The Seven Lakes of Argentina

In my the last report about our trip to Argentian I left you in San Martin, the final town on the seven lakes tour in the Andes.  The evening before we departed we stopped in the town square to watch a couple performers and their amazing tricks on a big hoop and a slack tight rope (is that an oxymoron?). Here is a short movie clip of the show.  

Lenin volcano from route 40

Then it was further north to visit the Lanin Volcano Even from the roadside thirty kilometres short the snow-cap was spectacular. Then came a turn on to a rough dirt road. We skirted lake Huechulafquen and then crept slowly through a maze of hairpin bends until we reached the end and stopped on the shore of the north western arm of the lake. Now the mountain was in full view, Spectacular!

The majestic volcano

 We were in for a surprise. Three mounted gauchos rode their horses straight into the lake at its narrow junction with the main body of water. At no time did the horses go deeper than their hocks. The shallow water was no doubt well known to locals. The posse was leading, sometimes dragging, a reluctant Hereford heifer.

The gauchos cross the lake

A reluctant Hereford heifer being brought home

Every now and again the heifer simply sat and refused to move. It had to be ‘persuaded’ The men stopped right by me and so I was able take a few photos of the drama. The animal had escaped from its herd mates and was being returned to base.

Over a picnic lunch of empanadas and ham and cheese sandwiches, purchased at a panaderia (bakery) in San Martin we could see the volcano framed by numerous monkey puzzle trees that are native to the area.   .    

There is a traditional Argentinian folk story about the volcano. It involves a hunt, an angry god that causes the mountain to shoot flames and smoke into the sky, and the sacrifice of a young girl to appease the god. Since the sacrifice the mountain has remained quiet and has never lost its snowy peak. The story is recounted on several websites that vary a tad from one another. 

Our next stop was in Villa Traful. To get to this little resort we had to leave the excellent paved route 40 and go down a gravel road with hairpin bends and plenty of rock. It was here that we learned more about the history and biology of the tree.  There are males and females, each bearing cones that differ in shape and colour. The taxonomic name of the ones that are native to the southern and central parts of Chile and Argentina is Araucaria araucana. It is the national tree of the former and is long-lived (up to a thousand years according to some).

female blossoms

Male pine cones

There is a related tree in the genus, native to Australia, known as the False Monkey Puzzle, or Bunya tree Araucaria bidwillii. It has been suggested that both trees, members of the Araucariaceae family, flourished during the Jurassic and into the Cretaceous from two hundred million to sixty-five million years ago. At the start of those long-ago times the super continent of Pangaea began to drift apart so it is possible that the original ‘living fossil’ has evolved into the two species in Australia and South America.

Human beings have always been interested in trans-locating plants and animals to a never-ending list of foreign countries (think New Zealand, think Australia). There are monkey-puzzle trees in Canada, the UK and many others. In UK the most famous spot is  Kew Gardens. My own memory of the tree comes from the front garden of the house at 79 Salisbury Road in the city of Salisbury, Wiltshire, where our family lived when I was nine years old. 

Unclimable bark

There was a huge one there and one thing was for sure, I was not going to try and climb it. The spiky trunk made sure of that. No wonder it is called the monkey puzzle.

            Another piece of useful information is that both species of the tree produce edible nuts. 

            Then it was back to Bariloche for a night before heading across to the east coast. On the way we stopped for lunch at a beach with a splendid view of mountain peaks with lake Nahuel Huapi in the foreground.

A shore-line view of lake Nahuel Huapi

Harldy big enough to damage a car, Just means TAKE CARE

 On the road back through the seven lakes began we passed a road sign that warned of tiny pudu. Because I worked with deer for most of my university career it was a creature I would love to see for real.

A souhern pudu

As I noted in the last post they are the smallest of all deer species, standing at a maximum 45 centimetres. There are two subspecies, the northern and southern.  Once hunted as a food source they are now threatened by habitat conversion and dog predation. 

Bariloche town square. Just jamming for the fun of it.

In Bariloche we headed out for a bite to eat and watched a bunch of musicians jamming in the town square. They had no interest in any cash rewards. They were just having a good time. So were the crowd.

Next day we boarded a couple of the fine buses that carry folks all over the country.  In the afternoon we went south to Esquel. After supper in a pub there we headed back to the bus station and at eleven at night we left for Puerto Madryn. 

Our overnight bus

This overnight bus had seats that turned into reclining beds and offered both supper and breakfast during our seven-hour trip out of the Andes, across the pampas to the east coast. 

More of that next time. 

A trip to the Argentinian Andes - part one

Back to blogging, after a hiatus of eighteen months. My excuse?  I was working hard on a new book. This one about work in Canada. Title: Porcupines to Polar Bears. 

There are stories from the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, the Forestry Farm Zoo in Saskatoon and the wilds of Canada.

As I wait for the release in May I can write about the trip that my wife Jo and I took in January and February to Argentina. There are so many memories that I’m going to start with the time had in Patagonia. To get there Air Canada took us to Santiago in Chile. After that a bus and boat trip across the Andes took us to the town of San Carlos de Bariloche, conveniently known as Bariloche in the Andes. We had booked into the beautiful Llao Llao hotel a twenty-minute bus-ride from the town.

The lawn below the Llao Llao hotel

 We arrived on the 25th of January, known world-wide wherever Scots have ended up at Robbie Burns day.

We do not participate that poet’s traditional haggis-based supper as it happens to be our wedding anniversary. In this case the 47^th.

Dinner with roses

It was great to find that the concierge had acted on my emailed request to have roses on our table at dinner-time. Jo knew nothing about this arrangement. It was a special moment to see her reaction.  

Next morning we began to explore. There were interesting Ashy-headed geese , with their russet breast feathers grazing on the lawns and a great view of lake Nahuel Huapi below the hotel.

 The spectacular view of the Andes, and the snow-capped peaks, gave us the opportunity to sit and relax on the lawn below the hotel beside the lake. It is huge. It  covers five hundred and thirty square kilometres and its shore line stretches three hundred and fifty-seven km.

On the shore of Lake Nahuel Huapi

In Bariloche, to our dismay, car rental is brutally expensive. $200 (US) a day for a very basic stick shift Chevy! There wasn't much choice if we wanted to explore.  Even at that price we decided to hire one and head north along the seven lakes route. There were stunning views, good restaurants and interesting things to do. 

From Bariloche we headed north to Villa Angostura, here we stayed at the Sol Arrayan  hotel, again on the shores of lake Nahuel Huapi, which is huge. The views of the Andes from the hotel and the shore are spectacular.

The view form the 5th floor

 By this time we had learned that in Argentina the correct pronunciation of a double ‘L’ in any word is not, as we expected, a ‘yao’ sound. The two ‘l’s sound as ‘sha’. So, our next stop in the trip was at ‘Visha’ Angostura.

Jo in front of Coihue a tree stand. Ground up view

  There were two interesting treespecies that we saw in Villa Angosturs.  Right outside the hotel was an Arrayan tree, with its rust and yellow bark. It grows up to 15 metres. It is a member of the myrtle family, is an evergreen with fragrant flowers and is limited to the central Andes between Chile and Argentina. The other tree(s) were a mass of Coihue standing straight as an arrow, up to 45 metres tall. The largest one on record had a girth of 8 metres.  Their most striking feature is the absence of any branch for the first twenty metres above ground.

Black-faced ibis

 Next morning my fascination with birds and their photography was further excited when we saw a pair of black-faced ibis on the lawn. There are at least ten species of ibis in South America, but this is the only kind we met.

I was somewhat astonished to see bronze or rock statues of red deer in the communities. This version is depicted in full rut, neck stretched, roaring his power and ardour to one and all. The real rut is in  autumn, March in Argentina, so the hills may soon resonate with the grunts and gurgles.

A bronze stag bugling into the sky

Have a listen to the sounds that echo across the Scottish Highlands in September.

 I was aware that these creatures had been exported to South America at some time early in the 20^th century but I did not realize that they had become iconic and more celebrated in art forms than the native deer. We saw candelabras concocted from interwoven antlers and the standard wall mounts in most hotels.

One of the natives is the pudu, smallest member of the deer family that stands, at most, fifteen inches (45 cm) at the shoulder and weighs 10 kg. The other is the huemul, critically endangered throughout its range, mainly due to human activity and competition for resources with those cervid foreigners. There are some signs of recovery of this situation, but they are not out of the woods yet.

Thence to the town of San Martin de los Andes (abbreviated as San Martin). It lies on the shore of the lake of the same name. This lake is more or less the same size as Nahuel Huapi. San Martin is a favourite destination for skiers and has a good ski lift system just south of town up a winding gravel road.

           The downtown area somewhat resembles a European mountain resort, with many buildings of log construction and window boxes. 

A  pub with half a minibus through its front.

The architect of pub, no doubt tongue in cheek,  has the front end of a VW micro bus embedded in the upper front wall. Happliy this 'crash' did not adversely effect the Warsteiner beer, a local brew.

For the folks who do not speak Spanish here is a useful tip, an essential addition the vocabulary for the beer drinker.  A craft beer, or one made in a micro brewery is un cerveza artesanal.


It was time for dinner. We had decided to double up and have a meal a restaurant advertising food and a tango show. Jut inside the door stood a large rack of wines. As we stood there a waiter told us that there would be no tango that evening.

Just one of three racks in the 'dinner and tango ' restaurant

The atmosphere was ideal with low lighting. The menu looked reasonable so we decided to have a meal anyway. Steak was on the menu and there were pasta dishes.

Next came a surprise. Only one small glass of water, from the tap, which we favour, was available. After that it had to be bottled water.

Ridiculous. We left.

There were hitchhikers outside every town we passed through. One of the most interesting encounters was with an Australian couple in their thirties. They arrived at the same hostel as us and we fell into conversation. They are inveterate cyclists. One of their less adventurous trips had been a ride from Barcelona to Berlin. That does not sound too arduous for the dedicated,  but these two were traveling with small children, a four-year old and a toddler of eighteen months!

Our journey continued. Next stop a volcano with a history and a folk tale.