Mirador Bandurrias Walk – San Martin de los Andes

Our small boutique hotel (or very smart b&b might be more appropriate) has airy En-suite rooms with French doors to the lovely grounds and a very comfortable bed. Water pressure good in the bathroom too, but like every hotel visited thus far stupid irritating hairdriers! Didn’t bring mine as thinking weight, so now wish I had. These things take ages to dry your hair and then leave you looking like you had your fingers in the sockets! ( Think Bridget Jones on her first away day weekend with Daniel Cleaver). Breakfast fairly good and finally got my favourite, a perfectly cooked soft boiled egg. However disaster nearly struck as I sprinkled a load of what I thought was salt onto my plate, and just before the egg got the same treatment the waitress pointed out that was in fact sugar! Otherwise very amiable host and good chat with fellow interesting guests from Uruguay. Our lack of Spanish is proving sometimes a little frustrating but not insurmountable especially with Google translate.

Having stoked up with a hearty breakfast we took ourselves off on a reasonably challenging hill walk. Had gone almost 600m when we decided might be best to go back and add another layer – at least to cover our arms, it was only 12C. Better equipped we marched off past the lake and strode towards our ascent. Very soon all the additional outwear was dispensed with and put into the backpack. By 1pm it was 21C. We spotted some interesting birds along the way; Southern lapwings & Bandurrias Austral or Black Faced Ibis with the very long beaks. As mentioned before there is an abundance of bird life here.

Fabulous views prevailed the further up we climbed, although a little more challenging than first anticipated. We steadily climbed 800 meters to the summit and were rewarded with a panoramic view of the city (really a small town) , the Vega Maipú, Lake Lacar, the hills Comandante Diaz, Curruhuinca, Abanico, Vizcacha, Sábana and Piedra de Trompul. (Ed. Quite what this all means I’ve no idea but hey it sounds good). On arrival at the top we paid a small park entrance fee as the land belongs to the local indigenous Mapuche who settled these lands several hundred years ago when migrating east across the Andes from Chile. Sadly they appear to live a very primitive & deprived existence with minimal state support. High levels of illiteracy and their language under threat of extinction suggests a less than good outcome for the 200,000 or so indigenous Argentine Mapuche population.

Unsurprisingly coming down was harder on the thighs and the knees, than going up.

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Could the yellow blooms that are everywhere you look be forsythia? No idea what the orange flowers were, but very striking.

On arrival back at lakeside we spied a trailer serving burgers and fries and decided that would be the perfect lunch after a good hike. We shared a burger and a large fries covered in mayo and tomato sauce – was probably the best burger and chips ever! But as my mum pointed out, when I spoke with her on WhatsApp this afternoon, after a two hour strenuous walk and hunger pangs, anything can taste good! Bit like shopping in Waitrose when you’re hungry!

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Another aside, we have been able to pay for most things by credit card, mostly using Amex. We had read that many places don’t take credit cards but this does not appear to be the case, thus far.

We enjoyed a delicious alpine style fondue tonight and a few glasses of vino prior to a relatively early night as tomorrow we go 120km to Villa Angostura, a car journey south (known as the seven lakes drive) taking us past some of the great glacier lakes towards Bariloche. We have been advised to only go at 40-50kmh as most of the unpaved route has a lot of loose rocks. Let’s hope our little Nissan March survives intact😅