La Laguna Aculeo (Chile) y San Martin de los Andes (Arg)

When the season ended up in El Colorado i went to stay at ´la laguna aculeo´where a friend pinky lives. Its about an hour south south of Santiago and is the first amazingly beautiful place i saw in Chile. The house and lake are surrounded by hills, and in the distance you could see the andes, with a bit of snow still at the top. We had really nice weather so i guess that made it even more stunning.

We only spent a day and two nights there, so we went to the lake with his friend Enric who was visiting from Andorra. We messed about jumping in the lake and doing flips and stuff, and got some pretty cool photos. But since then my camera has been nicked (ill explain in the next blog) so i havent actually got any photos from there.

It was really nice seeing a simpler way of life, as Santiago is very big and modern and you dont really feel like youre in ´Chile´. There arent really a lot of houses around there (la laguna) and its pretty remote. Next door to Pinkys house lives his aunt and her family, and then next door again his grandparents. They all grow a lkot of fgruit and veg and live off that, its a really nice natural way of life. Obviously there are a few little shops, but no big supermarkets or anything like that.

After that we moved onto Pucon to stay with Nico who worked in the bar up in El Colorado. We arrived on the Wednesday at 9am and at 10am had to get straight onto the bus to Argentina as my 90day visa was literally about to run out. This was the only bus to Argentinma that day so it was pretty lucky we arrived when we did....maybe i shouldnt have left it quite to the last minute.

So after the 10hour overnight journey to pucon, we got onto a 6 hour journey to San Martin de los Andes in Argentina. We just literally styaryed there one night in a hostel, and came back the next day so i could get another 90 days in Chile on a tourist visa. It was really different hearing the Argentinian accent, they pronounce me llamo (im called) like me shamo (whereas in chiole and spain they say it like me yamo). The little mountain town was incredibly pretty. All the buildings were made from wood and looked like little cabins. It all looked really small, but there were a lot of people and cars, i think its a bit deceving as everything looks tçso small and cute. Again i have no photos from this :(

Theres a ski resort about half an hour from there, and we considered staying an extra day and going up...but then decided against it as by the time we hired things and stayed another nights accomodation it would be pretty expensive. So the next day we headed back to Nicos house in Pucon.

(Iv added some photos from the internet so you can all see how pretty it is. I am going back there in a few weeks (to the lake) so will try and get some piccies)

---

---