Fortunately, the RN40 was not dull anymore. We headed towards San Martin de los Andes, a tourist town by the lake Lacar. This is where the famous Road of the Seven Lakes (Camino de los 7 Lagos) begins. As its name implies, it is a scenic road – part of the RN40 – that crosses among 7 main lakes, some rivers, lagoons and various streams. The end of this route is the town Villa la Angostura, but there are a lot of options for other, shorter routes along the main one. It was one of those routes we chose: the RP63 towards Paso Cordoba, a mountain pass in an almost untouched natural landscape and from there (after one night in our tent, at the confluence of the Limay and Traful rivers) back to the RN40 via RP65.

The next part of our trip had a completely predictable course, which resulted in a unpredictable decision – which was not that unpredictable though, but we didn't know that back then. It seems a bit confusing but I'll try to make things more clear: the places we had seen all the previous days were stunningly beautiful, but our trip at some point started repeating itself. Each day was the same as the previous one. We needed to check on our maps to be sure whether we were next to the right lake and refer to our calendars all the time in order to see what day it was. Our cameras were full of nice pictures, but our journals were empty of stories and soon, we realized why. We were traveling across one of Argentina's most touristic areas. Seeing travelers from all over the world was not interesting for the locals anymore. They were all polite, but our conversations were short and the subjects the same: How much does it cost to camp here? What's on the menu? This side of Patagonia may be ideal for holidays, for an escape from the everyday life of the cities, but after a short while it could contribute very little to our kind of travel.

We didn't even enter the famous city of Bariloche, Argentina's Switzerland as some tourist guides call it. Kitsos carried on covering as many miles per day as possible, with us traveling in silence, lost in our thoughts. Another night in our tent under the starry sky, next to a river with crystal water (river Villegas) and from there, directly to the small town of Trevelin. Our crossing through the National Park Los Alerces was a really fast one – camping there for one night would cost us the total budget of a whole day. Fortunately, it was still low season, so the park rangers just let us cross it without paying the entrance fee (under the condition that we would exit the park on the same day).

Our initial plan was to continue on the RN40 until Los Antiguos and from there, cross into Chile (Chile Chico). In 2015, we had done the same but following the opposite direction. This time we were thinking of riding across the southern part of Carretera Austral until Villa O'Higgins – the end of the road. However, the days we spent at the peaceful campsite in Trevelin helped us relax, clear our heads, talk and finally make up our minds. We were now sure that we didn't need more lakes, more rivers and forests. What we needed was more people, more stories to remember, more unpredictable situations. So, four days later, when we packed our stuff and started Kitsos' engine, we knew what we had to do.