VILLA LA AGOSTURA – CHOS MALAL

We drove through downtown San Martin de los Andes, which turned out to be much larger than I remembered, and on the way out of town, the pines turned to green pastures with buttes in the distance. We continued on more winding roads to the top of high mesa after high mesa and back down again to the green grasses in the valleys below. The rock formations gave way to more flat, desert scrub with a few pines, rolling hills, sheep, goats and horses in the road, and occasional farmhouses identified by the clumps of trees surrounding them. Then we descended the high plain for what felt like the final time and sped through another valley and descended yet again to the sandy desert. And one more time, we wound around, up a larger mesa to another high plain, and then, there in front of us the Andes Mountain Range was displayed in full view. Finally, we came into Zapala where we had turned off to detour around San Martin de los Andes on the drive south. During the last hour, we spied a ñandu on the desert plain. Around 5 p.m., we arrived at Terra Malal, the same hotel we stayed in on the way down, to a temperature of 34 degrees! Apparently, we had returned to a heat wave!

 

We wanted an early dinner so we could get an early start the next morning. The pool at the hotel was not functioning, unfortunately, so after cooling off in the room, we walked in the heat to a closed restaurant and finally found another hotel right next door to ours (odd!) for drinks and dinner. Chos Malal is small and there is not much there, but we did learn for the first time that it prides itself on being the center point of Route 40, north to south. Who knew?