always enforced. Mining companies and logging companies still use Mapuche land. And the current government, under Millai, has plans to repeal certain laws in order to kick Mapuche off their land, which is the source of their identity.
On the 500-year anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the Americas, the Mapuche held their own commemorative event and came up with a flag for their own state. The colors and designs of the flag are all symbolic. The blue stripe represents the land from above where the ancestors live. The green stripe represents everything within the land. The red stripe represents the blood of their forefathers in the land below.
There is a great deal of meaning in the images as well. The black shapes mean life-giving rain and also represent women who give life to this world. The white shapes represent the art and science of Mapuche world, i.e. the knowledge of the elders. In the center of the flag the four red lines that form a cross represent the four stars of the Southern Cross constellation that walk together as a family. The forked ends of the red lines resemble the footsteps of the rhea, the flightless bird native to Patagonia. The two stylized red “stars” are the suns of winter and summer. The red crescent moon represents life and the five-pointed star represents Venus, the first star to appear and the last to leave.
Javi, who is Chilean, added that the history of the Mapuche in Chile is somewhat different. In Chile, while some were forced to relocate, the Mapuche did not face the same kind of repression as they did in Argentina. Over time, they intermarried with the European population. As a result, most of today’s Chileans have mixed European and Mapuche ancestry, of which they are quite proud. I was looking forward to learning more about the Mapuche culture when we traveled to Chile in a couple of days.
To explore the Bariloche region from the water, we took a rafting trip on the Limay River. I’ve had very limited experience with rafting and I was reassured when Javi told us that conditions would be Class 1 or even less, except for a brief section of rapids.
The Limay River begins at Lake Nahuel Huapi and eventually flows into the Atlantic Ocean. The water where we rafted isn’t very deep and it’s so clear that we could see the rocks at the bottom. As we floated along, listening to the rush of the wind, we learned about the geology of the surrounding landscape. The tall columns of volcanic rock on either side of the river had been covered with ice during the most recent glacial period.
We also learned from our rafting guide about the wildlife in the area. Although Patagonia’s human population is quite small (the density is one person per square mile), there are plenty of wild animals. We’d already seen guanacos on our way to the rafting site. These members of the camelid family are closely related to llamas.
Other animals that inhabit the area include the red fox, a type of hare called mara, wild boar, deer, and puma. From our raft, we saw ducks and cormorants on the shore. Swallows darted overhead. Our guide identified Atlan geese and Southern lapwings, who squawk very loudly. We also heard the cry of the chimango (caracara) bird.
The willow trees that lined the riverbank are not native. Willows were first brought to the shores of Lake Nahuel Huapi and they spread from there. Likewise, the stands of poplars are non-native and were introduced to serve as wind breaks on the Patagonian steppe, known as the pampas.
After our rafting trip, we relaxed along the riverside and recharged with coffee, tea, and empanadas. I could have spent the rest of the day here, watching the river flow, but Javi reminded us that horses were waiting.
Since Patagonia isn’t suitable for farming, much of the land has historically been used for ranching. Beginning in the mid-1800s, the European immigrants who settled here established ranches called estancias where they raised livestock, both cattle and sheep. We visited an estancia located about 10 miles south of Bariloche that is actually within the national park. It was founded by the Haneck family, immigrants from Germany who arrived in 1874 and received the land from the Argentine government. The 4th and 5thgenerations of the family currently live on the property. Instead of raising cattle, they now keep 27 horses and welcome tourists to the estancia for horseback rides and typical Argentine meals in the spacious log ranch house.
Before we headed out for our horseback ride, we settled down inside the house to learn about an important Argentine tradition, namely mate drinking. It’s not an exaggeration to say that drinking mate, a type of herbal tea, is an obsession with the Argentines. They believe that mate gives you a boost of energy and that it’s gentler than caffeine. Mate is grown in the north of the country, in the region occupied by the native Guarani tribe, who introduced the mate drinking custom to the Europeans. Mate is a blend of herbs that’s fairly bitter. The tea is sipped through a metal straw, called a bombilla, with a perforated ball at the bottom to strain out the leaves. As it’s practiced today, drinking mate is not about flavor but rather about sharing with friends.
Chiqui demonstrated the preparation of the tea and explained the proper etiquette involved with matedrinking. Just keep in mind that the word mate refers not only to the herbs but also to the cup-like container used for drinking the tea. (Yes, that’s confusing.) A pumpkin gourd was traditionally used for this purpose. Nowadays, the mate can be made of other materials.
When people come together to drink mate, one person acts as the server who prepares the drink. First, Chiqui poured the dried herbs from a bag into the mate (gourd) until it was about three quarters full. She was careful to form a mountain with a diagonal slope to one side – the top of the herbs should not be flat. Then she slowly poured water that was hot but not boiling (Argentine electric kettles have a mate setting) onto the low side of the mountain. Next, she placed the bombilla (straw) on angle into the low side of the herbs. She cautioned that once the straw is placed, you must never move it.
Once the tea is prepared, the server tries it first. According to the rules of mate drinking, after Chiqui drank the first serving, she refilled the mate with hot water and passed it to Javi, who was sitting next to her. Javi had to drink the whole serving of mate – without moving the straw – before passing it back to Chiqui. She poured water in again and passed the mate to the next person, i.e. the person sitting next to Javi, and the ritual continues until everyone has had enough to drink. She said that when a group of friends come together, it takes at least an hour to go through the mate ritual that accompanies their socializing.
The ritual was briefly adjusted during the early days of the pandemic, but the tradition of straw sharing quickly resumed. It’s seen as a way of making everyone equal. Under the supervision of Chiqui and Javi, each one of us in our group prepared an individual cup of mate (no straw sharing for us!) and sipped the tea between bites of torta frita (fried dough), a popular snack.
Then it was time to mount our horses for an hour-long ride on the pampas. I discovered, much to my dismay, that getting onto (and off of) a horse was a bit more difficult than I remembered from my younger years. I wanted to take photos during the ride but the estanciero (rancher) leading us was adamant that we hold onto the reins with one hand and the horn of the saddle with the other hand at all times. My horse turned out to be a bit frisky and actually nipped the horse walking in front of us.
By the time we finished our ride, our lunch was ready. Big bowls of different salads (beet, carrot, lettuce, tomato, corn, potato, lentil, and egg salad) were on the table in addition to heaping platters of grilled meats (beef, lamb, and chorizo). Crepes filled with dulce de leche rounded out the hearty meal.
It was a busy day and I was glad to get to bed early, especially because we would be departing early the next morning. Tomorrow, we would be heading west to Chile on the other side of the Andes. I’d love to return to Bariloche one day with my family. It’s an ideal spot for outdoor adventures.
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| Farewell to Bariloche |
