Today we drove 125 miles south to the town of San Carlos de Bariloche. The drive took us about three and a half hours. The road is called the Road of Seven lakes. We stopped at all seven lakes along the route. We also stopped for coffee and wonderful pastries at York Bakery in Villa La Angostura.

We learned today that San Carlos de Bariloche, where we are staying, is the biggest ski town in the southern hemisphere. Bariloche certainly is a big tourist town. We went out exploring this afternoon. There were lots of tourists, lots of souvenir shops and lots of hotels. We also checked out the cathedral.

Tonight was our last dinner with Jo Ann and Brian. They leave in the morning. We will miss them.

San Martin de los Andes is a beautiful mountain town on a lake (Lago Lácar). I think in winter ( June, July, August) the town is full of skiers.

Tuesday morning after a picnic breakfast in our apartment we went into San Martín and did some exploring and shopping. Then we had coffee.

Later we did a three mile hike to Laguna Rosales.

The road to where we are staying (Departamento Estancia los Ñires) is under construction. At night it could be treacherous. We really wanted to eat near our apartment. We drove to Lago Lolog which is fairly close but could only find one restaurant, the one we ate at last night. So we went to the mini mart, bought sausages and potatoes and ate dinner in our apartment. It was great!

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.