Lago San Martin, March 2001

It's remote. It's beautiful. It's Lago San Martin in Argentina. It's where the estancias (ranches) have 10's of thousands of acres. It's where Estancia Maipu and Ranch Relaxo are.

To view a larger image, click on the picture you want to see. Return to this page by clicking on "Back".

Our first evening at la Maipu started with a spectacular sunset, followed by roast lamb in the estancia's barbeque pit. The moon shot is from Rancho Relaxo (more about RR later) after dinner.

The next take we took a hike in the hills behind la Maipu, and these are some of the things we saw...

Throughout Patagonia, there is a reson not to where shorts. Why? A plant called calafate. There is even a town named after it as you'll see later. In any case look at the spines on the calafate plant and you'll understand why shorts are bad. There were even condors circling above us as we went through it!

The next morning, we were rewarded with a wonderful sunrise.

All of which leaves Rancho Relaxo. There weren't enough rooms at the inn, so to speak. So Karl from Elder Treks and Luis (Senor No Canelloni, our driver) and I spent two nights at a bunkhouse about a twenty minute walk from where everyone else was. Karl decided that the place ought to have a name: Rancho Relaxo. Senor No Canelloni and I agreed. In the first picture, Rancho Relaxo is hidden in the line of tall trees in the middle of the picture.

Luis, as it turned out, detested canelloni based on a bad experience when he was in the Argentine Army. So when he found out that the estancia was going to serve it the second night, he took matters in hand and said the group didn't like canelloni. He prevailed, and they served a beef stew instead. The reaction was mixed -- I and some others thought that this was great, and I told him so. Afterwards, he referred to me as his "aliado" (ally).

Rancho Relaxo was the scene of a certain amount of consumption of Scotch and when that ran out, wine. It was heated by two wood stoves, one of which, in the last picture, provided hot water for showers. There were coils in the fire box through which water circulated and ended up in the tank above. Amazingly, hot water was available about 20 minutes after starting the fire. Anyway, here is Rancho Relaxo. There's not many outhouses in this world with a window overlooking a beautiful lake!

Luis also instructed us in the Argeninian method of starting fires. No worry about using paper or the like -- just slosh liberal amounts of kerosine on the wood!