February 12, 2026
Acol Cabañas
Perito Moreno, Argentina
I had arrived at the terminal a bit before 16:00. My bus didn’t arrive until after 21:00. It was a long, boring afternoon. I kept nodding off, which is hard to do while sitting on a wooden bench. Unfortunately, by the time the bus arrived, I was wide awake.
I had a very comfortable, single seat in the front of the upper level. The view was great. The light at dusk was dramatic. I got a slightly better, although distant, view of Fitzroy as we left town, but I never did get to see the summit.
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| View on the Way Out of El Chaltén |
The well-paved roads around El Calafate and El Chaltén had given me a false sense of security. I thought I had left the unpaved roads of Patagonia behind me. This was not the case. At 23:30, just about the time I was starting to drop off, we ran out of paved road. The gravel roads were wide, but bumpy, making it hard to sleep. They also reduced our speed. It took twelve and a half hours to cover seven hundred kilometers. The bus wasn’t air conditioned, but it wasn’t heated, either. I could have used a blanket. I never took off my heavy fleece or knit cap.
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| Gravel Road at Night |
About 2:30, we reached Gobernador Gregores, where we stopped to refuel. We got a brief respite from unpaved roads around the town. I managed to sleep on and off from 3:00 until dawn. Unlike long-distance buses in every other country I have visited, buses in Argentina and Chile do not stop every four hours or so for food and bathroom breaks. These buses are luxurious and have nice, reasonably clean restrooms like an airplane. On this journey, I even got a nice sandwich and a piece of cake. When the driver needs to use the restroom, he just pulls over, does his business, and resumes driving. Passengers must bring their own provisions. In all fairness, there really isn’t anywhere to stop. Patagonia is pretty empty.
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| Dawn on the Road |
The sun rose as we passed through an area with some interesting topography. Just before 8:00, I saw a sign that said Perito Moreno was three kilometers away. While I was in no hurry to get there (Check in time wasn’t until 15:00.), I got concerned when we took a turnoff and headed for Los Antiguos. When they had packed the luggage, they had made sure that the pieces for Los Antiguous went in before mine, leading me to believe that Perito Moreno would be the first stop.
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| Waves on Lago Buenos Aires |
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| Road to Los Antiguos |
I asked the driver if we were going to Perito Moreno and he said we’d go on the way back. This was fine with me, as I didn’t relish another long day in a bus terminal. I had never heard of Los Antiguos, but all the young people were headed there. Los Antiguos is the cherry capital of Argentina. It occupies a benign microclimate on the shores of Lago Buenos Aires, the second largest freshwater lake in South America. Indeed, upon sighting the lake unexpectedly, it seemed like an inland sea. Waves large enough to surf were breaking on the shore. The town looked green and pretty, with lots of campgrounds and hostels. Apparently, backpackers use a shuttle service to cross into Chile from Los Antiguos, which is only 6 kilometers from the Chilean border post at Chile Chico. I heard people also discussing the possibility of walking or hitchhiking between the two towns. Having already been to Chile, none of this mattered to me. I would, however, have probably preferred to break my trip to Bariloche at Los Antiguos, rather than Perito Moreno, had I known that the bus would be traveling 58 kilometers out of its way to stop there.
I finally got to Perito Moreno about 9:30. The “bus terminal” was actually a gas station, but it did have a nice cafeteria and I ducked in there for a much needed latte and a medialuna (a sort of small, sweet, croissant.) I texted my lodging to ask if I could check in early and they were happy to oblige. The cabañas were only a few hundred meters up the highway from the “terminal”. This was good because I would have to walk back after midnight to meet my 1:00 bus when I left.
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| Acol Cabañas |
I checked in, washed a few long-sleeved shirts, and tried to nap. I was too tired to feel like exploring, but not tired enough to go to sleep. I watched some Netflix and then ate a leftover pupusa and a peach for lunch. I probably did manage to sleep for an hour or so before hunger forced me to venture out.
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| Street in Perito Moreno |
I walked into town, heading for a pizzeria listed on Google Maps. Perito Moreno is a sleepy place with wide, tree-lined streets, some of which are paved. It is very suburban. I walked a mile or more through town and couldn’t find a single restaurant that was open. The pizzeria had closed years before. I finally ended up going to the supermarket across the highway from my cabaña.
I bought the usual supplies, augmented with some steak and carrots. I came home, cooked my first Argentine beef, and then sat down to write. While I had always heard about Argentine beef, no one ever seemed to mention Argentine lamb. However, pretty much all of Patagonia is sheep pasture. Lamb costs less than beef. I love lamb and usually can’t afford to eat it. I had been enjoying lamb on the few occasions I had to eat meat. (Sally was a vegetarian.) It was finally time to try the beef. It was delicious.
February 13, 2026
Acol Cabañas
Perito Moreno, Argentina
Knowing that it wasn’t going to take me long to explore Perito Moreno, I didn’t get up until nearly 8:00 and allowed myself a relaxing morning. I made breakfast in my cabaña and enjoyed a ripe peach. Stone fruit in Mexico needs to be imported, never ripens, and is completely tasteless. I hadn’t had much better luck in Chile, but the fruit in Argentina was amazing. Peaches, cherries, and plums could all be purchased perfectly ripe from the grocery store. I devoured a peach with my yogurt and granola.
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| Gas Station/Bus Terminal in Perito Moreno |
About 11:00, I set off to see the sights of Perito Moreno. I walked back to the gas station/bus terminal and entered Perito Morena along Ruta Nacional 40, known as Avenida San Martin through Perito Moreno. Ruta Nacional 40 runs the entire length of Argentina and is known as Argentina’s loneliest road, the loneliest stretch of which lies between El Calafate and Perito Moreno. Like many of the roads in Patagonia, much of it is not paved. A useful sign showed the highways in the province of Santa Cruz. Only a fraction of them were paved. The rest of them were classified as gravel, dirt, dirt with improvements, or tracks. In the far south, only a few remain open all winter because of snow.
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| Only the Red Roads are Paved |
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| Downtown Perito Moreno |
Avenida San Martin was slightly more lively than the side street I had walked the day before, but I still didn’t find any open restaurants until I reached the foot of town.
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| Laguna de los Cisnes |
I walked all the way down the street until I noticed the Laguna de los Cisnes (Lake of Swans) off to the right. My landlord had told me there was a nice path around the lake. The entire circuit covered less than a kilometer. The lake (today, more of a wetland) had been a meeting place for the Tehuelches, the indigenous people of the Patagonian steppe. It offered water and a place to rest during their nomadic wandering. Originally fed by small natural streams, the water has now been canalized and most of the water that feeds the wetland comes from the Rio Fenix Grande. Drought has reduced the lake to a marsh full of reeds known as juncos with very little open water. Still, the wetland is home to many species of water birds, although I didn’t see any swans. I did see three species of ducks: patos maiceros (yellow-billed pintails), overos (southern widgeons), and cucharas (northern shovelers.) Often, the ducks waddled around in water so shallow they could walk on the plants.
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| Famiy of Overos |
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| Yellow-Billed Pintails |
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| Plaza San Martin in Perito Moreno |
After completing my circuit of the lake, I continued to the bottom of the town, keeping an eye out for the cultural center. Not having spotted anything interesting on San Martin, I consulted my map (no data signal, but I had taken a screen shot) and determined that the Plaza San Martin was a few blocks off the main drag of Perito Moreno. I headed over there. The plaza was a very nice, shady park with a bust of General San Martin at its center. Off in a corner of town, it lacked the usual services that surround a plaza. There was no church and not a café, city hall, or tour office in sight. I walked diagonally through the park and returned to San Martin via a different cross-street. I did stumble across the cultural center on the way to San Martin, but it was closed, as was the tourist information office on San Martin (and almost everything else.) I walked back up San Martin to the intersection of Ruta Nacional 43 and 40 where the terminal was, passing the church and city hall along the way. My cabaña was not far from there. All in all, I had walked about four miles. I was back by 13:00.
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| The Church in Perito Moreno |
I made myself some lunch from the provisions I had purchased the night before and ate another peach. Then I sat down to write and work on my blog while I had internet.
February 15, 2026
R&H Centro
Bariloche, Argentina
I really didn’t want to miss the 1:00 bus to Bariloche because there was no bus the following day and I had a flight to catch in Bariloche. I slipped out of my cabaña about 00:15 and dragged my bag up the highway to the gas station where I had been dropped off. I only saw one car.
I waited for about 20 minutes by the gas pump where I had seen my earlier bus pick up a passenger. It was very windy with a temperature in the low fifties. I wasn’t freezing, but it was cold. About 00:50, I saw a bus pull into a parking lot behind the gas station and I noticed a lot of cars parked back there. I decided to investigate. My landlord at the cabañas had scoffed when I called the location a terminal and I had been dropped off at the gas pumps, so I was surprised to discover that there actually was a small terminal with three platforms behind the gas station. The bus that had arrived was not mine. I sat on a bench to wait. A bus terminal dog with his own doghouse was curled up beside me. Doghouses for street dogs are common all over Chile and Argentina.
I waited and waited. One o’clock came and went. Another bus arrived at 1:00, but it wasn’t mine, either. There were a lot of people around, but they gradually disappeared as family members came to claim them. Finally, there were just two of us. It’s pretty creepy when you are waiting for a 1:00 bus, knowing it will be two days before the next one, and it gets to be 1:30. It’s even creepier when you have already had the experience of waiting for a bus to Zihuatanejo that never came.
About 1:35, I noticed that the other passenger had gone into the terminal. I looked and saw that the Marga (my bus line) office that had been closed when I arrived, was now open. The other passenger was checking in. I did, likewise, and was told that the bus would arrive by 1:45. It didn’t show up until after 2:00. We finally left Perito Moreno at 2:10 with a new ETA in Bariloche of 14:30, not the originally scheduled 13:30. This was fine with me, since I couldn’t check in until 15:00, anyway.
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| The Bus Was Comfortable |
The bus was silent when I entered. Everyone was asleep. The seats were very comfortable and reclined far enough to actually relax. Once I squeezed under the reclined seat of the person in front of me and reclined my own seat, I was perfectly comfortable. I slept until we reached Gobernador Costa about 7:30. We stopped there long enough for everyone to use the restroom. It was a nice morning. I watched the sun come up over the barren Patagonian landscape.
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| Sunrise Near Gobernador Costa |
We drove several more hours before reaching Esquel. The scenery began to change. Little by little, it got hillier and the grass began to take on a green hue. Around Esquel, there were some poplars planted. I had originally planned to spend a night in Esquel before I realized that the buses didn’t run every day. It looked like a pleasant place.
After Esquel, we began to climb into the mountains. The trees changed to fir and pine. A couple of hours south of Bariloche, we stopped in El Bolson and many passengers got off there. It looked like a nice mountain resort town. There were agents offering trekking excursions and outfitters selling equipment. It looked like a smaller version of what I expected to find in Bariloche.
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| On the Way to Bariloche |
We finally arrived in Bariloche about 15:30, two hours late. My suitcase was the first one off the bus, so I grabbed it and hustled to the taxi stand before the taxis were all claimed by other arriving passengers. Bariloche was a surprise to me. I was expecting a kitchy resort town, but Bariloche was a real city of 135,000 people. After weeks in sparsely populated Patagonia, it was shocking.
My taxi deposited me at my apartment building but I had no idea how to get into it. I had been trying to communicate with my landlord, but there had been no WiFi on the Marga bus and no cellular signal along the way. I restarted my phone, but still didn’t have enough signal strength to reach Bookings.com. There was a Carrefour grocery store across the street, so I dragged my bag over there and lurked outside to use their WiFi. The signal was weak, but I eventually managed to reach the landlord and get the code for the lockbox containing the key.
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| My Apartment in Bariloche |
The apartment was spare, but nice. It had radiant heat that I was able to control. I actually had to turn it down. The day bed that served as a couch could have used some pillows, but the mattress was comfortable. I took a shower and then went out to find something to eat. I was ravenous after 14 hours on the bus.
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| Bariloche |
Bariloche sits on the shore of Lago Nahuel Huapi, which means “Tiger Island” in Mapuche. “Tiger,” in this case, actually means puma. There are no tigers in Argentina. It was a steep drop from my street to the street below where the restaurants were. I took a 110-step staircase but there was actually a winding street reminiscent of Lombard Street in San Francisco. I strolled another couple of blocks down to the lake to take in the scenery and then went in search of a pizzeria I had seen on Google Maps. I couldn’t find it. When I was sure that I had passed it, I turned around. I was too hungry to explore. After turning around, I spied a Mexican restaurant on the other side of the street. I made a beeline for it.
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| Mexicano Café |
The Mexican restaurant may not have offered typical food, but the décor and the music were authentic. If it hadn’t been for the modern construction of the building, I might have believed myself in Mexico. I ordered a cochinita pibil burrito and a small margarita. I was surprised when the margarita arrived frozen. Frozen margaritas are so rare in Mexico, I never thought to specify on the rocks. Still, it wasn’t lacking in tequila and the burrito came with crema, pico de gallo, and pickled onions. I enjoyed the meal and the familiar music.
One video that played while I was there was from the 2020 Superbowl halftime show featuring Shakira and Jennifer Lopez. It was an amazing show with lots of suggestive dancing, including Shakira singing while pole dancing. Bad Bunny appeared as a guest star, rapping in Spanish. Shakira mostly sang in English, but included some lyrics in Spanish. At the finale, J Lo appeared wearing a feathered cape representing the Puerto Rican flag. I was surprised that, in 2020, this was so uncontroversial that I had never seen it before, whereas, just six years later, Bad Bunny singing in Spanish was considered scandalous. A lot can change in six years.
2020 Superbowl Halftime Show After the long bus ride and a margarita, I was too tired to sit down and write. I went back to the apartment, met the landlord to hand over the rent, and settled down to watch Netflix until I started to nod. I was asleep before 22:00.
February 15, 2026
R&H Centro
Bariloche, Argentina
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| Museum in Bariloche |
After spending an hour or so writing, I left my flat and went to find coffee. I enjoyed a latte and a cinnamon roll and then strolled down Mitre (the main drag) to the civic center. A band was performing a sound check. They could be heard for blocks. The civic center had probably been the source of the music I had heard near my place the night before.
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| The Bariloche Lake Shore |
I checked out the very alpine-looking buildings around the civic center and then wandered down to the lake shore. A long line of people was waiting to take photos with the Bariloche sign. I skipped that, but took some photos of the view. Then I walked to the end of the breakwater protecting a small harbor where the official boats docked. The water in the lake was very clear.
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| The Cathedral |
My next stop was the Catedral Nuestra Señora del Nahuel Huapi. The neo-Gothic cathedral was constructed in 1946. It was quite lovely. It was Sunday and mass was being celebrated when I visited, so I didn’t take any photos of the interior. It was spare, but the vaulting was beautiful, as was the stained glass. I continued along the lake until I located Hotel Costa del Lago where I was scheduled to meet my tour later that afternoon. It was just around the corner from the foot of my street, which was convenient. I climbed back up the many stairs to my apartment and made myself some lunch.
At 14:30, the van picked me up at Hotel Costa del Lago. I had signed up for a tour of the Circuito Chico. I had been unable to find a tour that included the Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi that wasn’t sold out for my single day in Bariloche. This was okay with me, because I had already seen the other side of the mountains at Peulla and liked the idea of a leisurely morning with time to explore the town.
Bariloche sits on the southeastern side of Lago Nahuel Huapi. Its neighborhoods are strung out along the shore and are designated by how far they are from the center. For example, one might live in Km Tres. Bariloche is technically part of Patagonia, but it doesn’t seem like it. The native beech forest has been completely overrun by introduced pine and fir, making it seem very familiar. The only native conifers are the cypress and monkey puzzle trees. Perhaps the most Patagonian thing about Bariloche is the Patagonia store, the first in Patagonia. The company purchased the 1916 cypress wood home of the national park’s first director, Emilio Frey, to save it from demolition. After restoration, it became a museum and retail store.
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| Lift at Cerro Campanario |
The first stop on our tour was Cerro Campanario where we took the chair lift up to a viewing area with 360 degree views of mountains, lakes, and trees. Lago Nahuel Huapi is huge, with many arms and lots of islands. There were marinas and a couple of yacht clubs. I saw boats racing on the lake and more anchored in sheltered coves. There was plenty of wind and it looked like a fun place to explore by sailboat. The lake stretched away into the hazy distance. The view really was fantastic.
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| Villa Llao Llao |
The “Circuito Chico” refers to the loop that highway 77 makes around the peninsula. We continued around the loop, crossing the bridge where a narrow channel connects Lago Perito Moreno with Lago Nahuel Huapi. We drove through the forest, passing many hiking trails. Just past Villa Llao Llao, we stopped at the log cabin style Capilla San Eduardo. The church was unfortunately closed, but the exterior was pretty and blended well with the scenery. Ibis and a caracara were strutting about on the lawn.
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| Capillo San Eduardo |
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| Channel Between Lakes |
After the chapel, we started back. At 18:00 on a Sunday afternoon, everyone was leaving the beaches and traffic was heavy. We crawled along the lake and back into town. I got off in the center and ate dinner at Potenza, a meat restaurant. I had a massive chunk of very crispy roasted pork belly and salad. I couldn’t eat it all, but saved room for the desert, which was called almendrado and was a slab of white chocolate coated ice cream sitting on a bed of chopped almonds and dulce de leche. It was delightful.
I had hoped to listen to the music at the civic center, but it seemed to be winding down at 20:00 and it was getting cold and windy. I hadn’t brought my warm fleece. Potenza was between Mitre and Moreno, which was the cross-street for my apartment. I saved myself from climbing the long stairway by taking Moreno all the way back to my place. Then I recorded the day’s events before relaxing.
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