I realized last night that I should get new tires in Bariloche if possible. There is still a few thousand miles in the existing set of tires but we are about to travel the worst roads of the trip, not a place to have tires that are at the end of their life. And availability will probably only get worse farther south. So we spent the morning looking for our size and load rating - eventually finding 4 at one of the local tire dealers. We kept one of them as an additional spare (though not mounted on a wheel), it still has over 50% life in it (It was the spare when we left Texas). The only problem now is how to carry the extra tire ???

After lunch we took a little excursion up to the top Cerro Otto, the mountain that stands immediately behind the town of Bariloche. This was like a welcome rite for our new tires. We had to get them introduced to some rough and dusty roads as that's what they are likely to see over the next 3-4000 km.

The road was steep and gave wonderful views of the town, lake and surrounding mountains. We were fortunate to have a clear (though windy and cold) day for this little exercise.

We have seen a number of motor homes since arriving in Argentina.