Lago Posadas, Argentina

From Cueva de las Manos, it was back to the main Route 40, and then up another dirt road off Route 40 to get to Lago Posadas. We picked up a hitch-hiker - it was getting late, and he had been on the cross-roads when we had passed 4 hours earlier on our way to the Cueva de las Manos

Lago Posadas is off the beaten track, and seldom visited . The turquoise Lago Posadas and lapis-blue Lago Pueyrredón is well worth the detour. . The two lakes are famous for their dramatic colour contrast and are separated by narrow of strip of land, formed during the last ice age, when an otherwise glacier left a dump of moraine, now covered by sand dunes.

We stayed in the Posada del Posadas. You don't really get the full flavour of this hotel from their web site - what they show there is the "new" part. A sort of wooden rabbit hutch structure, where we ended up, but not before other adventures. The road signs point to the original hotel (see photo below, a sort of bunker like building). This is indeed where the owners live, but unfortunately they lock the door and do not answer the bell. Whilst we were sitting outside in our car, another car pulled up, and the couple in in instructed us to follow them. We were not certain if we were being hotel-jacked by a rival or what. Anyway they led us a mile or so to the general area of the rabbit hutch, where we were shown into room 10, which was, I exaggerate not, the worst hotel room that I have ever entered in my life. Small, dark, pokey and smelt overpoweringly of sewerage. Now there is not a lot of choice in hotels in Lago Posadas, so we went back to the bunker to get another room - they had the grace to admit there was a "problem" with the drains in that room, and transferred us to a room in the rabbit hutch - not my idea of the ideal hotel room, but as good as we were going to get. Then it was back to the bunker for dinner - Lago Posadas does not have any restaurants and ones only option is to ewat in the bunker, where the food, unexpectedly, was quite edible. Lago Posadas sort of grew on me after that.

After that it was a day exploring the area along the (really very bad, even by the standards we had come to expect) roads. Followed by another night in the Posada del Posadas. There was petrol available in the town as well, which was a bonus, as we had not been expecting any. In this part of the world you always fill up with petrol when you see a petrol station, the next one will be hundreds of kilometers away, and may be "closed awaiting supplies" when you get there

We then left to attack the road up over the Paso Roballos. This is one of the most spectacular and remote roads I have driven along. Your chances of seeing another car all day are remote, and when we crossed the border (wooden shack on the Argentinean side manned by 3 conscripts) we were the only travellers that day, possibly the only foreigners for months. After clearing Chilean customs, there are hours more driving along dirt until you meet the Careterra Austral, which is still dirt, but a much wider road.


Posada del Posadas Hotel, Lago Posadas, Argentina	Chris enjoying dinner at the Posada del Posadas Hotel

There is copper in them there rocks	Along the lago

and up into the mountains	with fast flowing rivers

and snow capped mountains	and dirt roads

The two lagos of different blues	Natural rock bridge, Lago Posadas, Argentina

dry salt lake	dry salt lake

Guanaco in the mountains	pampas and mountains

dirt road and mountains	flamingos

Guanaco in the mountains	and fast flowing rivers