San Martin de los Andes

San Martin de los Andes is about 4 hours north of Bariloche, also located in the lake district of Argentina. Our first day in San Martin we took a hike up to an overlook where we had great views of the town down below as well as Lake Lacar. The weather was a little warmer than Bariloche, but not quite warm enough to do anything like rafting or swimming. We decided to rent a car for the next 2 days so we could venture out away from town a bit and do some exploring. We spent the rest of that first day walking around comparing prices for rental cars, grocery shopping, etc.
Our first day with the car we went to Pichi Traful, a hotel owned by Word of Life that our bilingual program brought us to 8 years ago for a couple of weeks vacation. It was definitely the highlight of our time in Argentina back then. We found the hotel, but the gates were closed and no one was there. We left our car outside the gate and squeezed our way in to look around. We took pictures and walked around the property for a while before we headed on to Los Cinco Saltos, some nearby waterfalls.

At Los Cinco Saltos there is a 30 min. hike that leads you to 5 waterfalls that you can climb up.  We were really excited about seeing the falls again, but I think we had both forgotten how cold the water was. There are parts of the trail that involve crossing streams that left our feet completely numb.
Between the lack of well-marked trails and our lack of memory of what the trail should look like, we spent most of our first day at the falls lost trying to keep up with the trail. We followed what looked like a trail only to find that it was leading us nowhere. We ended up having to come back a second day so we could spend more time at the falls. A little frustrating, but oh well. So the second day we made it all the way to the falls on the correct trail. The first two falls are the first that you come upon from the trail, and the others you have to climb up to get to.

 Falls #1and #2

from the side of falls #2

We were able to climb up the first set of waterfalls from the side. There are some really steep, really muddy trails that take you up above each waterfall and lead you to the next one. Once we were on top of the first and second waterfall, we couldn't figure out how to get up to the next set. The water was too deep to walk through and way too cold to swim through. So we were kind of stuck where we were. We really wanted to get up to the others, but at least we could see them from where we were.

waterfall #3, with #4 and #5 up above

On our way back to San Martin we stopped by Lago Traful. Agian, it was too cold to do anything in the lake, but really pretty to look at. 

Lago Traful

Well, that's about it for San Martin. We only had two and a half days there, so we didn't have much time to see all we wanted to. As our trip goes on, time seems to be passing faster and faster. The two or three days that we have in each place is never enough! Its just enough to make us want to come back again some day!

Here are some funny signs from around San Martin.