The bus from Pucón to San Martin de los Andes took around 4 hours including a rural border crossing back into Argentina. To be honest Chile and Argentina are blending into one.

San Martin is in Patagonia, Argentina, and the area follows the Pucón model of lakes and forested mountains. No volcanos here though. The town itself is also extremely pretty, also essentially a ski resort with an array of summer activities to boot. There is clearly more money here, with many high end outdoor adventure shops, restaurants and hotels. And lots of chocolate shops. Having already inherited the alpine style of architecture, in the 1970s the locals decided to adopt the Swiss culture of artisanal chocolate as well. Delicious :)

After checking into our very nice hostel we set about planning the next couple of days. Although the sky was cloud free and the sun shining, the wind was brisk and it was somewhat chilly. River rafting was off the agenda for me! I was keen to go kayaking on the lake but the wind meant that the guides would not go out that day or the next. Although both the tourist information and national park offices were pretty useless, we settled on hiking the next day and holding out for kayaking on the Saturday.

We pottered around the town for the rest of the day and dined in an eat-all-you-can grill that evening. The food was surprisingly good for such a place, and the house wine more than acceptable.

The next morning we caught a boat to another part of the coastline and an area of the national park with several trekking paths. The national park office was closed (woo hoo, saved the 85p entry fee) and the sign boards, well let's just say they were vague. However, we managed to follow a gravel/dirt road for a few kilometres along the coast and through the forest. With the weather threatening to turn we ate our picnic lunch and returned towards the docks via some picturesque waterfalls (damn, 85p entry fee paid after all). Back in drizzly San Martin we raided the supermarket and checked in with the (French, gah) kayak guide to see how the forecast was looking for the following day. He was hopeful but asked us to check back in the morning.

Beer, dinner and wine back at the hostel.

I forgot to mention the dogs. Oh my god. The area of town our hostel was in seems to be home to half the world's population of dogs and they all like to bark at the same time - around 5am. Not a pleasing wake up call!