Circuito Chico 12/20/09

We were woken up by what must be Bariloche´s equivalent of a rooster. A couple of birds sat on the roof of the next building and squawked a wake-up call. They are pretty strange looking with 4 inch long, curved beaks. Tiffany wants to shoot them. She likes to sleep in.

After breakfast, we headed out by local bus to a mountain called Cerro Companario. While most of the rest of the people who got off thge bus with us rode the chair lift to the top, we hiked. It was dusty and steep and Tiff decided that her sandals weren´t the ideal footwear but we made it. The views were awesome. Lakes and mountains in every direction. We were able to plot out our coming bike ride from that bird´s eye perspective.

After we hiked back down we walked a couple KMs to the bike rental place. They gave us a map with the highlights on their suggested route and we were off. My bike shifted pretty well(I traded off because my first one didn´t)but Tiffany had some problems with hers. She managed well anyway and we had what had to be the most beautiful bike ride of our lives(see pics). Lots of hills that were challenging but not grueling, with awesome views to reward you at the top of most of them. At one spot there were several raptors that were doing great acrobatics with the updrafts. We were told they are in the falcon family. One flew right by Tiff´s head.

We continued on with continued lake and mountain views along the way. Stopped for a short hike. The trail was almost completely covered by a native bamboo which seems to have taken over but there were also some huge trees. One was labled as being over 350 years old. All told about 4 hours of biking.

While shopping for dinner, we realized how tired we were. Good day.