As we left the hot dusty desert and freewheeled into Tecka hoping to make it before we ran out of fuel, the pointy snowy peaks of the Andes came into sight. A huge smile crossed our faces not only that we made it to the fuel station (despite a 5 hour queue for fuel!) but at being back in the mountains once more. The Lake District in Argentina is extremely beautiful, but as the name suggests it can also be very wet and cold!
We started our camping in the Los Alerces National park. Our campsite was by the river, we did a pretty river and woodland ramble and the next day took a boat trip to see the 2800 yr old Alerce trees. Unfortunately the weather was so wet that we didn’t see much of the scenery, but we met some nice people and tried the Argentinan drink of Mate, a bitter sort of tea!
We then headed off to the hippy town of El Bolson. The campsite was near the town and full of amazing birds. There were long curved beaked birds with sandy brown and white feathers that strutted around like ducks, and lots of brown hawk like parrots that pecked at rubbish and crumbs. There was plenty of space so Will and Ellie enjoyed learning to play with Will’s boomerang….and I think that Dad and Grandad had just as much fun! The evenings were spent drinking red wine and playing Bananagrams.
The mountains were shrouded in clouds of mist, but we caught glimpses of glaciers and snowy peaks and managed some lovely walks along the pretty river valley and, after a very exciting trip in Dotty and Roo up an extremely bumpy and rocky road, into the mountains. We drove to Bariloche and found a lovely campsite on the lake. The view….when the clouds cleared a little was beautiful. We walked in Llao Llao through woodland to pretty lakeside beaches and up rocky outcrops with nice views across lakes and peeps at peaks through the clouds.
On Saturday we very sadly said goodbye to Matt’s Mum and Dad after a wonderful two weeks with them, and set off to drive the seven lakes tour north of Bariloche. On Sunday we woke to blue sky and sunshine, and lovely views of bluey green lakes and snowy tipped peaks. (Sorry Bill and Christine, but Matt’s taken lots of photos for you!)We had a walk to a waterfall and some more exciting driving along rough mountain track. Although the sun shone we woke from our wild campsite next to the river to an iced up Dotty and frost!! As we drove down to meet the Ruta 40 the landscape with it’s weathered rocks and spiky peaks was amazing.
We are now working our way down south on the Ruta 40, and are on our way back to Tecka to fill up on fuel before we continue south…..I wonder if we’ll have to queue for another 5 hours?
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