Name: 15 Day Eye to Eye with The Condor Horse Riding Tour in Argentina
Brand: Tamisietta Obleitner
Price: 4200 CHF
Availability: InStock

Accommodation

Check-in Time:

15:00

Check-out Time:

13:00

During this tour, you will spend five nights in double or triple rooms and nine nights camping in double tents. Accommodations during the tour are tents, mountain huts, yurts, and group-room bungalows. If you want a single room or single tent, Tamisietta Obleitner can arrange this for an extra cost. The comfort in this regard is typical of camping. But you can rely on high-quality equipment. The expedition tents are spacious and absolutely airtight, and mats ensure sleeping comfort. On nice nights, you can also sleep next to the fire on the saddle skins. For possible rainy days, Tamisietta Obleitner carries tarpaulins and an additional group tent on all tours.

During the off-peak days in Rincón de Lobos (arrival, departure, or between tours), overnight accommodation is provided in group accommodation in the immediate vicinity of your camp. Since 2015, they have also been offering guests their beautiful new yurt upon request. The standard of the selected accommodations is rustic-romantic; basic but very neat and clean.

Shower or bath and lounges with cooking facilities are available for shared use. If you want more comfort, there is the possibility of accommodation in spacious cabins such as two- to four-room bungalows with their own kitchen and bathroom, some with televisions and Wi-Fi. A stay in a guest room of the hostel or a cabin is also possible as an extension option to the tours. On request, they will make you a corresponding offer for these options.

Program

The requirement of riding skill is Intermediate and Advanced, according to the expeditionary character of this tour.

Daily itinerary

Day 1

Arrival in San Carlos de Bariloche. There, the English-speaking driver will pick up the guests in the early afternoon. Transfer to Rincón de Lobos by car (one and a half hours). Reception in Rincon de Lobos, accommodation in guestrooms, and welcome-asado (barbecue) on an open fire. Presentation of the team: Marcelino Figueroa (horse guide), Tamisietta Obleitner, and Attila Missura (both guides and camp management). Depending on the size of the group also further guides.

Day 2

Marcelino comes in the morning. After enjoying the traditional mate tea, you get the horses from the paddock. It follows the assignment of horses, the introduction to dealing with the local equestrian equipment, the instruction on knots to tie up, and the loading of the packhorses. In the early afternoon, you ride to Lago Epuyen (3), a total of approximately three hours.

Day 3

In the morning, you drive to the nearby small town of El Bolsón. After the joint purchase of provisions and utensils, you explore this lively town, which is an attraction for hikers in summer. The rest day belongs to the preparations for your trip, the definitive choices of horses and equipment, material check, etc.

Day 4

Marselino and Tamisietta bring the horses to Basecamp (2). There, you face the challenge of loading your equipment on the pack horses. Afterwards, you ride to the Rio Epuyén, cross it at a favorable place and follow its course to Desemboque, its mouth to the Lake Lago Puelo (4). After the Estancia El Trebol, you pass through a natural reserve where you get to know the beautiful Patagonian Myrtles. Along the left bank of Lake Puelo, you follow a narrow, rocky path on the flank of Cordón del Derrumbe. The relatively steep ascent is rewarded by a wonderful view of the Lago Puelo to the right. After a three-hour ride, you enjoy the lunch break in a clearing.

A nearby rock offers you the view of the destination: the opposite lake shore with the mouth of the mighty Rio Turbio (5). Until then, there are still three hours of riding, mostly through the unexplored forest. Usually, the Rio Turbio is fanned into several arms, embedded in a wide area of White River pebbles. In spring, the river, due to the four-glacier meltwater, grows to a stream of up to 500 meters wide. Stone pyramides mark the shallows where the Rio Turbio is passable. Under the leadership of Bernabé, you are crossing, and after another 15 minutes, you reach your camp (5) on the lakeshore and near the Arroyo Aguja Torrent. After setting up camp, you make the evening at your whim with swimming in the sea or just relaxing. Then cooking on fire is in the plan.

Day 5

To reach the turquoise lake Lago Esperanza (7), you have to cross several Andean foothills. You ride along a mountain flank, following the Arroyo Aguja torrent, to the Aguja massif (6). This mountain chain, which is strongly jagged, forms the border with Chile. After a few hours, the path turns left into a small valley, where you meet the Laguna de la Yegua. After a further ascent, you reach the pass. Here, you have the chance to observe condors. After a short rest, you ride down to the next wooded valley. Meanwhile, you are on the road for three hours without traces of civilization, and now look down on the valley of Lago Esperanza.

It still takes three hours before you arrive at the southern end of the turquoise lake. The only people you meet there are Cachín and his co-workers: Gauchos, who live here in a simple wooden hut as “Puesteros” (housekeepers and cattle drivers of secluded properties). Your camp is in the forest, directly on the shore of the lake.

Day 6

Time to take a break. Smaller exploration trail rides are offered.

Day 7

Expedition to Salto Juana near Cañadon Norte (8), the glaciated origin of the Arroyo Esperanza. The idyllic landscape around the lake is soon behind you, and you ride into an ever-tighter Valley in the mountains. You pass through zones of the so-called Selva Valdiviana, the jungle of the Andean Mountains: With its giant rhubarb (mammoth sheet, Nalca, Chilean rhubarb), the forests of local Bamboo, as well as the ancient Alerce trees, it resembles a subtropical rain forest. You reach the remarkable waterfall Salto Juana (9) after two or three hours, where you make a stop. Depending on the timetable, you can either travel to the glacier of the Cañadon Norte or to the giant Alerce tree, estimated at 3500 years old. The whole journey takes six to seven hours in the saddle.

Day 8

Return to Lago Puelo, possibly via an alternative route along the Rio Bravo. This fierce mountain river connects the Lago Esperanza with the Rio Turbio. You ride long passages through the Patagonian forest, cross the Rio Bravo, and set up your camp at Lago Puelo.

Days 9 - 10

Ride to Cerro Plataforma (11). Through a relatively gentle terrain, you follow the course of the Rio Turbio upstream. Every now and then, you discover small farms of settlers. It is a unique experience being in a zone where people live miles apart from each other. The impression of total human emptiness is unexpectedly broken when you suddenly see a horseman appear on the path, or you discover a house in the green. Your eye, which is accustomed to civilization, is not trained to interpret the signs in such a wide dimension.

Often Marselino surprises you when he tells you about distant horsemen, tries to show you a dead animal somewhere on the mountain, or points to a tree and explains that this has served him years ago as a hint to the entrance to a hidden path. Often, he explains the position of something with expressions like: "There, where the green is a little greener ...". After repeated crossing of branches of the Rio Turbio and passing several larger forests, you reach after a five- to six-hour ride the Puesto Moro, on the coast of a small mountain stream. Here you stay. On the next day, a four- to five-hour ride awaits you with two steep ascents, where you have to overcome about 900 meters of altitude before reaching the camp at the foot of Cerro Plataforma.

Day 11

You climb the about 1700 meters high Cerro Plataforma, an exceptional geological phenomenon: a huge truncated cone, forming a seven-kilometer wide plain. This is surrounded by the mighty, even in summer snow-covered mountains of the region: the Cerro Tres Picos, the Cerro Piramide, and the Cerro Anexo. After about two hours of riding and a 20-minute climb over boulders, you reach the plane of the Plataforma, which resembles a strange planet. Small mountain lakes and cascades contrast with the landscape of a stone desert, which is made up of countless fossils. With some luck, you see condors and even flamingos.

Day 12

Return to the camp on the shores of the Lago Puelo, to provide you with food that you have stored in the Station of the Rangers of the National Park. As an option for overnight accommodation, you can visit the Fernandez family, who offer shared guestrooms on their farm. There you have the opportunity to learn about the life of a typical family of settlers, who moved from Chile three to four generations ago. As pioneers, they are the only "legitimated" inhabitants of the national park. They live from cattle breeding, but in a completely different dimension than you know it. The cattle live freely on an area of several thousand hectares, which goes up into the mountains.

Once a year, during the summer months, relatives and friends meet to drive the cattle together. This is not a harmless undertaking, especially as the cows have become wild and can attack even riders. After the cattle work, the animals have to be branded. The young cattle, separated from the mother cows, are driven into their own paddocks and caught one by one with the lasso. Young cattle are drawn by the burning fire. Young bulls are also castrated with the knife. The whole thing is a celebration and finishes with a lavish barbecue. Part of this festivity is that young Gauchos from the Region prove their courage with the ride on wild young Bulls and show their lasso skills. In February, it is possible that you can participate in the event.

Day 13

Return to Rincón de Lobos. Depending on the mood and the weather, you ride off in the afternoon and arrive after nightfall in civilization.

Day 14

Is a relaxing day in Rincon de Lobos. If desired, you can drive to El Bolsón and visit, for example, the craft market, a nice cafe, or a Gelateria. Often also there is opportunity to visit horse racing, a typical event of the local folklore, which you cannot miss.

Day 15

Transfer to Bariloche for the departure flight.

About the tour

The 10-day journey is divided into two target stages. On the one hand, it leads over various passages to the turquoise Lago Esperanza, which lies on the border with Chile within a private nature reserve. On the other hand, the Cerro Plataforma, a geological singularity where the seafloor rose up 50 to 30 million years ago by volcanic processes to a huge, fossil-strewn, high plateau (about 1700 meters above sea level).

The ascent of the monumental formation gives the impression of landing on a foreign planet. Pristine nature and challenging equestrian experiences await you: river crossings, waterfalls, glaciers, and explorations of the Selva Valdiviana, the Andes forest with bamboo reed forests, and the mythical, up to 3000-year-old Alerce trees are on the program.

Framework program

The supporting program for this offer is limited to one or two visits to the town of El Bolsón, where the group wishes to visit the attractions available (e.g., arts and crafts market, museum, horse race).

Requirements

This tour has an expedition character. After two shorter rides, which serve for the horse allocation and introduction to the local riding customs, this is 10 days of traversing on mule tracks through a nearly deserted region. Participants should be reasonably fit for the saddle, mastering all common gaits as walk, trot, and canter. In addition, a good physical and mental condition as well as team spirit, personal responsibility, and readiness to participate in camping – daily life (cooking, washing dishes, setting up tents, etc.) are expected.

Riding experience in terrain and good general condition are prerequisites. Team spirit, self-responsibility, and participation in all camp activities are further conditions for participation. Test rides in the first two days will be used for the correct assignment of horses and the introduction to the local riding habits.

Instructors

Tamisietta Obleitner

1 Certificate

Show

Horses and mountains have been with Tamisietta since childhood she was born In Austria/Tirol. Dealing with the horses just makes her happy. Before she left, she worked in the film business for many years. On one of the trips to Patagonia, you just stayed. Attila and her made your dream come true here, living in the foothills of the Andes and working with the horses. They have been roaming the Patagonian mountains on horseback for 23 years now, for her, there is nothing more beautiful than being out and about with her horses in the Patagonian wilderness.

Attila Missura

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Attila, born in Switzerland of Hungarian origin, knows Patagonia since the late 80-ies years, when he emigrated to Argentina. 1997 he acquired a small property in Rincon de Lobos and in 2000 he founded, together with his wife Tamisietta and the local Gaucho Bernabé, the Agency Vagamundo, dedicated to Authentic Riding Experiences, being a pioneer in this field. He is very familiar with Argentine culture, a great outdoor cook, and also a registered guide in the National Park of Lago Puelo. His life slogan: "The earth is round - Every place is center!"

Location

The horseback and trekking tour takes place in Argentine North Patagonia, Argentina. The starting point is Rincón de Lobos, a small valley of the Andean mountains. To be reached via route 40, which connects Bariloche with the next major city, Esquél, Rincon de Lobos is a fertile valley with a microclimate and lively agriculture. Lakes, mountains, rivers, and the Patagonian forest characterize the landscape. The exploration zone covers an area of approximately 1,000 square meters and includes the valley of the mighty Rio Turbio, multiple mountain ranges of the Andes, and a system of lakes and lagoons. This zone combines the 240-square-kilometer-large National Park "Lago Puelo" with the adjacent nature reserves "Rio Turbio" (Chubut Province) and "Lago Esperanza" (private Property).

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Food

You will enjoy daily meals and beverages, with your involvement in cooking included in the price. Medical diets, such as gluten-free, are possible with a little charge. Tamisietta Obleitner values the best food, and they want to have a good time when they are out and about. Fresh vegetables, sausages, raw ham, Bircher muesli (homemade), and dried fruit. Wholemeal bread, milk, honey, wine, chocolate, lentils, spaghetti, polenta, couscous, rice, morels, porcini mushrooms, and roast lamb come to mind and will certainly not be missing. Food is generously planned in the budget, and before the longer tours, they go shopping together with all participants.

Since they count on your participation in the cooking and determine the menu together, your culinary wishes will also be taken into account as far as possible. As far as possible, they source products from the immediate vicinity of organic production. There is no problem if you prefer vegetarian cuisine or need a special diet (e.g., gluten intolerance). Please let them know before the tour starts. Mostly, they cook themselves and during the excursions, on an open fire. Meals in selected restaurants are planned for excursions to sights or events, or detours into the city (El Bolson).

The following meals are included:

Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
Drinks

The following drinks are included:

Water
Coffee
Tea
Soda
Alcoholic beverages

The following dietary requirement(s) are served and/or catered for:

Vegetarian
Vegan
Gluten Free
Regular (typically includes meat and fish)

If you have special dietary requirements it's a good idea to communicate it to the organiser when making a reservation

Things to do (optional)

Hiking tours, on request

What's included

10 days of horse riding with guides and pack horses
Introduction day, cultural frame program
Trips to destinations not accessible on horseback
14 nights accommodation
All meals and beverages with your involvement in cooking
All transfers between Bariloche and Rincón de Lobos
English, German, Portuguese, or French-speaking guide during the entire stay
All entries in nature reserves, national parks, and other fees
Use of the infrastructure at the base camp

What's not included

Flights
Single room or tent supplement fee
Tips

How to get there

Recommended Airports

BRC

San Carlos de Bariloche Airport

105 km

Transfer included

Arrival by airplane

Please book your flight to arrive at San Carlos de Bariloche Airport (BRC). Transfer from and to the airport is included. Tamisietta Obleitner's English-speaking driver will pick you up from the airport (or your hotel) between 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. to drive together to Rincon de Lobos.

Airport transfer included: San Carlos de Bariloche Airport No additional charges. You can request this in the next step.

Cancellation Policy

A reservation requires a deposit of 50% of the total price.
The deposit is non-refundable, if the booking is cancelled.
The rest of the payment should be paid on arrival.

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