The itinerary was fixed in detail. In 1796 D'Azara noticed the wells sunk by the salters, north of the Palentelen lagoon (Bragado), when they found the lagoon dry. From Palentelen south-westward the salt road followed the track used by the Indians of the south-west in their expeditions against the ranches of the Buenos Aires frontier. Near Lake Epecuen, north of Carbue, it was joined by another track which came from Olavarria, the stages of which were marked by the streams that came from the Sierra de Curumalan. The Carbue district, the cross-roads of the tracks, was one of the places where the tribes collected. "This place," says the diary of the 1778 expedition, "is the first point where the hostile Indians meet and rest when they leave the Sierra and on returning from their invasions. They not only rest there, but have their winter pasture there" (in the dry season).[107] Zeballos has described the Indian track, the _rustrillada_, between Epecuen, Atreuco and Traru Lauquen, where the _travesia_ on the road to Chile began.[108] It was not less than 1,000 feet in width. At the foot of the dunes there were deep parallel grooves made by the feet of the raided cattle, which were taken away by the "Chilenos." [107] Coll. de Angelis, v. [108] Est. Zeballos, _Descripcion amena de la Republica Argentina_, vol. i, "Viaje al pais de los Araucanos" (Buenos Aires, 1881). The two main roads of the colonial period are the roads to Chile and Peru. On leaving Buenos Aires there was one road for a distance of about 320 miles. The "trade road" passed through Lujan, Areco and Sauce, and reached the Carcarana, or Rio Tercero, at Esquina. It therefore kept at some distance from the Parana (32 to 16 miles), on the tableland, crossing the valleys which were embedded in it and represented so many bad parts. It then ascended the Tercero on the right bank as far as the Paso Fereira, at the spot where Villa Maria is to-day. At Esquina de Medrano (Villa Maria) the road to Chile branched off to the south-east, reached San Luis by following the Rio Cuarto, going through Achiras and San Jose del Morro, and, after a _travesia_ seventy-eight miles in length, came to the Rio Tunuyan at La Paz, and ascended the river to Mendoza.[109]