Chasing Summer –

It was a cloudy and rainy kind of day, perfect for a road trip to St. Martin, about 200km NE on the most famous road in Argentina, Route 40.

This stretch of the road is the most popular section and called 7 Lagos because it twists around 7 lakes.

Because of the weather, we stopped for pictures in lake order 2, 3 ,4 ,5, 7, 6 ,and 1. I traveled north from Bariloche around Lago Nahuel Huapi. Because of the clouds and light rain in the area conditions were perfect for 🌈 to appear.

Villa La Angostura is about an hour into the drive and marks the start of the 7 lakes sightings. Even though 200kms doesn’t seem like much, the speed limit is 40 km for most of the route. So it’s slow going.

The Villa la Angostura is a small town where tourism is the main industry, both in summer and winter. Our bus actually didn’t stop here until the way back because of rain.

Immediately after leaving town, the drive will take you past the first two lakes. You see the back end of lake number two first, Lake Correntosso, on the left, but because it isn’t considered the main part of the lake, which you don’t see until after the view point of Lake Espejo on the right, it’s number two while Espejo gets number one.

We continued up to a viewpoint for Lake Escondido, which is surrounded by trees. A hidden lake indeed.

Lake number 4 is a pretty spot where many people were out for a swim, Lago Falkner. Directly across from it is Lake number 5, Lago Villareno.

Our tour passed by lake six until the return trip because the lookout was on the other side of the road, and we continued on to St. Martin de los Andes and lake seven, Lagos Lacar. Here, we stopped for lunch and a quick look at the town.

It has about 20,000 people and again tourism is the main industry. There are a lot of quaint stores, restaurants and lodgings. Even though I was only here a short time, I preferred the laid-back charm of St. Martin better than Bariloche.

Heading back the way we came, the tour stopped at lake six, Lago Mochonico.

We also paid a visit to Lake One, Lago Espejo, and it had stopped raining, so our wait paid off.

One thing I loved is the bus stops along the road were all painted with different art and styles.

The entire trip took about 10 hours to complete, and if I could do it again, I would have stayed in St. Martin de los Andes for at least one night rather than heading back to Bariloche immediately.