San Martin back to Bariloche

But via a different route: along Ruta 40 all the way, via Villa La Angostura (that is, not via the unpaved road we took to get to San Martin: the Ruta 65 via Villa Traful that we did in the rain on Sunday).

We took our time over breakfast & left about 10:00 a.m. Glorious day: blue sky, bright sunshine, no (!) wind & the temperature rose from about 6.5 deg C when we left to 20 deg C later on.

We revisited scenic panoramas of some of the lakes we had seen on Sunday, but now the water was blue, sometimes emerald green in parts, due to the nice day. Magical views.

We had not stopped at Lago Hermoso on our way to San Martin. I had read it was one of the nicest lakes so we decided to detour & visit it today; and indeed it was very pretty - all the better because the little dirt road we took to get there, went right up to the lake shore so we were at ground level, so to speak, rather than looking down at the lake from a height as we had with all the other lakes. The water was crystal clear & surprisingly mild.

We also took the opportunity to wash the car with water from the lake to get rid of some of the mud & dirt from Sunday's journey.

We knew by now too (the Dutch couple Elisabetta & Hank having told us when we drove behind them last night to the art gallery) that one of the front lights is not working. Not looking forward to dealing with Hertz re that tomorrow! But more about the light later.

Further on was a little church, San Huberto, nestled amongst the pines beside the road.

At another lake (Lago Correntoso), we stopped again for nice views & a bit of a break; followed by a further stop at the very pretty Lake Espejo where we sat on the beach (playa) to have our little lunch roll made up of last night's leftovers.

By now we were approaching Villa La Angostura, a small resort town on the northwestern shore of Lago Nahuel Huapi, which is the last lake we sailed across on our Andean Lakes boat trip from Puerto Varas to Bariloche last Saturday. This lake is HUGE, the biggest in Argentina. Today the lake was really blue & rimmed with the vivid yellow flowers & the snow-capped mountains; it was just photo, photo, photo.

We stopped for a coffee at Villa La Angostura & there was a quiet supermarket so we chose to get our supplies for tomorrow's bus trip rather than deal with the traffic & parking in Bariloche.

We also bought chocolates here. So many towns in South America have cholaterias & I had been 'hanging off' until Bariloche (regarded as the "chocolate capital" of Argentina) but as it was quiet here, we bought chocolates here.

Now we had our first interaction with the law! We had been worried about the front light of the car - & as it is compulsory to drive with the lights on, we could not avoid being detected - so it was probably only a matter of time before we got 'sprung' given all the police control points along the roads.

Anyway, the policeman duly strolled out & waved us to the side of the road. Fortunately, when he couldn't make himself understood because he spoke no English & we played dumb too (although he did a good job with sign language regarding the front lights so we knew what it was all about), and he was pretty concerned with my "Perdon, habla inglese?" (Excuse me, do you speak English? - perfected by now!), he went off to get a colleague who asked for My Friend's licence & me for the papers for the car, and after much pfaffing about and discussions between the two, the superior officer decided to wave us on, demonstrating the full extent of his powers (to our benefit, gratefully) - and we got outta there.

Further discussion in our vehicle ensued & we lighted (sic) on the brilliant idea of using high beam (which worked) & wasn't a problem for oncoming traffic anyway as it was so feeble. When we looked around, a lot of other vehicles seemed to have lights in various states of repair also, so we weren't alone. But we shared a big sigh of relief & hoped we wouldn't have a problem at the next control post - which turned out to be policia-less.

On we went. We are "over" lakes now; & yellow flowers. But here is a close-up anyway; and some others for good measure.

Nearly 5 p.m. as we came through Bariloche which was very busy. Quickly checked at the bus station so we had an idea of what to face tomorrow. Somewhat incongruously (given the context of the beautiful scenery), we passed the National Atomic Energy Commission, the Argentine government agency in charge of nuclear energy research and development, created in 1950 with the mission of developing and controlling nuclear energy for peaceful purposes in the country.

We had to travel 18 kms to the other side of Bariloche to our B&B which My Friend remained stoically silent about, as he was pretty tired by now. But how beautiful it is. Magical. Another great find. We have lovely views over the lake to the mountains beyond. Our hosts greeted us with a little hot chocolate each & after unpacking, we walked down the track to the lake & a playa (beach) - stony actually - & enjoyed the view.