Kayaking to Isla Huemul pt1

What better way to spend a day than to kayak down the coast of Bariloche for almost 6km to an island that hosts the ruins of a failed nuclear fusion experiment? None that I can think of. So that's what we did. The owner of the hostel we were staying at kindly (or recklessly) loaned his kayak to us for the day so we could paddle out to the infamous Isla Huemul. We'd heard lots of rumours from the locals about the island; that there were hundreds of secret bunkers hidden beneath the surface or that it was a super top secret nazi program to create a nuclear bomb. Turns out it was actually the remains of Ronald Richters failed "Thermotron" fusion experiment, and a monument to the gullibility of Juan Perón. Basically in the early 50s Richter promised Perón he could make a fusion reactor. Eventually Richter realised he couldn't, but not before they'd built a whole complex and told the world that they already had fusion energy. Whoops. Nevertheless it was an adventure to get there and an interesting piece of history to investigate...Read more