Ash Wednesday!

After a long sleep into New Year's Day I had an afternoon bike ride then the following day a great walk with more swimming (4 lakes). Then I travelled from Pucon in Chile to San Martin de los Andes in Argentina by a combination of buses and boats. We were advised that the Argentinian border post was on strike and we would have a 3 hour wait for them to reopen; fortunately they seemed not to be on strike and it took only 10 minutes to enter - far the quickest entry I've experienced! The scenery en route was marred by the rather hazy day, caused mostly by ash from
the volcano Puyuehue.

The next day, Wednesday, I drove 100km south in a rental car part of the way to Bariloche. The first part was great, following the Seven Lakes route. There seemed to be more than seven lakes but I did manage to have a short swim in sevnen of them. The further south I went the worse the ash became as the photo tries to illustrate. At one of my swims I found small pebbles of pumice floating on the surface and the water was not kind to the eyes; a bit like a heavily chlorinated pool but it would be a touch of sulphuric acid I suspect.

That night I stayed in the town of Villa la Angostura which is clearly a smart place with lots of nice property. However it was very quiet because of the ash situation, a great shame. The water trucks regularly drive up and down the streets spraying water to suppress the dust.

Then to Bariloche withn a couple of days walking. A great view from my hotel but I failed to take a photo the first day and then too much ash/haze! Bariloche is a big ski town of around 100,000 people though I was informed about 20,000 have left since the volcano erupted. It is really suffering as it depends on tourism.