And then there were three; Chris joins the Icksperience

For Chris's first and only day in Argentina we decided to drive south to give him a sampling of northern Patagonia. We drove into the national park to visit Volcan Tronador, the highest volcano in the area, and the black glacier nearby. Just getting to the park was quite an adventure as our tour was cancelled and we had to rent a car at the last minute. We had to leave early because there was to be some tree clearing going on and the road was closed. It was a good thing we had plenty of time, as we did not consider how long it would take to drive the 50km on dirt roads to the trail head. But the drive was gorgeous, entirely through a beech forest alive with orange foliage.

Although the weather was a bit on the dreary side, we did an easy walk to the base of a glacier. We had lunch at the bottom of the cliff and waited to see the ice break off and come tumbling down, but it did not seem like any action was going to take place. Then, just as we turned to head back to the car, we heard some rumbling and were just able to glimpse some small chunks crashing onto the rocks. We now understand why the mountain is named Tronador- the thunderer. As our reward for dealing with the weather, we were greeted at the bottom with a perfect rainbow. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the black glacier the weather had turned and we decided to call it a day. For our last night in Bariloche we finally went to Alberto's Parilla (with "ll" pronounced as a "j" in argentina) recommended by Maya. Wow, this place did not disappoint. The meat was so fresh and tasty, real quality, especially the lomo (tenderloin). We're not sure of the secret ingredient (maybe its the grass fed cattle), but we are not looking forward to getting back to the American Industrial Food Complex.We also had to say goodbye to our favorite chocolate shop, Rapa Nui, which unfortunately we missed the last few days of our stay due to their shortened hours. The hot chocolate and alfajores (argentine special: sweet cookie sandwiches dipped in chocolate) here were to die for.
The next day we hopped on a bus to Chile. Our bus had 20 people on it, 15 of which were Israeli. It was pretty amusing. The ride through the lakes region was gorgeous and we arrived in Puerto Varas Chile a quick seven hours later. That night we went out to a really fancy dinner and were introduced to Pisco Sours, our new favorite drink. Our first day in Chile we decided to try our luck with the weather again and hike around nearby Volcan Osorno. Unfortunately this horribly out of focus picture taken from the bus was the best view we saw of the volcano all day. The second we got off the bus and started hiking, it started raining. Chris did all he could to point us in the right direction, but after two wet hours we decided to turn back.

To get a little more adventure that day we had the bus drop us off at some waterfalls near our hike. The falls were not that remarkable, but we were fascinated by the huge fish living downstream.