
I have spent one day and one night in Parque Nacional Los Alerces and it is a beautiful mountain area with lakes, forests, mountains and rivers in which you can easily spend a calm time to relax a little bit.
From Esquel Terminal I took the 8 a.m. bus service to the National Park which took as announced 2,5 hours until arriving at Lago Verde. There I stayed in the beautiful camping El Aura and slept later in a "Domo", which is like a big, permanent tent. I was planning to go directly hiking for the rest of the day after arriving which also would have been possible if I had not fallen a bit sick. In the end I have skipped the tracks to Lahun (Mapuche word for Alerce tree) viejo, Laguna Escondida and the Mirador Lago Verde in the area which I was all planning to do as different people had recommended them to me. I had decided against a navigation on Lago Menendez to the very old and big Alerce, which can only be reached by this navigation, and have also decided against a navigation on Lago Futalaufquén towards Lago Krügger, which can also be hiked, as they came too expensive to me. Additionally I did not see the high value add as I had already seen some Alerce trees in Parque Nacional Pumalín in Chile (between Chaitén and Caleta Gonzalo) which was cheaper to reach for me. In the end I walked two tracks of the available ones around Lago Verde (map can be obtained in the tourist office in Esquel or probably in all campgrounds in the national park). I walked along Lago Verde to the suspension bridge crossing the wunderfully green and active mountain river and then walked to the interpretative walk to the Lahuan solitario (single Alerce) which is beautifully running next to the river and back to the suspension bridge on Lago de las Juntas, which is an old name for Lago Verde.
I was able to see some birds as wildlife. There are also warning signs for meeting a Puma, but I haven´t met one. It was super quiet at the end of February- it felt like only a few Argentinians were there enjoying the silence of the park. The next morning at 10:30 a.m. the bus picked me up again and went towards Lago Puelo (arrival 13:30) from where I continued my travels towards Bariloche. As it was a Wednesday 1st of March maybe I was lucky as Nan wrote in low season the buses only run on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. I can recommand also the restaurant of El Aura. The interior design was really classy and the food high quality for affordable prices in a wooden house however the service of the waiter towards me was terrible. Anyhow he served the Argentinian families very well so if you behave local enough maybe you will also get a very good service. ;)
I must say that in terms of Alerce trees surely this park is one of the few places where they can be found as wild flora however I found the trees on the Chilean side more attractive. In terms of landscape it´s really calm and beautiful however not sure if that is enough to be a world heritage site. Anyhow I can really recommand to come to the park to anyone for the mentioned reasons.
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