The 7 lakes wow!!

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We arrived in San Martin de los Andes after yet another epic bus journey. We were delayed by about 4 hours, which meant the only food I had was what the bus provided ie. dulce de leche cakes! I ate 6 of them... mmm... healthy diet! Dulce de leche is a speciality from over here which can be best described as caramel.

We were both really pleased when we reached the small town of San Martin de los Andes which is surrounded by mountains and overlooking a lake. We also arrived on a nice sunny afternoon which made everything look beautiful. We checked in a hostal and were put in different dorms for the first night!! Dinner at 10pm was included in the room price so we got to meet a few people then. We met a bubbly lady with her 2 children who collected buttons. Let me rephrase this, we met a lady who was obsessed by buttons! She said she had thousands of them and liked to have various ones from different countries... She almost cut the buttons of our clothes as she was so eager to have one from the UK! After arguing with her that our items of clothing were likely to have been made in China which would mean her collection was pointless, I gave up the argument.

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One day we decided to go to an activity park half an hour away where we enjoyed the sunshine whilst practising various skills. We went on a mountain bike, a tobogan, a ski lift to admire the view, climbing, high jumping, played mini golf to name just a few. It was a great day out until I thought it would be a fabulous idea to walk down the mountain instead of catching the ski lift down. I think I get my sense of adventure from my father who used to always take us through the most dangerous paths. Anyway the path was a lot steeper than what my eyes had told me from the mountain top. It took us half an hour and not 10min to get down and Dylan slipped on a rock, cut his leg and ripped his trousers! Looking back now the cut wasn´t that bad and I managed to sew the rips from his trousers a few days later, but I doubt I will ever get the final say anymore...

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We hired a car the following day to drive freely through the 7 lakes route. The road is very bumpy as it is not paved but great fun to drive through. We stopped at key locations to take in the view and take a few snapshots. We picked up several hitchhikers on the way (mostly young students on holiday going from one campsite to another) and got friendly with 2 Chilean guys. Next thing you know, we went to buy a tent, dropped them off exactly where they needed to be and ended up camping wih them. The fact that one of the guys is studying to become a cook also influenced our decision... we bought some beef from the butchers and he cooked us the best steak on the bbq we have had in a long time! We also got to admire the milky way and the clear sky while we were enjoying the food, what an amazing night that was!

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We left our new friends the following day and went to the small town of Junin. We camped by the river and simply enjoyed each others company. The next day we had to return the luxury of the car (I forgot to mention that we got a free upgrade on the car) and come back to reality: we do not have space to spread our stuff, we have a backpack!

We left San Martin de los Andes for Bariloche the following morning.