Route of the Seven Lakes & Cerro Colorado, Argentina

The road between Villa La Angostura and our next stop, San Martin de los Andes, was over 100 km of beautiful drive between mountains and lakes.

Every time we turned a corner, there was more beautiful blue…

… or snowy peaks -

I didn’t even try to keep track of all the names of the lakes we passed, and we even quit stopping at scenic pullovers because they were starting to look the same (sad commentary). We did go on a short hike to a waterfall…

… that involved wading through the cold waters of that stream seen above.

Voila! We found Cascada Nivinco…

… and I was able to practice long exposures again…

… using a handy fallen log as my tripod -

I loved the greenery growing on the rocks within the waterfall -

Check out this cool waterfall that we spied when we were back on the road -

Very interestingly, our travel agent lives in San Martin de los Andes, and she scheduled our stay of Dec. 24-26 with her, at her house! She was a great host, and we really enjoyed our time with her, as well as the delicious meals she prepared for us.

We even hiked with her on Christmas Day! The hike we chose was up Cerro Colorado (“red mountain”) and it turned out to be super tough for me, even though it was “only” 5 miles total - but we had over 2,500 ft of elevation gain in that span.

The picture above was taken about 1/2 way up. We had an absolutely gorgeous day - clear skies and nearly 80 degrees! We got to see some of the beautiful flowers that she said blanket the slopes in January.

Amancay

As we climbed higher, we started to see snow topping far off mountains -

As we neared the top, we finally saw why it’s called Cerro Colorado -

We were above tree line, and there was little plant growth, as well as increasing amounts of red rock -

From the top we could see 2 volcanoes…

… and the entire expanse of Lago Lacar -

Another set of Lady’s Slippers…

… as well as a pretty lily -

Next post… we’re on our way back to Chile.