Alison bought a pair of "scholl-type" clogs and Pete bought 2 bottles of water with our new found wealth. We then packed the car, filled up with 24l of petrol and headed off four our "7 lakes" drive at about 11:00.
Our first stop was at the Lago Lacar in St martin, which we had not visited the day before. We then set off on the Ruta 40 and managed to cover just 10km in 45 minutes, due to frequent photo stops!
Fortunately the first part of the "unpaved road" to Lago Maliquina had been upgraded, so we could have gone much faster than the 40-60 kph limit and many locals were of course overtaking us, especially where there were double yellow lines.
We then continued on the unpaved section through the Lanin National park, where a speed of 30kph seemed appropriate for us, but not the vehicles which sped past creating clouds of dust!
Next stop was the Lago Meliquina, then lago Villerica also taking in a waterfall stop.
back on a paved road again as we stopped at Lago Espejo and then Lago Correntoso before dropping down into Villa la Angostura arriving at 15:00. We had not been given any specific directions to our Hotel, so assumed that it would be well signpostd from the main road through the Town, which according to our map went straight on towards Bariloche.
We had no success and stopped at a lakeside village, which we later discovered was Puertos, where we asked directions and were told to go back towards Villa la Angostura and turn right on an unpaved road. This took us to Once, so we retraced our steps, eventually finding the Tourist information centre, where we were given a local map, but unfortunately we misunderstood the directions in Spanish and turned left at the main road but not left again, being somewhat confused by a diversion. Some more driving and visiting Mapuche settlements on the road to Puertos (which we still thought was to Puerto Manzana) got us back to Puertos again, where we agin asked directions using the map this time and were directed to the right road. We eventually arrived at Las Balsas at 17:15, having taken over two hours to find the hostellerie!
We were greeted very warmly on arrival, shown to some lakeside seating, where we enjoyed a rather late lunch and glass of wine, and of course some more photography.
Apparently they had had snow in September, which was unheard of, but did mean that the mountains were picturesque.
Once we had chilled out we were shown to our "Muella" suite, which had fabulous views of the lake and, before even unpacking we took a trip to the spa, where we enjoyed a swim indoors, ducked outside into the pool (just 36 degrees) and afterwards a Jacuzzi of merely 39 degrees. This was followed by a Scottish Shower, which spayed very hot or very cold water from all directions at once and was uncontrollable!
As we had had a "rather late lunch" we did not go down to dinner until 21:00, which was still way before the party of Bentley drivers had all arrived! When they did arrive, they all raised their glasses walked around the table and even included us in the "cheers"!
We enjoyed a fabulous meal, and some good company, eventually getting back to our room around midnight - far to late for blogging!
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