St Martin de los Andes

A short (4 hour) bus trip took us to San Martin, our favorite Argentinean town so far. It’s a small town of ~30k people that is also set on a beautiful lake and surrounded by mountains. While the town clearly attracts tourists, it doesn’t feel touristy and has many wonderful local restaurants, delis/shops and a very unhurried pace with many friendly locals. There was also an art festival happening the night we arrived. Fun!
We highly recommend this town as well worth a visit.
While here, we’ve observed a few very amusing things about Argentineans.
• Many people carry very large (3+ liter) thermoses of hot water for their beloved mate (tea) with them everywhere – buses, walks with their kids, etc.
• Ice cream is so well loved that it is commonly sold by the kilo from the numerous artisanal ice cream shops.
• Siestas are alive and well with most places shutting down for ~4 hours in the mid-afternoon.
We had to move places 3 times over our weeklong stay since many things were booked. The good news is they were all fantastic. Two were very central apartments in the downtown area so we were able to spend lots of time exploring the town and cooking healthy food ourselves (eating out here is both expensive and generally not very healthy). Our favorite place was a beautiful villa in a nature reserve ~20 minutes outside of town with expansive views over the mountains and valley.
The best thing that happened while we were here was that our niece Lola was born. We can't wait to meet her.Read more