I have now driven a vehicle on all 7 continents! I thought this was a pretty cool thing, especially for the ole CV of professional driver Shuttle Guy. I of course have driven at home in N. America. I drove a little subaru in Japan with Iwanosan as well as a plethora of motorbikes and scooters in SE Asia. I drove a Land Rover at Mpala Research Center in Kenya, Deltas Dawn and goode Ole Tina Marie in Antarctica (and who can forget the E-vehicle), I drove several rental cars around europe, the most memorable being a road trip with the Bison and driving an upgraded fast sportscar (for a long wait at the agency) on the left side of the road while trying to figure out how to get out of london city. I briefly drove a van for Dr. Walser in Australia but spent a week roadtripping with our campervan Connie Cup 2 in NZ. And today I drove a little manual VW gol (not to be confused with the superior Golf) through the backroads of northern Argentinian patagonia.
I met to girls at my hostel yesterday, Erin and Martiza who were going to be doing the famous Ruta de los 7 Lagos by renting a car. It´s really the only way to do it and I was thinking I wouldn´t get to do it as renting a car by myself is cost prohibitive. At the end of the route is San Martin de Los Andes which I needed to get to anyways as its where buses go to cross the pass into Chile to get to Pucon. So when I heard them talking about the rental car I figured I could kill two birds with one stone by going with them and seeing the famous Route as well as getting to San Martin. Both girls are 4th year med school students from Univ of Indiana. Every year they get a 3 month vacation and get to choose when they take it, so they are taking it now to tour S. America. Erin actually will be doing residency in Salt Lake next year. They were both really cool girls and we got along very well. Sometimes it´s really nice to hang out with Americans, especially ones my same age and with similar interests. And it was fun to hear all about med school. At the last minute we also took along another rando, Marcus from Holland.
The route is called the route of 7 lakes because well...there are at least 20 lakes. I think the number comes from the fact that we drove by 7 giant lakes. But there were many more small ones. We also stopped by a waterfall and visited two small villages...villa angostura and villa trafula. Along the way we found an apple tree just fully loaded with delicious apples. Of course the views the entire time were outstanding. Lots of mountains views and just unreal fall colors. A pallette of gold, reds, oranges, and light greens that would have made Monet pick up his paintbrushes and smile ear to ear. At other times we drove through dense forests with giant trees. Most of the entire road was dirt and you really felt like you were deep in the wilderness.
At San Martin I said goodbye to the trio, which was unfortunate bc I really liked them and we just all got along very well. But they were driving back to Bariloche and I have a 6am bus to Pucon, Chile manana. My hostel is really nice here and I´m the only one here. Which is too bad bc I need someone to play ping pong with as it has a table. San Martin is another cute little Andean ski town on a lake.
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