We woke up to snow on the ground and a few flurries still swirling in the air where we'd parked off on a dirt road. Rather than worry about getting stuck in the slippery mud trying to get back to the road, we just decided to stay here another day and chill out (pun intended). We were warm and level and the owner just drove around us again. All good. This was an area where I found lots of fossils of clams, mussels, scallops, and slabs of crystals just laying on the gravel and dirt.
The snow disappeared quickly and we had some pretty desert flowers in bloom around us.
Some cool rocks just laying on the round around here. I like the turquoise blue-green as it contrasts with the red, orange, and yellow of its neighbor.
We stopped at a tourist info center in Las Lajas and left a sticker on their window.
We stopped for lunch along this river and Jason notice big blobs of black and mahogany obsidian in the road rocks here, so I collected some. If you look closely, you can spot Jason gathering a bucket of water in the center of the picture. A couple of guys crossed the river at the bridge in the background and climbed up to a cave at the top of the ridge across the river behind me.
A huge statue on the edge of town was being built or repaired. We think it's a miner.
We wanted to park just beyond those trees, but the path in was this deep, gooey mud so we had to drive a bit and come back from the exit end to park on the concrete pad behind those trees in this informal rest area.
The cottonwood trees blew cottony 'snow' into piles all afternoon here.
I walked around the area the next day and found lots of carnelian and a few agates. This is probably the best agate I've ever found! Also a piece of chipped off obsidian, so this area was probably once used by indigenous people for hunting.
The next night we parked above this river with this as our view. We were behind a bunch of little shrines and people driving by honked as they passed.
We are driving the Seven Lakes road down Route 40, where there are lots of mountain lakes. This one even had sailboats on it. The water is deep and cold but it must not freeze as there were permanent docks and moorings here.
Fresh spring snow on the mountainsides here.
We stopped at a mirador (viewpoint) for this waterfall, Vullinanco. Locals later told us they'd never seen so much water coming over these falls.
Some unusual spiky plants growing next to one of the lakes.
We camped next to this Lake Villarino in a big grassy field. Some locals gave us some 'choripan', chorizo (sausage) on pan (bread) they'd grilled over a fire. It was delicious. One of them, Roberto, spoke English and plays international underwater hockey. I'd never heard of the sport, but it sounded interesting.
Jason in front of Lake Falkner, across the road from our campsite in Lake Villarino. This is the beach locals come to. The water was cold, but folks still walked the shore barefoot just to say they did it. I found a baggie of money on the walk back, so it was a good day.
The tan, blue and green of the lake water near shore was a pretty contrast showing the different depths and underwater surfaces.
These rust colored geese were smaller and prettier than Canadian geese, but they still pooped all over the grassy expanses of this camping area.
A bit further down the road, we stopped at another lake mirador and this fox was just sitting in the parking area across the road. She obviously is used to people, but you could only get so close before she loped away.
These workers were using chainsaws, picks, axes, and chains to break up this huge stump and drag it away into the trees with this Ford truck. Light entertainment on a rainy day. They told us we could park here, so we found a level spot after they left and spent the night next to Lake Espejo just off to the left.
Lake after lake led us to the town of Bariloche, where this unusual building decoration greeted us as we looked for new wiper blades. We spent over 5 hours visiting almost all the automotive shops in town. The Ford dealer didn't have any wiper blades, but we did get them to scan the engine for the error code that showed up on our Fix-D diagnostic tool that indicated a random misfire in one of the cylinders of the engine and triggered the 'Service Engine Soon' light to come on in the dashboard display. They did the scan right away for us, but the service manager said they were too busy to deal with looking into the cause and we'd have to wait 2-3 days for a service appointment, so we bought another cabin filter and carried on. It's difficult to find parts for a vehicle they don't even sell down here.
A tiny red-orange leaf in the gravel of the road stood out.
We drove down a steep dirt/rock road to reach this tiny cove with protection from the howling winds. There are whitecaps on Lake Huemul here, but we were in the calm.
Karen about to cook something greasy for Jason. Had to put on the apron for this.
Another Patagonian mountain lake. They all make for some pretty spectacular scenery.
We hiked up to a lookout over the area where there are Chilean myrtle trees, known locally as arrayanes. They are cinnamon-orange with peely bark that reveals a creamy color underneath. They are slow-growing and not common, so parks are being developed around growths of them. I love the bright yellow and green of the flowering bush behind me here. No idea what it is but it lines the roads and hills everywhere here, probably a weed.
The Malvinas (aka Falkland Islands) are still a debated territory here. Argentina still claims they belong to them, not the United Kingdom. At this point, we are closer to the Malvinas than we are to our destination, Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego.
These big long-billed ibises are fairly common where there is wet ground. They make a loud squawking noise that is distinctive.
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