We were happy to be back on the Argentinian side of the border, particularily because $$ seems to go much further here than in Chile. For example, a hostel for one night in Chile is $20 - $25 per night and a burger and fries will run about $7-$9… While in Argentina you can sleep for $10-$12 per night, and for $7-$9 you can be eating steak!!! Bariloche is set in the mountains near to many ski resorts and all the Euros say it reminds them of being in the Alps, for it seemed a bit like Canmore with a lot more chocolate shops!!. Corne had gone a couple of days earlier and scoped out a place for us to stay, and gave us a guided tour of all the things to see in the city center.
Dawne was mostly interested in the chocolate and ice cream shops which were absolutely everywhere. Eventually we got some ice cream and walked down to lake to enjoy the scenery. We ended up heading out later that night for a few drinks and didn’t end up getting back to the hostel until around 3 or 4am. That would have been no issue except for the fact that we had a car rental confirmed the next day for 8:30am. Before heading to bed, we reminded Corne that breakfast was at 8:00am and that if he wasn’t ready to go for 9am we were leaving without him. In the morning, I headed off around 9am to pick up the car and left Dawne to pack up our things. When I returned back to the hostel at 10am with the car, Corne was sitting in the lobby waiting to leave, still with no sign of Dawne. I felt a little bad when he said he was for us at breakfast since 8:00am. Oooops!!
The three of us hopped into our sweet 2 door VW Golf and set off on a 2 day adventure along a 400 km stretch of highway known as the “Ruta de Siete Lagos” (7 lakes road). It was a good feeling to be in a vehicle of our own on the open road! A sense of freedom that we’d been missing for quite some time. We stopped at several lakes along the way to skip rocks, go for a quick swim or just to lie in the sun and take a nap.
The 1st lake and the last lake of the day were definitely the highlites. The first lake was one of the biggest on the trip and was likely the clearest lake I have ever come across. The rocks along the beach and in the water were a light granite. It was incredible to watch them sparkle in the crystal clear calm waters. The last one was near to the town of San Martin, where we planned to stay for the night. We had a great few hours sitting there relaxing and watching the sun reflect off the lake as it set beyond the hills. After driving a few more km’s to San Martin we found a great place to stay, had dinner and called it a day!
In the AM we were back in the car heading back in the direction of Bariloche. The map indicated 2 ways to get back, so we decided that we would take a different road than the one we previously travelled. Great idea, except for the fact that the first 85kms were extremely rough gravel. Most would think this isn’t much of an issue, but 3 people and 3 heavy backpacks in a VW Golf would disagree!! Poor car!! We thought we were going to make it back no problem until we could feel the hard pull to the left and a thump, thump, thump, thump sound starting! Sweet ….. FLAT TIRE!!! I guess this would help to answer Dawne’s question from the previous day, “What happens if we get a flat tire?”. My answer was still the same… “We change it!” We knew it was going to be a bit tougher than we hoped when we pulled out the rusty jack, with no crank to lift vehicle. We set the jack and were able to slowly twist the jack with the tire wrench… ¼ turn at a time!! Wow, this was going to take all day! One group of tourists in a rental vehicle stopped, but it turned out they were running late for a bus and needed to carry on. Well, back to the slow turning. We got it nearly all the way up, just before the jack slipped out and we had to start over!! 
Lucky for us another fellow who was heading home from visiting his brother stopped and was able to lend us the jack from his rental car. It’s sure easy to change a tire when you have the right tools!! After about 10 minutes both us and the friendly Argentian fellow were all back on the road. We were a little weary that we would encounter a second flat with no spare, but luckily we made it back into town with no problems. Thank goodness!! Hopefully our bus ride to Puerto Madryn goes more smoothly!!! 
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