Off Road Ralley's and Goin' Gaucho Style!

Are you serious? Really? No, I'm not joking here! All I have to give you is $60 and promise to pay you $2,500 US if I wreck it? Fran and I rented a car in Bariloche this past Saturday to drive around the "seven lakes" area and do a bit of site seeing. The rental car guy showed us the map of the area and suggested our route. " If you take this road, you will spend about two hours on the dirt road through the mountains and lakes." For me, it translates like this - " Give me $60 and you can race our car cross country, in an area with fantastic views, on dirt roads, with no police and no speed limit. If you wreck our car and don't die in the process, you will owe us $2,500." Here is your money, where are the keys!!

The trip was truly breathtaking. The scenery went from jagged mountains and rushing rivers, to rolling hills and green pastures to desert areas with rivers. We saw cows, horses, and sheep just roaming around on the roads and roadsides. Made me thankful we were not traveling at night! In the desert section of the trip we saw pink flamingos and three huge deer. The total trip took us 6 hours and the last section back home there are good roads and no speed limit. I got to race some locals. By the way, we named our little rental car the Chevy "Chipmunk" because of it's size, but it could move buddy!

On Sunday, we went horseback riding on an "estancia" that raised sheep. Fran was in heaven!! We were part of a group of about ten and we rode for about 2.5 hours through some cool terrain. We saw huge rabbits, a fox and two deer that were, no joke, both 10 pointers or more. We had lunch of lamb shank and lamb sausage included with a bottle of wine too. We met some great dutch girls we will likely go out to dinner with this week. All in all, a very good weekend.