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Villa la Angostura is arguably one of the most picturesque, Pollyanna-like, mountain side tourist attractions of the Argentine Patagonia; both a geographical, and cultural region shared by Chile and Argentina, a political partition that is not without unresolved sovereign issues that resurface from time to time. During my first year there, the legendary Arrayanes National Park was going to be my first mandatory stop, and two cream-colored dogs appeared out of nowhere as I was heading for the Isthmus of Quetrihué that leads to it. I pretended not to notice them for the longest time. They might have been siblings, though I couldn’t tell, I am not a dog-person, particularly. I would confess I am more of a people’s person but I know how pretentious and obnoxious that sounds, so I am not gonna go there. At first I doubted their intentions in accompanying me from the town center to the starting point of the nearly 3-hour walk through the peninsula, and assumed they expected some kind of edible payment from me. But when I made it clear I was not going to give in, I do not say that with pride mind you, they kept on escorting me, making sure I was still tagging along when they had advanced too fast for my human velocity. I felt ashamed of my urban mistrustfulness. The path from the town center to Bahía Mansa, with its chocolate stores that remind you how heavenly chocolate can get, and how the indigenous wood structures can give a scenery an effortless fairy-like feel, was quite uneventful except for these two Samaritans that kept checking up on me all the way through the Boulevard Nahuel Huapi, and except for the uninterrupted beauty all around, heightened by an obscenely blue sky. We hiked passed the Convention Center that also serves as an arts venue, and continued through that same road, bypassing the Laguna Verde Natural Reserve which proves that serenity can be captured in a still photograph type of landscape where time really seems to be nothing but a human construct; in that, I am positive that the place was exactly the same before I was born and will remain the same long after I am gone… I am afraid I get a tad overly philosophical when I travel, that is my bad. The brief Correntoso River, connecting the Correntoso Lake with the Nahuel Huapi Lake, surrounded by a mystical and ever secretive Mapuche-inhabited Belvedere Mountain, is a sort of antithesis to this peaceful Reserve. The “Correntoso” name actually has to do with the arrogant and audacious nature of the river, according to the townsfolk who love telling stories that give Villa La Angostura a bit of a naughty edge. I finally reached the Bahía Mansa area and initiated the walk to the nearly 300-year old Arrayanes National Park. During the trek it is customary to say hi to the people you encounter as you wouldn’t in a city; something that I always find endearing of us, fully-grown adults. None other than Walt Disney was said to have been inspired by the Arrayanes Park. So much so that he went on to create the Bambi cinematic world off of it. Perhaps just a myth to attract tourists who appreciate celebrity-based trivia, but it could well be the case given the innocent aura of the place. Upon my return to the Bahía Brava area, I discovered my two friends were right there by the pier waiting for me, or so I assumed all starry-eyed and truly moved. They wagged their tale, as they do, but there was some elegance to it, they appeared to be expecting me as an embassy official would any highly regarded visitor. And it seemed to me that their panting open mouths (Is it just me or dogs always seem to be smiling when they do that?) were expressing something along the lines of: “Did you enjoy that? It is quite something, isn’t it?” or the Spanish version of it, more likely. I might just be a dog person now.