Ruta de Los Sieto Lagos

The ride from San Martin de Los Andes to Villa Angostura was one of the few in which all four of us, Markus, Joe, Aaron, and me, rode together. It was as spectacular as all the Argentinians had said it would be, along the way down the Rute de Los Siete Lagos (7 Lakes). The first part of the ripio wasn't bad and we were by no means in any rush to get through this region, so we camped on Lago Traful near the middle of the region.

I really would characterize this particular ride by extremes. On one hand, the region is gorgeous with another mountain lake after what seemed like every turn or climb. It was during a lazy break at one of the lakes, I believe Lake Falkner, when we picked up picked up Bernardo, a Brazilian vet who does epidemiology work for the Brazilian government. Bernardo joined up with us for the next two days. Yet on the other hand, the road was quite terrible and absolutely demoralizing. Amongst the heat, the steep and useless climbs (up and down), the attacking tabanas (biting flies that draw blood), and of course the ripio made from loose rocks, I just felt like giving up right there. A few things, however, helped.

First, the bridge we found that spanned a relatively deep river. Bernardo, Markus, and I jumped off it (8m high?) starting a trend in which some other Brazilians and some locals also joined in.

Then there was the comic relief from Bernardo, who kept saying Jesus! with a great accent whenever we would talk about ridiculous things. For example, that night camping on Lake Traful when some obnoxious teenagers tried to steal my fire that was keeping me warm no more than 1m away while I tried to sleep at night under the stars without a tent (I had to move anyway becuase they were so damn loud). Then there was the Great Power Chinese character tattoo that Bernardo sported that for all we knew could have meant man-whore. However, Markus was pretty sure he saw a toilet in Japan with two flush options, one of which was one of the same characters, so Great Power it was. When the ripio finally ended, we kissed the pavement. The next day Bernardo was to leave to Bariloche and I decided to cross into Chile with Markus, while Joe and Aaron would continue south through Argentina.

The morning ride with Joe and Markus through the national park in Villa Angostura was
invigorating, especially because we traveled to the small island without the panniers.
Uphill I could easily break 20kmph on pavement, it was even more useful when climbing steep
inclines through the Arrayanes forest (they do not appear anywhere else in the world except
this general region). On the way back I caught Berarndo leaving, said goodbye. I'll
certainly miss Great Power who said to us, "If you want to friends to travel with, go to
your destination and you will find them there."