There are parts of the "Lake District" in both Chile and Argentina. This is the outdoor playground of South America with pretty sweet hiking, rafting, and fishing. We have plans to see the Chile side of the lake district as well when we cross back over. There are several towns in Argentina in the lake area and we had choosen San Martin because it is a bit smaller than the main town Bariloche and is supposed to look like a Swiss mountain town with similar architecture.
We got off of the bus and wandered around looking for the local tourist office. They have these in most towns that attract visitors and can be a big help in finding accomidations that aren't in the guidebooks. We were hoping in particular to find a cabaña which is a cabin for rent. This being a vacation town they were all over the place. We found the tourist office and after some phone calls they sent us off with a map to find our cabana.
We found the place and it was a good setup. There were several cabañas grouped together in one building. Ours was on the corner, it had a downstairs with a living area, bathroom, and small kitchen. Upstairs was the bedroom complete with a nice window and balcony.
Chrissy was pretty excited about doing some rafting and I wanted to try my hand at fly fishing. Having a place to sleep, we headed off to find a tour company to book our activities. We went to several places and they all looked at us like we were kind of crazy when we asked about rafting and fishing. Being the tail end of winter these things hadn't started yet. We were offered a tour around the lake by bus or snow shoeing. The bus thing sounded kind of lame and we decided to think about the snow shoeing.
Being without any scheduled activities, but having a full out apartment setup for the first time on our trip we headed for the grocery store to get some provisions for dinner. Walking around the store we were trying to formulate a meal that was something tasty and homelike. Chili. They even had a bottle of tabasco.
The next few days were much the same. We missed out on the snowshoeing because the trip filled up while we were "thinking" about it (lame, I know). So we enjoyed our sweet pad and the ability to make our own grub. We pan seared some steaks one night.
We did do some hiking in the hills around the lake which had some nice views of the area.
Next stop is Puerto Madryn, the land of whales, peguins, sea lions, and such.
- Bill