Vacations: A view of Junín de los Andes

As promised, I'll summarize the rest of my vacations in Junín de los Andes, and then on a different post I'll try and do the same with San Martín de los Andes, and be done with it (I kinda want to start writing about local news again!).

After our visit Lake Huechulafquen, the only other thing we did outside Junín was a couple of visits to San Martín. There are buses every other hour that take you there in about 50 minutes. We walked around the city a lot, and I visited Cerro Chapelco and its ski resort (obviously in the low season), but I'll speak of San Martín's main features later.

In Junín we took advantage of the river, which runs only a block and a half from Marita's. There's a little bridge that spans the river and takes you to the banks on the other shore.

The Chimehuin, as expected of Patagonian rivers, is shallow, with a pebbly bottom, very cold, and very fast. I tried to swim in it — but to my dismay I caught a strong current and had to surrender to it, until I was left on a bed of pebbles about 30 meters away.

My embarrassment was compounded by the sight of many children and teenagers who repeatedly jumped into the river, ignoring the certain danger of hitting the bottom, and then proceeded to maneuver easily following the swirls and eddies of the river, and getting (it seemed to me) exactly where they wanted. Needless to say I didn't try swimming again. Of course, these guys were all local people, so they knew the river from long experience; and being young and restless, they weren't afraid of anything.

The other thing we did in Junín was visiting the Via Christi, which is a kind of Via Crucis with sculptures and plaques representing and describing Jesus Christ's path to the place where he was crucified according to the Christian myth.

The special thing about this Via Christi is that it combines images and motifs of the Passion with local spirituality, focused on the Blessed Laura Vicuña and the (also recently Blessed) Ceferino Namuncurá, the latter being the first member of a native Argentine tribe to be on the road to Catholic Church-declared sanctity... plus a lot of ecumenical, or syncretic, references to aboriginal spirituality, a vindication of the indigenous tribes, and a retelling of the Spanish Conquest (which didn't reach Patagonia) and the so-called Conquest of the Desert in the late 19th century. The "desert" was Patagonia, which was indeed the frontier of European-Argentine civilization at the time, although it was by no means uninhabited. The Argentine Army, under the command of a typical plutocratic government, advanced over Patagonia and systematically drove away or slaughtered the native tribes it found, or turned the natives into virtual slaves, who were forced into military conscription or sent to work as servants of wealthy families of Buenos Aires; after the land was cleared of its original inhabitants, it was divided in huge fiefdoms and given away to ranchers belonging to the oligarchy who (directly or indirectly) ruled the country.

The Via Christi had elements of this story, as seen from the point of view of modern revisionist history and by recent popular Catholic leaders such as Bishop Jaime de Nevares (1915–1995). I found the whole mix quite funny in its heterogeneity, not because the story was funny in any sense, but because the story of liberation theology is so pathetic — educated folks, with the best of intentions, trying to reconcile modern views about human rights and the struggle of oppressed peoples with the teachings of a church that is fiercely hierarchical and misogynistic, that has supported oppressive governments and countless massacres in the name of its god, and is even today a major obstacle to certain basic human rights in large parts of the world. You have to admire and pity these people for the effort of weaving their version of history into Christian doctrine, even as their own Church stops short of calling them heretics.

The Via Christi also had certain obvious, and to me, rather distasteful hints of anti-abortion propaganda, with abortion compared to the genocide of the natives, and figures looking like small children or late-term fetuses embedded into the beam of Christ's cross.

This funny/creepy tour was very well kept, anyway, and it served as good exercise. When we reached the top of the hill, we could see most of the urban area of Junín de los Andes. The pictures were no good, unfortunately, due to the harsh lighting, but I managed to rescue some.

Our last days in Junín de los Andes were relaxed and festive. We had asado once, and the last night, after spending the afternoon by the river, my friend Gabriel pulled out his finest tricks and made us matambre a la pizza, which is a massive slab of flank steak with cheese and tomate sauce on top, cooked on a grill over charcoal embers (like asado, but not for so long). After that we went out to a noisy bar, and drank just enough to make fools of, but not so much as to endanger, ourselves. No pictures of that, thank you.

Sunday came. Mauro and Gabriel had bought tickets for a direct trip back to Rosario, a bit tired of vacations. I decided to make the most of my time and booked a place in a hostel in San Martín de los Andes. Somehow we woke up after 4 hours of sleep, and after some light breakfast, the guys escorted me to the bus terminal and waited until I left. Their bus departed later that day, at 2 PM — but by that time I was already in my next, and last, destination.

Vacations: Lake Huechulafquen

(Resuming the story of my vacations...) The day after we arrived in Junín de los Andes, we took a bus to the northern shore of Lake Huechulafquen, located west of the city, within the Lanín National Park. There are several buses departing from Junín to the place called Puerto Canoa, and back to Junín; we decided to follow Marita's advice and take the first one to go and the last one to return, as there's much to do in this place.

As you go west into the national park, the usually dry Patagonian landscape becomes greener. This is a Valdivian temperate rain forest. Most of this type of forest is located in Chile, but here and there it spills over the passes of the Andes into Argentina. It's noticeably more humid, with tall trees of a variety of species I can't identify, many colourful species of flowers, and moss and lichen growing everywhere.

The other thing you see as you get close to the lake is the ice-clad Lanín, almost 3,800 m high. Sometimes the sight is blocked by mountains and hills nearby, but mostly it's always there in the north, so close you feel you can touch the glaciers near its summit.

(I took dozens of pictures of it from different angles, using different camera settings. Choosing one was a problem — Lanín looks impressive in all of them, with no merit on my part. One thing of note for the photographer, in case you didn't know: when photographing snowy-topped mountains from the distance against the sky, underexpose. Otherwise the pure white of snow and its reflected light will burn off all the details. The picture above is underexposed by one full stop. This may change if you have a polarizer.)

Well, the bus left us a few hundred meters after Puerto Canoa, beside a nice church in an isolated spot of intense beauty. We walked back, marveling at the scenery, until we got to the house of the park rangers. We had to pay a small fee of admittance, and we were given a few instructions and tips. There's a path that takes 4 hours to reach Lanín's base and 3 hours to return, and if you want to go that way you have to notify the park rangers and start before 11 AM; otherwise you can go anywhere as long as you don't violate the rules.

There are several camping sites around the lake, which is 30 km long; some have basic facilities including a small "general store"-type shop, while others are more integrated with nature. We heard most of the place was already crowded, and some of the passengers in our bus came to do some camping as well.

We decided to follow a path that would take us to a cascade known as El Saltillo, located some 8 km away north of Lake Paimún, which communicates with Lake Huechulafquen on the west. We began around 11 AM; it took us two and a half hours to cover that distance, the last part being rather steep. The reward for our efforts was spectacular...

After watching the cascade, we came down again and had lunch — some sandwiches. Then we walked back to the lakeshore to enjoy the sight, had some mate, then took a nap in the shade. We didn't have time to try other, longer circuits around the lake, so we walked a few more kilometers and came to rest on a beach, not far from the bus stop. We waited there until it was about time to leave.

It was January 15, only the eighth day of my vacations of two-and-half weeks... so I guess I'd better hurry up before I tire my readers. The following installments will be more summarized, I promise!

Vacations: Our days in Junín de los Andes

The trip from Neuquén to Junín de los Andes (which you saw in pictures in my last post) took about 6 hours. First we went west, into the arid central plain of the province, where pumpjacks stand solitary here and there, bobbing in slow motion. Then southwest, towards the Andes and the Lake District.

We arrived around 2 PM into a little bus terminal with a little wooden information booth beside the platforms. There we asked about La Casa de Aldo y Marita ("Aldo & Marita's House"), our chosen place of stay, and were promptly directed there. There was no need of a taxi, because Marita's is only 6 blocks away, one block from the river.

Junín de los Andes lies mostly between National Route 40 and the Chimehuin River, which forms its eastern border. To the west is the Lanín National Park; northwest you have Lake Huechulafquen and, north of it, the volcano that gives the park its name, Lanín, and the Mamuil Malal Pass to Chile.

The city itself is small, a town of about 10,000 residents with a few blocks of well-kept urban features and some commercial activity around a nice main square, plus quiet neighbourhoods of single-story houses and streets that gradually turn to gravel and dirt roads.

Our lodging was a residencial, that is, a kind of hostel that is fashioned out of someone's home. Residenciales tend to be more informal, cheaper, and obviously look more like houses than like hotels.

Aldo and Marita both run the place, but Marita is clearly the one in charge of the house and its temporary residents, while Aldo organizes fly fishing trips on the river and other aquatic entertainments for tourists, not necessarily the ones in the house. Marita also makes smoked trout and venison, which sell for steep prices in small amounts.

The place, as you'll see from the pictures, can only be described as "cozy" and "warm". You have all the things you can expect from a hostel (kitchen, sink, fridge, some supplies for common use, a common table), and one I hadn't seen before: an asador with parrilla, that is, a special brick oven and a grill to prepare and cook asado, inside the main room. On the other hand, Marita doesn't give you breakfast, but that's not that big a problem. The trouble with Marita's House is the wooden stairs and the upper floor in general. The whole house seems to bend and bow and it creaks loudly as you go upstairs to sleep, and once you're in your bed you can clearly hear everything in the common room. So you'd better be really tired when you go to sleep, or you won't be able to.

We stayed five nights, almost six days in Junín de los Andes, so this is only one of several posts, but I'll tell you from the start that I knew the best part of the trip was about to start as soon as I came into Marita's. People will tell you that Junín simply has too little of everything, but if you go there to rest, you'll find one of the most suitable spots for it; and if you're looking for simple adventure, you'll find it as well.

In practical terms, this whole area and especially Junín de los Andes is suited for budget travelers and backpackers and all others who, like me, don't care for pre-packaged tours. You can find accomodation in dozens of places. Buses come and go, taking you to places where you can experience the majesty of nature firsthand, and back to "civilization", cheaply, safely and quickly. Fellow travelers will engage you in conversation and give you all the best tips and hints. You can choose to walk around, wet your feet in the crystal-clear lakes and quick rivers, climb the hills, or just lie down in the grass. Nature's realm has only recently been invaded by humanity here. True, there are signs and roads, and trash where there shouldn't be, and every now and then a car will come by along the silent road, but that's about it.

Most important for us big-city urban dwellers, who have been increasingly forced to paranoia and mistrust of our fellow citizens, is that this place is one where you can stop looking over your shoulder all the time. You can be sent into a tourist trap by an agency, and you can be scammed, but you can also stay away from that and explore by yourself.

On our first day in Junín de los Andes we just tried to get our bearings — finding out where the center, main square, cybercafés, supermarkets, etc. were. As the sun came down a bit, we hit the square and just lied there with our mate (and my camera). The next day promised to be exciting, our first trip into the real Lake District.

Vacations: From Neuquén to Junín de los Andes