The drive up Route 40 has been long but worthwhile.

At the beginnig Patagonia was a joy to be driving but after the first 11hrs it all begins to look the same and you can´t wait to see your next tree or house. We try to practise Spanish during the long drives by Nikki doesn´t have the patiens. And who can blame her.

The terain changes dramatically from Calafate to the Lake District. From dry, barron land to lush green forests. Driving our way up through the lake district is an absolute joy. The forests, beautiful towns, the LAKES - all simply stunning.

It´s getting late and we wont make it all the way to Bariloche tonight so we spend a night by a Lake Puelo just south of the town El Bolson. The weather is absolutely miserable so we pop to a local store, stock up on wine, cheese, bread and cold meats and spend the afternoon and evening in the van with our picnic...

Bariloche (the lakes district) was very nice.. lots of green forests and beautiful lakes.. on the first night we went out with Tomas' friend, Juan, who lives in Bs As and who Nikki had met in London, and his friends until 6 am.. it was fun but the problem is we hadn't found a YPF to sleep in nor picked a different place to to spend the night so we ended up parking next to the lake in the city.. noisy, cold and without a place to pee.. (tomas pees like 6 times during the night).. we woke up a few hours later surrounded by tourists and other cars.. with sore heads and full bladders we drove off in search of a toilet.

The next day we headed to the beginng of the 7 lakes district.. the first night we stayed in a camping site next to a beautiful lake.. the camping site had seemed abandoned when we got there as there was nobody at the reception, in fact the reception appeared boarded up and there was nobody camping there... it was completely empty.. but the next morning the owner of the camping site showed up and wanted us to pay.. we said we had just arrived to prepare coffee and would leave soon.. (we lied).. she took it as if we didn't want to pay and called the park ranger! The ranger showed up 15' later while Tomas was doing the dishes with washing up liquid, so besides asking why we didn't want to pay, he told him off for polluting the national park with chemicals..

The 2nd day we drove north through Villa la Angostura (a very nice ski/snowboard resort) and went to a quite isolated camping site in the middle of the mountains and lakes. It was such an breathtaking place that we stayed three nights there.. we made fires using wood we had to collect ourselves and cooked 'asados' with amazingggggg Argentina Chorizo sausages (mouth watering meat), drunk wine and looked at the stars at night... awesome view..mit was so clear and bright.. at some point we started talking about which stars were which and the formations - orion's belt and all that ball - but neither of us knew what we were talking about!!!

After that camping site we stayed in a couple of other camping sites before we finally made it to Junin de los Andes, the town from which we crossed the border to Chile.. the crossing to Chile was absolutely amazing.. we drove through the andes next to the Lanin volcano and the beautiful lake Tromen..Before we set the fire we went for a drive to the lake which was practically desserted. We piled on our clothes and went for a walk along the beach. It was freezing cold but really beautiful. Nikki tried tooking many "arty" photos particuarly of a piece of drift wood...she loves drift wood. We spent the night in a camping site a couple of kilometres from the lake near the border of Chile so that to arrive early at the border the next day.. the camping site was nice, we set a fire and was romantic but.. while we were having dinner we started hearing noises around and because it was dark the moving flames from the fire made funny shapes on thee floor.. it wasn´t until Nikki completely freaked out and grabbed a torch we realised it was rats!!!!!!! Rats in the countryside, rats that had access to left over asado food. Rats the size of rabbits.. that was it for Nikki.. she jumped into the van and wouldn´t leave until the next morning.. she was dying to pee but she held it 'like a man'.. tomas kept stomping near the rats but there was no way to scare them away..as soon as his back was turned they would run out again to find scraps of food. Horrible and a poor end to our Argentinean leg of the road trip.....so long rats...