Epu Lauquen

Hiking is one of the things we were really looking forward again on this trip. That’s why Epu Lauquen is next on our list after staying in Chos Malal for one night. As we don’t know exactly where we will be going the next few days and how long we will stay in remote areas we stack up for food, water, ice for the fridge and beer. Wine we should have enough.

The drive up to the laguna is not even 100 km but it takes use through a great scenery. As we get there we are a bit surprised to see so many people camping until we realize it is weekend. The Argentinians like camping a lot and Epu Lauquen is not that remote so you get a lot of people just coming here for the day as well. It is a very beautiful place after all.

It is early afternoon and as we came here for hiking we want to get going right away. As we pack our stuff and open the fridge we discover the disaster. If you ever are in need of producing whipping cream and apart from  a cup of cream you have nothing else here is how you do it.

1)Rent a 4x4 camper with a fridge located as far towards the back of the car as possible

2)Put the cream into the fridge

3)Place it so that it can jump up and down in the fridge

4)Don’t drive too slow but not too fast either, otherwise you will get butter instead

While we only tried it once we are pretty sure we could reproduce it. Anyway, it takes us at least an hour to clean up the mess. Especially since something in the fridge made the cup explode and spill the half done whipping cream all over. It had started already to pure out of the fridge into our clothes that are stored right underneath. Don’t know who came up with this design to put the clothes underneath the fridge. Really not a good idea. The smell or sour whipping cream is disgusting which is why we did as much as we could to clean out everything.

We don’t get hung up on these things anymore and after the biggest mess has been cleaned we go hiking. There is a nice two hour trip to a waterfall that takes you along the laguna and then towards the mountains. Our plan was to be here a bit earlier and as a result the sun is no longer shining on the waterfall. Too late to take good pictures. It also get’s cold immediately when the sun is gone and so we decide not to take a bath here but walk back to the camp site instead. There we still have a bit of sun and so we take a short swim in the freezing cold water of the laguna. Much nicer way to get the needed shower. Very refreshing for sure!

This is a really nice place to stay for a couple of days. However, this is only the start of our journey and so we decide on the next day to move on. Before we hit the road we stop by a bird watching point. We do see a few but it is not the best time of the day and after a little while we drive on.

Note our ourselves: Should we come back in high season we need to make sure to avoid the weekend.