El Bolson to San Martin de los Andes - February 27

We left El Bolson late morning as I spent some more time catching up on the Blog and using the Internet at the hotel. 

The big news today is the earthquake in Chile.  We are still a long way south  of Santiago, but an 8.8 quake is huge and people in high-rise buildings felt it as far away as Buenos Aires.  Our room was on the ground floor - didn't feel a thing - but many locals did.  Hopefully there is not too much damage or injury in Santiago.

The Lake District is Argentina's resort playground.  We rode from El Bolson to San Carlos de Bariloche for lunch along twisting highway overlooking beautiful lakes surrounded by steep mountains.  Bariloche is a fair size city with lots of traffic, but with a little luck and the GPS updated over lunch, we had little difficulty.

Lunch was excellent, we ate a delicious meal at what turned out to be a family restaurant run by three brothers from Bogota, Colombia.  They have done an excellent job with the restaurant since opening 18 months ago - the decor is very stylish, clean and modern - it would fit in well in any major city.

Glazed Beef and Carmelized Onions with Passion Fruit dip for the roast potatoes.

Tomato Soup with Avocado and Potato.

Camillo (right) and his brothers.

Camillo was very friendly, and gave us some tips about Colombia - he feels the cities and main highways are very safe and strongly recommended staying a few days in either Medellin or Bogota.  We'll see what the road brings as we need to fly from one of those two cities to Panama.

We left Bariloche after 3pm heading to San Martin de los Andes for the night.  The road was spectacular up to Villa Angostura followed by a tough, sand and gravel leg for about 70km that proved quite a challenge - moving from low sun in the eyes to dark shadows, lots of dust, and traffic!  The last 30km into town was paved and was probably the most fun I've had on a motorcycle.

We pulled into town late, almost 8:30pm, with the setting sun, and were anxious about finding accomodation given the busy holiday season.  The Rough Guide and GPS came to the rescue again, and we were unloading 15 minutes later at an early 1900's hotel "con habitaciones doble - perfecto!"

Tomorrow we plan to ride Ruta 40 north - and hopefully find a spot to watch the hockey game!