Advertisement
Published: October 25th 2012
Rocky Road Trip
Forested lakes and rivers, charming alpine towns, and wind-whipped rock formations on a rocky road that gave us a wild ride--this was the scenic Ruta de los Siete Lagos through Argentina's Patagonian Lake District. Best of all, I was with a friend in a car, and the autumn crimsons, violets and golds were blazing.
My dear friend, Nancy, from Santa Barbara had flown to Bariloche, and I'd raced up from southern Patagonia to meet her. After a few days in Bariloche sharing my favorite mountain and lake spots, we hopped in a little white car she had splurged on and headed out for adventure. I'd only been in a car a couple of times in the last year and had forgotten how easy car travel was--woohoo!
The weather prospect was less than stellar, after all, it was May, the rainiest of all months when Villa La Angostura, our first stop, usually gets 17 inches/43 cm of precipitation (more than my hometown gets in a year). However, nothing outside of a blizzard would stop us (which it almost did later).
Villa La Angostura
We wound out of Bariloche
along the mountain-ringed, 100-km long Lago Nahuel Huapi, past campgrounds where we took little walks, fishing spots and gorgeous wooden resorts and villas to Villa La Angostura. The town with its 10,000 inhabitants was rather like a miniature Bariloche (population 100,000) with similar wood and stone alpine chalets, and gnomes advertising upscale chocolate, beer and outdoor gear shops. However, unlike Bariloche which runs along the lake, La Angostura was strung along the highway.
The town was having a celebration when we arrived, so after buying some of our favorite chocolates at a branch of my beloved Mamuschka, we listened to local musicians and gawked at gauchos duded up for the occasion.
We then headed a few kilometers to the lower town around the placid, forest-rimmed lake to walk out on the little ferry pier and along the lake front. The large Quetrihué Peninsula juts 12 km into the lake and is covered by the Parque de los Arrayanes, which protects one of the last large stands of these delicate cinnamon-colored trees. We climbed some of the zillion steep steps that led to a mirador/lookout, but realized we needed to hit the road if we
Lake Nahuel Huapi
between Bariloche and Villa La Angostura
wanted to see the seven lakes.
The Ruta de los Siete Lagos proper starts in Villa La Angostura, ends in San Martin de los Andes and encompasses two huge national parks--Nahel Huapi and Lanin. So great that this beauty was being protected. The road was paved for a bit past La Angostura, but soon enough turned into a rather reasonable gravel. On buses, it was teeth rattling, but we cruised slowly to savor the sights and stopped often to admire the azure lakes and rivers. As we climbed higher, the forest of southern beech began to turn to autumn colors, setting the mountains ablaze. I later read that there were trails and a waterfall that we missed, so hopefully future travelers will get more info on this.
San Martin de los Andes
We descended the mountains, skirting Lake Lacar, to the village of San Martin de los Andes, at 645m, nestled between the lake shore and forested mountains. Like Bariloche and other lake district resorts, it was originally settled by German and Swiss immigrants, and shared the alpine style.
After settling into the friendly Hostel Secuoya, where we had a
dorm room to ourselves, we walked the streets with their flowering parks, helpful tourist office and upscale restaurants, realizing there really wasn't much to do in town and headed to the hostel to fix dinner. I'd later return three more times to San Martin and find lots of hiking, but that's in my blog of April 16, 2012.
The next day, we drove a half an hour along the lake then descended an impossibly narrow, winding, dusty dirt road bordered by trees in wild autumn colors to an indigenous Mapuche village, Quila Quina. On our way down, hand-painted signs directed us to a trail to a splendid waterfall. At the bottom, at a lake pier, an excursion boat had brought a huge group from San Martin who were chowing down in the restaurant.
We opted for an al fresco picnic, followed by walks through the forests, over bridges, along rivers, and past horses grazing freely, campgrounds, upscale holiday homes and a school with a Mapuche curriculum.
Rocky Back Road to Villa Traful
There are three roads back to Bariloche. Most travelers either retrace the Ruta de los Siete Lagos or
take the fully paved, faster highway. We intrepid explorers opted for a wild ride--little-used, single-track, rocky, pitted dirt road through a long canyon that followed a clear blue stream bordered by bright autumn-colored yellow southern beeches.. Best of all, there were wonderfully bizarre megaliths in bizarre shapes jutting out from the mountains or grouped like little rock communities. We had to stop the car every few minutes to jump out for gawking and photos.
We lunched along the stream below a cave where clever graffiti artists had rather convincingly drawn Lascaux-like animals in natural colors. We were sure the drawings were fake--this was not the Native American style, yet curiously still took photos of them--what was that about?
Finally, the road turned back on itself and snaked to Confluencia, where there is indeed the confluence of two mighty rivers and also the confluence of several roads (and a well-placed gas station, mini-market and toilet) in the middle of nowhere. From here, we set out on another dirt road to Villa Traful where we were occasionally detained by herds of horses, cows or sheep in the road.
Villa Traful, Tiny Gem
Just
before sunset, we arrived at tiny Villa Traful, at 720 meters, on its eponymous, forested lake. It was by far my favorite town on the route with about 500 inhabitants. In half an hour, we walked the town, passing quaint wooden shops, homes, resorts, and a chapel. It was completely deserted except for those in the few shops. In one of the latter, my knitting friend, Nancy bought some local, naturally-died yarn, and I met someone who rented a room in her house. I got her number and made plans to return for part of the snowy winter.
A charming pier jutted into the water, affording spectacular views of the sunset and the surrounding mountains reflecting in the still lake. I chatted with a woman, a refugee from big city Bariloche, who told me that everyone makes the 2.5 hour journey to Bariloche for grocery shopping--pretty big commitment, since I'm a fan of fresh veggies--hmm. Later that night, Nancy and I snuck through some backyards for a fine view of the full moon rising over the lake.
The few rental places that were open were expensive, and the only dorms had been taken over
by the primary kids whose school had been condemned. However, the kind owners let us a cabin for half price since the place was actually closed--ah, the great low season! We had a rustic, little A-frame with a kitchen and bath all to ourselves--very posh for our last night on the road!
On to Chile
The following day, we headed back to Bariloche where I left a day pack full of books and clothes, saying I'd return in a couple of weeks. The next morning, in a downpour, we dropped off the rental car and boarded a bus over the Paso Cardinal Samore. As we climbed the pass, the rain turned to a blizzard; we were the last bus to make it through. We were so lucky since Nancy needed to get to Santiago, Chile, to make a flight to Peru and Macchu Pichu.
We bussed together to the popular university town of Valdivia where I planned to spend a couple of weeks before heading back to Bariloche and Villa Traful for an snowy winter. However, as always in this wonderful life, things change.
Nancy wanted company in Santiago and offered
to buy me a cama (bed) seat on a bus if I'd accompany her. Well, I'll go anywhere on a free ticket with a friend. Thus, we spent the afternoon walking around gray, misty Valdivia, visiting the few buildings not destroyed by earthquakes, the waterfront with its sea lions begging treats, and the riverbanks and then boarded a night bus for Santiago. We spent a fine day together, and I ended up staying much longer than planned.
Volcanic Eruption
On June 4, 2011, two weeks after we left the charming Argentine Lake District, the Volcano Puyehue erupted just over the border in Chile. I'd seen and admired the smoking cone when racing up from southern Chile to meet Nancy.
Now, it produced an ash cloud 12,000 meters/39,370 ft high that blew east, first into the Argentine Lake District and then to Buenos Aires (which means Good Air, but whose airs were then not so good). The ashes closed airports all over the southern hemisphere from Argentina to Rio to South Africa, Australia and back, snarling air traffic for months, just as the Icelandic eruptions were to do the following year in the northern
hemisphere.
Villa Angostura bore the brunt of the disaster with ash 2-feet deep covering the town. Bariloche and Villa Traful were also buried, and the lake district lost its entire winter tourist and ski season. As the towns were buried, so were my plans for returning that winter.
I went on to explore central Chile, returning to Bariloche only in early autumn the following year. The towns had swept away the ashes and were coming back to life though my hostel was closing--not all businesses survived the disaster. The forests, however, were full of wildflowers, fertilized by the ash. Death and rebirth--the cycle of life even in the paradise of the seven lakes.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.108s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 15; qc: 27; dbt: 0.0375s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
bvchef
Brendan Vermillion
Wow
I am always so excited to see a blog from you. Not only are you in some of the most beautiful areas I can imagine, you take pictures that bring that beauty alive on my screen. I couldn't rate your panorama shot at the top, but if I could, it would receive a 10 star rating even though we can only give up to 5 stars. Keep traveling, blogging and posting your photos.