We arrived in Junin at night and found a camping that was overpriced but both didn’t feel like cycling out of town at this hour. Only in the morning did we see what nice spot we had, only some meters from the river which did go unnoticed the night before. Bread was organised and together with mermelada de mora and a cup of hot chocolate, this is still a combination i have to get tired of. I started a little earlier than Daniel, a cyclist from Colombia i had met the day before on the bus, as he still had to buy and eat his breakfast, but with plans to meet up later that day again. Which we did sometime before San Martin de los Andes. From there the road of the seven lakes starts towards Bariloche. The road followed the shore of lake Lacar for the first kilometers, with San Martin still visible nestled its northern shore.
There are lots of campings with different standards of luxury, most of them pretty crowded. We preferred to get the climb, that starts when the road leaves the lake, out of the way the same day. Almost at the end of it, we found a beautiful spot to camp and through the trees one could still see the lake in the distance.
It is amazing how unequally water is distributed on this planet. After the lagunas route and riding in northern Chile, water is plenty here in the south. Some waterfalls kept the ride interesting if, for a short while, there was no lake in sight.
And sometimes the mountains around the lakes offered that little extra that seemed worth it to take the camera out.
The wind was favourable until reaching the ruta 40 towards Bariloche and i envied these guys a little while pushing onwards against the wind.
I bypassed Bariloche as i arrived late, which would have left me with little time to explore it. The road of the seven lakes ends there, but they could have easily let it run further south as there seemed to be no end of lakes in sight.