Lanín and Fire On The Road

Our hosteria in San Martin is the very cosy and quaint Las Lucarnas, a 10 room family hotel run by Maria and her daughter Luciana. As it is the off season, we are their only clients and they are so good to us, making us feel welcome, putting on a great breakfast and answering all our questions. We are able to have real conversations with them — in mixed Spanish and English — about life in Argentina, the town of San Martin, mountain climbing and even monkeys.

Tuesday yields another beautiful day and we take full advantage by making the drive up past Junín de Los Andes to the Parque National Lanín. The stunning centerpiece of this park is the 3776m dormant volcano, Volcan Lanín.

Driving along, it just sort of pops up at a point.









Cue those Patagonian horses!




A major draw for those who trek to the mountain summit in the summer, we find ourselves quite alone on this perfect fall day. We make the half hour hike up to a lovely lookout point above Lago Tromen. To our right is the view over the lake:




To the left is the towering volcano:





And straight ahead? Chile!




And behind us is the calming vista of the Patagonian steppe:




We spend well over an hour hanging out, basically turning in circles taking in the panorama.























After descending, we drive down somewhat of a dubious dirt road (potholes, mud and a small river to cross) to Lago Tromen and walk the beach. At four o'clock, right on cue, the wind picks up with intensity. Time to head back to San Martin!












Puma tracks? We learn later that pumas indeed live in the park.




The araucaria tree (or the "monkey puzzle tree") is another special feature of the park too. These trees can live to be thousands of years old and also dispense tasty pignons! (pine nuts)









Sister shapes!




In contrast to our drive up to the park, we are stopped several times on the way back by the Argentinian police who will stand in the middle of the highway and (randomly!?) stop vehicles. This part of traveling around Argentina is always a little unnerving. Trying to explain to a police officer who doesn't speak English where you're going, where you've been and no, we're not Chilean drug mules is an ideal recipe for problems.

What the police are trying to communicate to us during these two stops is way beyond our level of comprehension. During the first stop, the officer actually has us pull over to the side of the road. Gulp! We do a lot of smiling and shrugging. We whip out our impressively official Canadian passports, but he is not interested. Something about where are we going? We tell him back to Bariloche which produces another burst of Spanish and lots of pointing down the road. We shrug. I begin to reach for my pesos, thinking this might expedite matters, but then he grins and waves us on. We feel as though we've miraculously escaped a night in a cold Argentinian cell...

It turns out the police were merely being helpful and watching out for the ignorant tourists, informing us that the road back to San Martin was blocked. Why, you ask? We assume it's a large traffic accident, but it's a protest of course! A large contingent of drum banging, flag waving Argentinians have blocked the highway to make their point about needing a new hospital in Junín de Los Andes. The fire and smoke we thought was from the accident was actually a large bonfire set in the middle of the highway.

We join the long line of waiting traffic and hide out in our car, hoping the protest doesn't go violent, resulting in rocks through the dash window and the invocation of the damages clause in our car rental agreement. At 6 p.m. on the nose, the protest breaks up and cars are allowed to pass through again. We refrain from taking photos — just lots of thumbs up and honking as we pass the demonstrators. Even if they'd been protesting the consumption of all the red wine by tourists, we'd have done the same thing. Again, trying to avoid those rocks...