Vacation in San Martin de los Andes

Hola, tanto tiempo eh?

I just recently went on vacation with Tomas to San Martin de los Andes in Patagonia. Its in the northern part of Patagonia near 7 huge lakes (sort of like the great lakes of Argentina). When we first arrived we realized pretty quickly that the city was out of season. There were hardly any people there except for some natives. We went to the tourist office to ask about what there was to do, but the two girls working there sort of conveyed the message "Why are you here? There's not much to do out of season..."

We waked to our hostel in the fresh mountain air and unpacked. We thought about taking a bus to Bariloche if we ran out of things to do in San Martin which seemed more likely all the time. That's when we met... Santiago!

Santiago was the owner of the hostel we stayed at. What an energetic fun guy. He built our hostel himself, and designed it according to ideas he thought of while traveling in other hostels. There was a huge spacious kitchen and sitting area when we walked in. The rooms were comfortable spacious and clean. Santiago also built his house, which was behind the hostel, where he lives with his wife and 2 kids. So far he seems like an active, great father, but theres more.... he's also a tour guide! This is what made the difference for Tomas and I because everyday Santiago had some fun adventure planned for us. Since the weren't many buses running during the off season and many of the excursions just ended or were pretty pricey, we were worried that we would only have the few shorts hikes near the city to do. Santiago proposed some other ideas and had us off hiking to the top of mountains and riding horses.

The first day we went to the Cerro Colorado and hiked through a range of environments (forests, snow, rock, sandy shrubs...) to get to the top. I don't think I've ever been in a windier place in my life. Someone had built a wall of rocks at the top to block the wind and I was nearly knocked over trying to reach it. Tomas and I hid and rested behind the wall, enjoying the spectacular view and then ventured back down.

The next day we went to the Cerro Faulkner which was much taller. Again we hiked through various climates, at times so hot that we had to be in t-shirts and at times to cold for just our jackets scarves and fleeces. We also had to maneuver around cows during thsi hike. They also liked to hike up the mountain side and we didn't want to piss them off. But besides the cows up there, Tomas and I were the ONLY ones around. So we made sure to scream at the top of our lungs when we got to the top of the mountain.

The last day, we rode horses around the mountains. Tomas apparently is really good at riding horses. There was a group of 5 of us with the guide, and we all stayed conservatively on the path, slowing walking along. Tomas on the other hand was off galloping through the pastures, giving his horse some real excercise. Who knew he was so good at riding horses....

So those are the highlights from the trip!

Hasta luego,
Kati