Posts From Argentina

We left Panguipulli about 10:00am maybe a little later than expected after the usual chores, fuel, internet, groceries and a few last photos. It is a really nice little town, not particularly touristy.

Today was sunny, but with a blustery cool wind. We spent the morning in San Martin shopping and looking around and then headed south down highway 234, also called the Ruta de Los Siete Lagos (route of 7 lakes) towards San Carlos De Barioche. As the name promised we spent the remainder of the day driving past and viewing lakes, the rivers that feed/drain them, plus some spectacular mountains. Really a very pleasant day.

We continued our tour of Argentine lakes, rivers and mountains today.

We set out from the campground today to explore west along the lake shore with the intension of eventually stopping in Bariloche to look around. Oh how plans can change. We drove past a number of scenic lakes and called into the famous hotel LLao LLao just to have a look at the place. It's really grand, with a great location on a hill with commanding views of lakes and mountains. While having coffee and chocolate in one of the restaurants we asked ourselves- why not stay here for a night?. Within 10 minutes we had a room.

We used up all of our minutes at the hotel this morning leaving right on check out time of 11:30 making the most of hot showers, a sumptuous buffet breakfast, and that last click on the internet.

Today we drove back to Bariloche. The weather turned wet and miserable for the first time we can remember. As a result we checked into the Hotel Tirol a day earlier than originally planned. They had space in the back for us to park but the entrance way was really tight. We had to fold the mirrors in on the sides and I would guess there were only a couple of inches spare on top. The manager was very nice about it and tried to help us with directions.

We spent the day looking around the town of Bariloche and communicating with family. One of the things the town/region is known for is chocolate and there are many stores around the town selling it. Of course we were not able to find simple plain chocolate. The weather was much improved today, sunny but windy and still cool. Santa Claus was out traveling around on a red fire truck. He seemed very athletic, jumping on and off the truck, for an old guy. Made me more than a little envious.

We eventually got underway after saying our goodbyes to Sam and Bernie. The weather was cloudy and so we did not see anything of Volcan Orsorno as we drove along its flanks.

Another sunny day - but cool. We must be getting old and feeling the cold. The locals are running around in shorts and T-shirts and we are wearing heavy sweaters.

Today we decided to take an excursion to the town of Pampa Linda. It seems there is some spectacular mountain scenery and a glacier to see. But what first attracted us to this town is the road. It seems it is a narrow road and dangerous, so to protect travelers the road is only oneway. It is open to traffic going to Pampa Linda until 2:00 pm, then closes to new traffic, and opens to returning traffic after 4:00pm.

Nothing worth reporting

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 ???

I spent the morning repairing the storage rack on the back of the Tiger. The deck of the rack is plywood and over the past month it has deteriorated. I did not replace the wood simply placed a new piece over the old and painted both pieces black. That should last a few months.

So why the reference to Butch and Sundance?

We busied ourselves in Chile Chico until late morning with washing and internet and then continued east for a few kms on good road to the Chilean border station. No dramas on exit - the same three steps as all other Chilean crossings. A little further down the road is a nice new Chilean border station building nearing completion with a sign proudly proclaiming that it will be complete in 2009 - huh??

We decided that this morning we would take a slight detour to Cueva De Las Manos a local archeological site with 9000 year old cave paintings. The turn off from Ruto 40 coincided precisely with the end of the Ruta 40 pavement and involved 22 kms of some very rough road to a wind swept parking lot on the cliff tops overlooking the valley of the Rio Pinturos. From the parking lot a very rough walking track led down into the valley and up the other side to the entrance station of the caves. To view the paintings we had to go on a free conducted tour which was fabulous. The guides English was just good enough for us to get some of the facts about the paintings, almost entirely of the human hand, and mostly left hands.

We traveled 300 miles today over 200 of which was gravel and the whole day was through dusty, dry grass lands with little habitation. There were only two places we passed today where we could buy fuel and at one of those the owners for some reason just left the customers waiting without service - we gave up after waiting 30 minutes. Incidentally that was the town of Bajo Caracoles which I commented on in yesterdays camping section.

The weather was windy with broken cloud this morning, which in these parts almost qualifies as a good day, so Nina encouraged me to hike the trail to Lago Torre, at the foot of the Grande and Torre glaciers and from which there are supposed to be good views of Cerro Torre.

The weather was clear with only light winds this morning, so I saddled up to repeat yesterdays hike sure that today would give me the views that I failed to find yesterday.

We had fierce winds and rain all day - a bit like a Washington winter storm. We spent it in the Tiger reading a novel.

We moved on to El Calafate today. Driving away from El Chalten the weather quickly became sunny even though the wind did not abate.

We spent much of yesterday trying to work out which of the many glacier tours we should take; El Calafate is famous for the glaciers that can be visited. Today we decided to drive west to the Parque Nacional and have a look in the hope that this would help us decided. On the way out the road traveled through Patagonia steppes country, wide, wind swept grasslands. To say that the Perito Moreno Glacier was a surprise would be a massive understatement. The road rounded a bend and there before us was this massive wall of ice.

If anything the wind was even stronger this morning; there were big white caps on the waters in the straights.

Today we rolled into Ushuaia, Argentina - the end of the road south. Deadhorse Alaska is 289 days and 28061 miles behind us.

We spent the morning and early afternoon trying to catch up with internet stuff using the campgrounds agonizingly slow wifi. Late in the afternoon we went looking for a metal fabrication shop to have some changes made to the carrier on the back of the Tiger. I decided today I would look for a wheel on which to mount the extra spare tire we have been carrying since Bariloche; thus giving us two complete spares. However that will mean more weight on the carrier, and will require some rearrangement so that we can still carry a local propane cylinder and a couple of fuel cans.

It rained all night and not far up the hills/mountains there was fresh snow.

At least that's what the sign at the Ushuaia Golf Club says.

It rained again last night and is cold again today - I know that's becoming a broken record, we are getting a little sick of it also - hence it will soon be time to start heading north in search of warmth and maybe beaches. Hence today we decided to make the obligatory trip out to the local national park; Parque Nacional Tierra Del Fuego. There is very little access to this park by road or by hiking trail. So we along with many individual tourists in local taxis and many many tourists from the steady stream of cruise ships that docked in Ushuaia headed out along the only road to get our photo taken at the end of highway 3 - the southern most highway in South America.

Well guess what - it rained again last night. The campground is again a muddy and puddled obstacle course.

We could not resist a stop at the panaderia in Tolhuin for a little indulgence on our way out of town this morning.

We spent time in Rio Gallegos this morning on business.

We spent some time in the national park this morning - Nina walked along one of the hiking trails to see some more penguins, braving the Puma's that the signs warned about - but she did not see any.

Before leaving this morning we needed fuel. We tried both the stations in the town only to discover that neither of them had gasoline or diesel, we were directed to the gas station 4 kms away on the highway. We noted though that both stations still had a full roster of tank-filler assistants!

We want to do a tour in Puerto Deseado so we spent the day trying to find the right tour company - eventually we gave up on the one we were looking for and booked with Darwin Expeditions.

That's why we were in Puerto Deseado, to see the Rock Hopperpenguins and their punk style hair-do's and yellow eye brows. And today was the day.

There is not much to say about today - north from Deseado along more flat grass lands with grey skies and patchy rain.

The rain has departed, blue sky is back.

Overnight we decided we wanted to get to Buenos Aires expeditiously as the whale watching tours do not commence for several more weeks.. Sam and Bernie made an early start. We were a bit slower as we have business to do in the nearby town of Puerto Madryn - bank, groceries, internet and exchange our small propane tank. As a result we got a late start to the days drive - 4:30.

We are now back above the 40th parallel and the weather is warmer - low 70°F's, the sun is shining and today the landscape changed. No longer flat wide lands with poor grass and prickly shrubs. It's now flattish (but with some rolling hills), and nice green grasses both in the farm fields and beside the road. This looks like the normal state of the ground not simply a reaction to recent rains. Buenos Aires is now only 700 kms away.

We spent the day and night in Bahai Blanca. It's not that it's such a nice town, in fact in most parts it's pretty dumpy - but we had business to do and the local ACA motel and gas station had good wifi.

We spent some time trying to find the Brazilian consulate in Bahai Blanca, we need a visa for Brazil, only to discover that they don't seem to open.

We spent a relaxing day, walking on the beach, getting sun burnt around the pool and just enjoying the warm weather.

Not much to say - walked on the beach, baked in the sun, visited the local town.

We spent the morning cleaning house, and doing some repairs. Some parts of the Tiger have not been tidied up for months and it was showing - time to get organized. Also some parts of the tiger have not appreciated all the rough roads, mostly the cupboards. They are showing various signs of coming apart at the seams - so I spent time with a screwdriver trying to put it all back together.

That's what we found out today!

This is a huge camping area. Talking to one of the guys in the admin building we found out that during the height of the summer camping season this place will have as many as 5,000 guests. It must be a mad house, but a lucrative one at A$45 (approx. US$12) per person.

Today we moved on from Camp Americano heading to the coast further north and east near Mar Del Plata, reputed to be the most popular beach resort in Argentina. The guide book says that at the height of summer the beaches at Mar Del Plata are so crowded that one cannot find a place to lie down. Fortunately it is past the high season so we won't have that level of a crowd.

Overnight we had the most amazing thunder storm, the thunder, lightening and very heavy rain lasted all night. But surprisingly this morning the campground does not show signs of all that rain. The sandy soil sure drains well.

The traffic of Buenos Aires came as a bit of a shock this morning. After all the miles of deserted highway going to and returning from Ushuaia we were once again in a large city, and on tightly packed multi-lane highways. And this time we had the added pleasure of crazy Buenos Aires drivers - they do seem a little crazier than others we have met on the trip - and in particular they don't seem to want to stay in their lane, but instead drive straddling the lane lines. I guess this gives them the option to dart into which every lane appears to be moving best when the traffic arrives at the next, and inevitable, accident or breakdown.

New batteries for the Tiger this morning. The batteries that power the Tiger's living area have been showing signs of age for some time now and need to be replaced. Fortunately I found, online, and had communicated with a company that could supply the specialist batteries that are required, a pair of 6 volt deep cycle golf cart batteries. This morning after a bit of a struggle with the Buenos Aires freeway system we arrived a VZH (Van Zandweghe Hnos.). It took Marcelo's team only about 40 minutes to replace the two batteries, and to check out the Tiger's starting batteries and alternator as well. I must say I was relieved that the VZH guys actually did the installation - I was dreading that task.

Over the preceding couple of days we had organized with Cristian of AndianRoads to drop the Tiger off at their facility at 10:30am. Yesterdays test run and Sunday mornings lower traffic volumes made the drive to the facility easy and we arrived a little early. The facility turned out to be a combined housing and vehicle storage compound in a nicely treed neighborhood, and for the first time in its life the Tiger will get to spend some time under the roof of a garage. All in all I feel very good about the security of this place and will not be worried about for Tiger.

This morning we went to the Paraguay consulate to start the visa process. We are not sure we will go into Paraguay, but if we don't get a visa we won't have the choice. In the foyer of the building there was a huge lineup of people waiting for service at a clerks window. It took us a little while to work out that we did not have to wait in that line. We got forms, filled them out, lodged our applications, paid the fees and were out of there in about 40 minutes with a receipt and instructions to come back tomorrow at 9:00 to pickup our passports with the new visa stamps.

We picked up our visas for Paraguay this morning, no trouble.

Its three weeks since the last entry! I will get back into the swing of things with a quick catchup.

While we were having breakfast this morning we were joined by perhaps 50 park workers who mingled around us for a while before filing into the nearby building for a start of day prayer meeting, followed by their own breakfast. Certain proof that, as the guide book said, Paraguay is a catholic country.

We had not traveled more than 50 yards this morning when we were directed to the side of the road at the Policia Nacional checkpoint (last night we drove through it twice without being stopped). I had quite a long conversation with the officer about the spare tire and rack on the front of the Tiger. He was telling me that this was not allowed and was an infraction. I was expecting any moment to be asked to pay a "fine". I just continued with no hablo espanol, no entende. Eventually the boss decided we were too much trouble and waved us on. That proved to set the scene for the day. We must have been waved over at least 10 times during the course of the day. Sometimes we were asked for papers, but as our we are Australians, no spanish and don't understand routine improved the stops got shorter. In fairness to the officers, they probably don't see too many tourists in foreign vehicles out here, and no-one actually asked for money.

Today was a driving not a seeing day - we wanted to make it to Cordoba.

The weather reminds me of Easter camping in Australia. The nights are now cool to cold (not quite a frost), with clear skies and blazing stars. The days are clear and once the sun makes its presence felt they get to be warm, in the low 70° F's. The only downside of autumn are the short days, we are now getting less than 13 hours of light.

The sunny autumn weather continued this morning as we continued west out of Cordoba towards Mendoza. For the first time in weeks (maybe a couple of months) we are back into some mountains. This time a small range west of Cordoba called appropriately Cordillera del Cordoba, which tops out at about 6,500 ft.

Another nice sunny Autumn morning. We got through the usual chores in a relaxed manner, enjoying the sun and warmth.

We were away early this morning in an effort to make it to Mendoza during business hours. Nina has a skin rash and we needed to see a doctor to get something for it.

We spent the day finding our way around the town. It's a bit of a difficult town to navigate, many streets change names a number of times, and on the perimeter of the city a lot of curved roads and roundabouts that are not well signposted.

We spent the day at the campground.

We spent a bit of time exploring some of the outer parts of Mendoza this morning looking for other campgrounds and one of the Spas that we had heard about. We will visit one of these Spas when we return to Mendoza in a few days.

We woke to an overcast sky and mist, the weather forecast I had seen yesterday turned out to be correct, today was not as warm as yesterday.

It was a cold night, but as soon as we woke we could see that today was going to be better weather than yesterday - the sky was clear and bright sun was touching the tops of the mountains. Once we got out of the vehicle we saw that there was a dusting of fresh snow on the mountains as little as 500' above us. Guess that explains why we felt the night was cold.

Argentina uses only one time zone. So for us here in the west of the country the sun is not rising until well after 7:40 - and hence we are not rising until sometimes after 8:30. This morning the late sun, contributed to a slow start so that by the time we got going we barely made it the 30 kms to our spa appointment at 12:00.

Between negotiating Mendoza's streets and traffic we made two note worthy visits today. The first called, Cerro De Gloria, a large and very impressive hill top monument to General San Martin, assorted other generals and the Army of the Andes, Ejerçito de los Andes, that fought the war of independence against Spain.

Before leaving Mendoza we thought we would make one last visit to some of the inner city parks, but police had closed off many of the roads so we eventually gave up.

The highlight of the day was the town and shrine of Difunta Correa. You may have noticed from time to time I have include in this journal pictures of road side shrines that are composed of hundreds, sometimes thousands of plastic drink bottles. As I think I have explained before these are shrines to a women who followed her husband to war and dies of privation along the way - the legend is that her body was found with her child still alive suckling at her breast. The shrines are to her. Well today we found the ultimate example of such a shrine, close to the site of her death. It started out as a cross on a hill but today it is a full blown town, with post office, school, gas station and of course lots of souvenir shops. The shrine is composed of numerous crosses, a large fire pit for burning candles, thousands of plaques, thousands of license plates and hundreds of small doll sized houses, plus the inevitable bottles of water. All these left as offerings at the shrine.

The beautiful sunset of last night was complemented with a similarly beautiful sunrise this morning.

Our next stop was Parque Nacional Talampaya north through more arid country from last nights camp. This park can only be visited as part of a tour, so we joined a group of about 20 in the small bus and headed up the paved road into the park. The road did not last long and then we were in the bed of the Rio Talampaya bouncing along through sand and boulders. We spent the next 3 hours in a gorge with 150 m vertical red sandstone sides, looking at the rock formations, petroglyphs, condors, and nandu's (large flightless birds). It was a spectacular place one of the best gorges we have visited.

A cold night and early start got us underway before 9:00. Not far north we rejoined the famous Ruta 40 and for many miles traveled on nice wide paved road. However this eventually ceased and we found ourselves on a narrow gravel road winding through a small but spectacular mountain range of red sandstone and red granite. Unfortunately the photos don't do the scenery justice but I have included them anyway.

Before leaving the Londres area we visited the ruins at El Shincal. There are only a few walls and some stairways up to two lookouts remaining. The stone work is much rougher than the usual Inca stone work we have seen. Climbing up onto the lookouts gave very good views of the valley south and east, and perhaps that is why the village was built here - good protection.

From Amaicha we turned southish to visit the town of Tafi Del Valle an apparent summer retreat for the residents of the nearby city of Tucuman. This was a quite surprising excursion. From Amaicha in the desert with day time temperatures around 80 ° F we climbed into the mountains and mist to temperatures that got as low as 34 ° F. Even in Tafi, which is at the same latitude and elevation as Amaicha the temperature was only 40° F.

We were told yesterday that it never rains here. Moreover the landscape is consistent with that statement, and the locals and indigenous peoples raise animals not crops because of the dry conditions. So we were more than a little surprised this morning when we woke to grey skies and a light drizzle.

No rain today - it dawned bright, clear and still. There was fresh snow on the surrounding mountains.

Today we followed Ruta 40 nearly 100 miles north along the valley of the Rio Calchaqui. Though Ruta 40 returned to its tradition of a dusty gravel, and at times rough surface, that sometimes was barely wide enough for a single vehicle, it was a fabulous day. The scenery was magnificent, a green and mostly cultivated wide river flat surrounded by high desert mountains that had been carved into all kinds of shapes by wind and rain.

I was excited about the scenery from yesterday when we headed east along Ruta 33 from Cachi towards Salta, thinking that today would be a bit of let down. How wrong I was. Ruta 33 climbed steadily into a range of mountains called Cumbre De Obispo - these appeared insignificant on our map - but turned out to be quite something. The road topped out at 3400 m before beginning a hair raising descent into Cueste del Obispo along a gravel road with many many tight hairpins - 1st gear most of the way.

We spent a lot of the day trying to get various wifi and internet connections working fast enough to do what we needed - a bit frustrating and boring.

Tuesday next, May 25th or 25 de Mayo, is the bicentenary of Argentine independence from Spain. Monday is also a celebration day and hence combined with the weekend the Argentines have a 4 day fiesta starting tomorrow. We have seen national flags being put up in preparation for the celebrations for the past week or so as we have traveled through various large and small towns. But today the imminent festival was evident with crowds of people, including large numbers of teenagers in school uniforms, around the main plaza in downtown Salta. We were in tow for internet and other shopping chores.

Overnight we got a taste of the bicentennial celebrations. A local disco played loud music until 5:00 am. We could not so much hear it as feel it. The bass tones actually made parts of the Tiger resonate in sympathy with the music. It would be an understatement to say that the entertainment made sleeping a little difficult.

Last night was cold, well below freezing, the wind eventually dropped and we were treated to a bright moonlit night with star filled skies. Not that we saw much of it, we stayed inside staying warm.

What a beautiful day! Despite overnight temperatures well below freezing, by 11:00 the sun had warmed the air, it was 70°F and we were in t-shirts.

Today is the big day, 25 de Mayo - Argentine Bicentennial.

Still waiting for insurance, so today we decided to do some sightseeing by vehicle.

Time to move on, but our plans have changed - and they probably will again before long.

If we were mountaineers preparing for a major climb we would say that this has been an extended, and somewhat relaxed, approach march as we left Seattle almost a week ago and yet we only join our cruise boat tomorrow. This slow travel to Ushuaia is partly a realization a few months back that our bodies no longer handle long days and nights of flying without the need for a rest, and partly a result of airline pricing policy. We are going to spend 3+ weeks in Lima after this cruise and we did not want to string together a number of one-way airline tickets. Hence we settled for a SEATAC-Lima return followed by a Lima-Ushuaia return. Thus we took the opportunity to break our southward journey for a few days in Lima and catch up with our son and his wife; who you might recall from previous posts live in the seaside suburb of Miraflores. We spent a couple of pleasant warm days there staying at Hotel Antigua a nice boutique hotel a few blocks from the Miraflores escapement.