San Martin de Los Andes

  San Martin de los Andes, Argentina
Thursday, July 19, 2007

Day 39 to 40 (17th - 18th July): Our bus ride to San Martin de los Andes was very scenic. We drove through stunning mountain scenery. Once we settled into our accommodation in San Martin de Los Andes, we went for a walk around town and bumped into an Argentinian girl we met on a previous bus trip from Cordoba to Neuquen - what a small world!

We had a very tasty dinner at La Regional, where we were treated to local specialties such as trout and deer, along with the "artesenal cerveza" (micro-brewery beer). 

The following day, we went on a tour of the 5 lagos (there are 7, but the road was closed up ahead due to heavy snow). We were the only people on the bus in the age group of 20-35 year olds. The other tourists were parents with their 2-7 year old children.

Since there was A LOT of snow (ie. over a metre), we were only able to stop at a few points, and weren´t able to walk very far. Our photo ops turned into snowball fights which livened up the trip.


Fraser even managed to get stuck in the snow (this type of thing doesn't happen to Canucks!). Andrea thought it was hilarious, so she videoed him trying to get out.



On our trip, we had a parilla lunch in Meliquina, which was very tasty and then took a short walk along a beach by the lake, which reminded us of Mackenzie Country in New Zealand. 

During our lunch we were treated to the "Greatest Hits" of Phil Collins. Fortunately for us, the restaurant owner lent his CD to the bus driver, so we could carry on listening to it ALL the way back. Something we have noticed in Argentina is that bus drivers really love to play cheesy easy listening 80s music (Micheal Bolton, Roxette, Bryan Adams ... etc)