On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Gin & Tonic
We last went to Argentina in early 2019, austral summer. Having never been to Patagonia, that was on the agenda after our time with friends in Buenos Aires.
A while back a commenter posted a series of photos from the Chilean side of Patagonia; the Argentinian side is much drier as it is in the “rain shadow” of the Andes, although some of the mountainous areas are still well-forested.
We didn’t make it all the way to the end (Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego) but still saw a lot.

We flew into San Carlos de Bariloche, know as just “Bariloche.” The town sits on Lake Nahuel Huapi, seen here. Having been to the German and Swiss Alps, I can see why people from there would be attracted to this area. The town of Bariloche actually does a decent job dealing with the history of, ahem, German immigrants. IYKWIM.

One of the highlights of this area is a driving tour of the Camino de los Siete Lagos (the road of the seven lakes.) This is Lago Traful.

Another of the seven lakes. Took a boat ride on this one, so as to take a hike at the far (west) end. The east end is the town of San Martin de los Andes, another of the tourist-oriented towns along the lake route.

Took a hike up to the Chachin waterfall in Hua Hum. At this point we were a mile or two from the Chilean border.

Lots of these orange flowers on the way to the waterfall. No, I don’t know what they are, but I like the backlighting.

Not 100% sure on location, but this is a bit east of the mountain and lake country, and you can begin to see how arid most of Argentinian Patagonia is.
rikyrah
Beautiful pictures
Baud
I know where I’m going after committing genocide. It’s beautiful.
prostratedragon
Beautiful site.
Recorded decades ago in part on the shore of Lake Nahuel Huapi, a malambo: Eduardo Falu and Camarata Bariloche.
Almost Retired
Wonderful photos of a spectacular place! We did make it as far as Ushuaia, where the highlight for my sons was snowboarding in August.
OzarkHillbilly
Jealous, I am. I have been wanting to go to Patagonia for several decades, ever since I first read Enduring Patagonia.
His adventures were mostly on the Chilean side. Even if I am not a rock climber/mountaineer, there was a lot in it I could identify with. It’s a great read.
zhena gogolia
Gorgeous!
J R in WV
No wonder the Former German leaders fled here, vastly remote, alpine, beautiful, reminds one of Mr. Hitler’s Austrian hideaway. Thanks for the fine reporting!
ETA: Later this morning I get my Foley catheter taken out, hope it’s easier than putting it in! Wish me luck…
Benw
Amazing! How blue is blue
Soprano2
It’s a beautiful country. My sister went there a few times to play polo, and she got a lot of polo ponies from there. I think she was somewhere within an hour of Cordoba, so a long way from where you were. I probably have her pictures from her trips there somewhere in all the photo albums I took from my mother’s house.
Argiope
@J R in WV: Way, way easier. (Ok, at least from the nurse perspective, taking into account patient reports.). Mazel tov! You will NOT miss it, I’m sure.
Argiope
@OzarkHillbilly: I have also had a Patagonia itch off and on for some years now. Thanks for the reading recommendation.
And G&T, thanks for the stunning photos! It makes a place feel more accessible once a Jackal has been there.
Gin & Tonic
@Argiope: Thanks. There will still be tomorrow and Thursday.
Argiope
@Gin & Tonic: WooHoo!! Looking forward to all of them!
YY_Sima Qian
Wonderful scenery!
mvr
@J R in WV: Wishing you luck!
mvr
Thank you for these photos. It gives me some idea of what the Argentine side looks like. I hope to be able to go some day and do some flyfishing. But I may or may not pull that off.
Gin & Tonic
@mvr: There will be something up that alley in the next two days.
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
Thanks for the pics. They bring back memories of the Chilean side on our Nov-Dec 2019 trip. We need to go back.
frosty
Tierra del Fuego is a bucket list trip for me, I doubt I’ll ever make it though I hope to get back to Chile in the next couple of years. At one point I had wanted to do the 7-day hike around Torres del Paine but those days are long gone. Even with llamas carrying my gear.
StringOnAStick
I think the orange flower is the ornamental miniature pomegranate shrubs that we saw there as a common landscape shrub in the city. The streets in Buenos Aires also had planters full of happily blooming Clivia, a houseplant here that I and others in this blog collect and enjoy. Buenos Aires is warm and mild like southern CA, but once you start heading to the mountains, you cross vast windswept plains with sparse vegetation and extremely few trees. It really is another world that few humans live in.
We were lucky on our trip with weather, just one light snow and only one part of the trek on the Chilean side where our trekking poles were the only thing that kept us from being blown over. Wind there is no joke and can actually feel like you can’t get your breath.
Thanks for the reminder, it was the trip of a lifetime!
WaterGirl
Stunning photos, with amazing color.
Origuy
Beautiful pictures; it’s never been high on my bucket list. Interestingly, there is a small community of Welsh speakers in an area they call Y Wladfa, in central Patagonia. They started immigrating there in 1865, until the start of WW I.
Patagonian Welsh is considered a separate dialect.
StringOnAStick
@StringOnAStick: Actually now that I look on a better screen, that’s not a mini pomegranate, it looks more like a penstemon or goldfish plant, but the vegetation down there is so odd, who knows? The Lenga trees are so unique to that area, and are called subantarctic birch though they are not birches.
way2blue
T
G&T—the blue sky & blue lake in your first photo are stunning. I’m hoping to get to Patagonia early next year—have been collecting tips from everyone I know about what to see & where to stay. Just need to sit down & pull it all together… Thanks for the nudge.
Andrew Abshier
I visited Patagonia and Tierra Del Fuego in 2015. I flew into El Calafate, then went south to Ushuaia, then took a bus and ferry to Punte Arenas, Chile. The scenery was magnificent and I got to see King penguins in the wild, among many other things.
Gin & Tonic
@way2blue: We were there the last week in January and the first week in February – that’s the height of summer, and a lot of Argentinians vacation there, so Bariloche and San Martin will be pretty crowded. We actually worked with a local travel agent who was recommended to us by friends in Buenos Aires, and I’m glad we did.
mvr
@Gin & Tonic: Wonderful!
Draco7
Interesting, and timely – I will be in Patagonia by next Tuesday, though El Calafate is well south of Bariloche and we’re going to Puerto Natales from there. It’s a loooong country. I’ll be following the rest of week if only to see what I’m missing, but I was seduced by the photos of Fitz Roy and Las Torres. More than happy to look at the rest of the country, though.
I was about to say something about it being springtime there, but your mention of German immigrants collided with the thought and now I have a song from “The Producers” as an earworm. I’m confident the BJ crowd knows which one.