The Lakes District Continued

Hello-

So we´ve been through the lakes districts of both Argentina and Chile and they´ve been gorgeous. We rented a car in San Martin de los Andes and headed off with our friends Kitty and Trevor on a 4 day tour of this and the Bariloche area. This time of year is pretty good to be here, it is cold but there are only just starting to be loads of tourists around (it is spring here right now).

Our road trip began with attempting to pick up our reserved car from the local Hertz, but they informed us that they had extended the car for the people who had the car before us. I was speaking my best Spanish to the guy working there, but Trevor came over and swore at the guy in English, and I decided not to translate. Trevor is working diligently to learn Spanish, and has written down all the words he´s learned in a small notebook. He even has a page of swear words, but I guess he was too worked up at the moment to remember his Spanish swears. We even considered breaking out the Seinfeld reference ("You see, you know how to *take* the reservation, you just don't know how to *hold* the reservation. And that's really the most important part of the reservation: the holding. Anybody can just take them.") but I think it would have been lost in the translation. Fortunately it all worked out in the end as we ended up with a company with better prices and an english speaking guy working there.

The first day of our road trip we visited a a large lake with lots of hotels around it, but only one was open because it is still the off season. After driving all day on a bumpy dirt road the car began to make some strange rattling noises and we were a bit concerned, but it turned out to be just a rock stuck in the underside of the car. The rental guy fixed the car on the way back through San Martin, but later in the trip we got another rock stuck up there.

Over the next couple of days we saw many gorgeous views and went on a few short hikes. Once in Bariloche we did the Circuit Chico, a driving loop that includes some great views and we took a look at one of Argentina´s nicest hotels. There were quite a few tour buses traveling the route the same day but we still managed to find a couple nice walks and a nice spot to have lunch.

We spent the next couple days around Bariloche, a nice ski town. I have been working on graduate school applications while traveling and am hoping to get them finished up soon. We are now in Puerto Montt, a town that is nothing special but we are waiting to get on our 4 day ferry this afternoon to go to Puerto Natales in the south of Chile. Looking forward to some good hiking soon!

Jess

PS New pictures are up under Pictures 2.