Month: October 2025

On Monday we drove further south along the Andes to the town of San Martín de los Andes. The drive was supposed to be about three and a half hours but ended up being about four and a half hours because the road south was closed for construction. It added 35 miles to our route and the detour was almost all on dirt roads. The detour took us up through the mountains. We saw some beautiful scenery.

The last couple of days have been partially overcast so we are seeing less of the snow capped Andes. There are several lakes around San Martín de Los Andes. We are staying in a small apartments not far from Lago Lolog. We ate dinner near the lake but we couldn’t see it because it was so dark out!

We woke this morning to a beautiful clear day. The lake outside the window of our room was like glass and the snow covered mountains around the lake were reflected on the surface of the water.

We drove a few miles up the road from our lodge almost to the border with Chile, then parked and hiked two miles up the mountain towards the lake inside a volcanic crater. We didn’t go all the way to the crater. Instead we stopped at a ski hill and snow park two miles in and just over 500 feet up.

We could see forever and we even saw some of the volcanoes in the Chilean Lake District that we saw when we were in Chile last year. It was a beautiful hike and a perfect day.

We hiked back to the car, came back to our lodge, and played cards. Then we did a bit more exploring and eventually went out to dinner at Los Radales Restaurant. I don’t know if I will ever get used to being the first people in a restaurant when it opens at eight. Usually by the time we leave around ten the restaurant is really filling up.

When we left Neuquén Saturday morning it was windy with blowing dust. We headed west towards the mountains. After a couple of hours the terrain changed from the flat, scrubby desert that we have been driving through for the last several days, to foothills as we started to go up into the Andes. Eventually our road turned to gravel and we could see the snow covered peaks.

We are staying for the next two nights in Villa Pehuenia. Our hotel, Posada La Escondida is a beautiful lodge on a mountain lake. We have a room right on the lake with wonderful views of the mountains and the lake.

For dinner we went just a little ways down the shore to El Marino Amarrado. We had a great view of the sunset and a delicious meal. Duke and Brian had empanadas and salad and Jo Ann and I had lamb.

We had a long drive today because,in planning this trip we knew we wanted to move south from the Mendoza province towards the mountainous area around San Carlos de Bariloche. There are no towns or places to stop between San Rafael where we were last night and Neuquén where we are tonight. Google said it was about a seven hour drive which is a much longer drive than we like to do.

As we drove south today the roads were quite good and we were driving about 70 mph. Then we crossed into a new area and all of a sudden we were driving on probably the worst paved road we have ever been on. It was nonstop potholes and some of the potholes were so big and deep that it felt like you couldn’t see the bottom!

Duke had to slow down to 15 mph at times and for about 100 miles we never got above 30mph. It was horrible! Our seven hour drive ended up taking us nine hours!

Tonight we are at a nice hotel, Cyan SoHo Neuquén. We walked to dinner at Restaurante El Ciervo. I had Milanesa Suiza. Milanesa is a dish that is very common in Argentina. It has been on the menu at almost every restaurant we have eaten at. It is basically a chicken fried steak. Often they use the steak almost like a pizza crust and add cheese, tomatoes, eggs, onions and other things.

We will only be here in Neuquén one night. Tomorrow we head to the mountains.

This morning we drove about an hour south of San Rafael to Cañón de Atuel . The bottom of the canyon has a reservoir of the Atuel River in it. We sat an a deck overlooking the reservoir and enjoyed coffee and drinks. I had a lemonade. The reservoir and canyon are beautiful and the weather was perfect.

This afternoon we did a wine tasting and tour at Bodega Alfredo Roca. Then we played cards on the patio of our room.

For dinner we went to Bodega FOW and had a fabulous meal. We started with goat tongue. Next I had carob pasta stuffed with langoustine. Duke had steak and Brian and Jo Ann had pork.

People have asked us if we are seeing anything about the U.S. bailout of Argentina. The elections here are a week from Sunday. We don’t hear or see much but I did see a banner on a TV news story that said “Trump is a Peronista”.