A Detour to the Lake District: Mini 6000 Expedition Leg 7

everything is bigger in the americas – including the beautiful lake districts of chile and argentina, as BEn and the team discovered.

Leaving the sea air of Valpariso behind us, we grabbed our last sight of the Pacific Ocean as the road climbed steeply into the hills. Beneath our wheels was an efficient dual carriageway, which swept left and right, and rose and fell as it took us away from the coast towards Santiago, Chile’s capital city. But we had no plans to stop there, and our approach wasn’t filled with joy, as we knew that our bid to skirt around this bustling conurbation would inevitably see us snared by a traffic jam, watching the temperature gauges of our classic cars slowly rising. 

And so it panned out. On a busy, baking Saturday, we found ourselves cooking beneath a blazing sun, waiting for our cars cooling systems to protest. But in spite of the conditions, just enough air passed through their overworked radiators to deliver us safely past the city, and onto the main road south.

Even though the traffic cleared, the monotony continued. For hour after hour we rolled along a road which valued efficiency over interest. The heat and sameness of the day’s progress caused us to forget the joy of the road trip, and the sense of freedom and discovery it can offer. We were making progress, but it was progress towards the end of the trip; unexciting progress. What we really needed was a Detour, to re-inject some life into the trip. The following day, we took one.

The road shrank, relinquishing its central reservation and additional lanes to become a two lane highway, snaking into a rising landscape. Hills crowded around, hemming us in, and the farmland and forests with which we shared the valleys were a tonic after the bland Ruta 5 of the previous day.  When the valley finally opened up, and the hills forming the far wall drew back a few kilometres, the azure blue waters of a pristine lake filled the space. We were in Chile’s Lake District, and already the views were making the previous day’s dull drive a distant memory.

Just as England’s Lake District is dominated more by its mountains than its waters, so in Chile, the story is similar, but with one difference which sets it apart from its UK counterpart; here, the most notable mountains are the conical volcanoes which can be seen from miles around, venting smoke into the gin-blue sky.

We drove on through this landscape, but as January is the height of the tourist season in Chile, traffic was heavy and progress slow. This didn’t matter, as we were used to slow progress by now. The Mini’s low gearing had seen to that. The lakeside towns of Villarrica and Pucon rolled past our windows, and high above the Villarica Volcano stood sentinel, reminding us that we were still a long way from home.

Home was still on our minds, however, and the road there was still a long one, with plenty of barriers on the way. The first of these was the Andes, which we needed to cross to return to Argentina. Our engines grew warm as we climbed the switchbacks through dense woodland, to an altitude of several kilometre above sea level, but such climbs were second nature to us by this stage, and soon we were rolling towards to the Argentinean border through a forest of monkey puzzle trees, with the requisite volcano looming above.

The scenery continued to tend towards the spectacular as we rolled down the pass towards Argentina’s take on what a lake district should look like, and if anything, it was even more mesmerizing than Chile’s. After a night in the town of San Martin de los Andes, we headed south, on the Ruta de las 7 Lagos – the route of the seven lakes.

Smooth tarmac wound its way through the hills, rising and falling, always changing, always interesting. The landscape which scrolled past was worthy of being our first taste of Patagonia on this trip, a world of forest and crag, its high points still dappled in snow, and its low points containing the famous lakes. Our progress was faltering, for around every corner there was another view which demanded we pull over to take it in further, and so the drive of 120 miles took most of the day. But that’s how the best drives often are – so full of interest and diversions, that your destination becomes an afterthought – it’s only the present, in that landscape, which really counts. Finally, after a day of sweeping curves and stunning vistas, our destination came into sight, resting on the shores of a lake.

We’d reached San Carlos de Bariloche, where Germanic architecture and culture meets the vast landscapes of northern Patagonia. It was to be our home for several days, before we set off towards Buenos Aires, on the last leg of the journey. You’ll be able to read about that journey in the final article about the Mini6000 Expedition, which will be running on Detour very soon.

Words & Photography Ben Coombs Twitter/X | Instagram

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