Scott and Pam on the Road

South Americas finest dirt roads

Hi all,

We have arrived in the Patagonian oasis of El Calafate where there is plentiful restaurants, banks and internet/call centers so we can bring you up to date a bit, but I don´t know if I can do it all in one sitting. See how it goes….

We last left you in Coyhaique. After relaxing there for a few days, we headed back out onto the Carretera Austral. The first day back on the road was pretty much clear, definitely less rain than we had been having before but very cold. In fact, I was wearing all my warm clothing and was concerned that I would need to get more to go further south. I understand that this is a “La Nina” year and so the temps are lower than is normal all over. We have also seen pics of the snow in Vancouver so this seems to confirm it (snow in Van???? Quick, everybody drive their cars with their summer tires on….) Anyways, we drove around the Lago General Carerra instead of taking the ferry, this takes a few more days but was well worth it! The lake is hard to stop staring at, it is turquoise. We stopped in Puerto Tranquilo to see the Marble Caves- lots of natural marble in this area and there are islands of marble in the lake that have caverns underneath them, seemingly caused by erosion from waves on the lake (fairly windy across the lake. I didn´t know that marble was soft enough to be eroded by water in this way…. Anyways, for 3 bucks each, we took a small boat (coach boat size for the reference of the rowers receiving this email) out to several small islands with huge cathedral-like openings underneath them. Very neat, especially with the amazing turquoise-blue water surrounding you. The next day we completed the trip around the lake, leaving the Carretera Austral for the road over the Paso de Los Llaves, the road to Chile Chico, a town next to the Argentine border. The road is very narrow, very twisty and was very fun, high above the far side of the huge lake, which turns from turquoise to darker blue as it approaches the Argentine border. The colour change is fitting as it also changes names to Lago Buenos Aires over the border in Argentina. This was also our first taste of wind on dirt roads. And this wind, it turns out, wasn´t even that strong….

The next morning, not knowing what the facilities would be like on the other side of the border, we did some banking in Chile Chico and headed to Argentina. Turns out there was nothing to worry about though, a bank machine that was happy to take our cards and dispense Argentine pesos greeted us at the first small town, Los Antiguos. The border crossing was very simple, one line-up for people papers and one line-up for bike papers and we were on our way (stamp, stamp, gracias, ciau). We loaded up with some groceries in the town of Perito Moreno and started out in the early evening on Ruta 40 to an estancia 25km from town, where we camped. The first 25 km were not very easy- very high winds and construction to pave the road meant we had to travel on the terrible “desvio” or detour road for 15 km or so. We figure they get some Bolivian road engineers to come down and build the desvios for them as they are almost as bad as the roads (or lack thereof) that we encountered in Bolivia- invariably, there is some deep gravel and sand and with the high winds, it is a bit unnerving. But the regular Ruta 40 dirt road was fine.

All along Ruta 40 we found estancias open for tourism. These seem to all be working farms, usually sheep farms, that have rooms in the house and camping in the yard and serve dinners, breakfasts, etc. They aren´t hotels and restaurants, they´re farm houses where you can eat the dinner meal with everyone else, or make your own if you prefer.

The second day, we stopped in Bajo Caracoles at the gas station (and by this I mean the only gas station that reliably has gas for the next 350km of Ruta 40). There were a couple of Swiss guys there on a XR650 and KLR600 when we arrived and by the time we finished lunch, there were a total of 7 bikes out front, including an old BMW with Beautiful BC plates! This was ridden by a guy from Williams Lake- he rode it all the way down (minus Darien Gap, of course). Very nice guy, heading North again after having spent Christmas and New Years in Ushuaia. He is a photographer and has some amazing pics from his trip at http://www.amaradosphoto.com/GallGen.htm, if you feel like surfing. He said it was weird to be heading North after heading South for so long-all the way down, he could tell people he was going ”South, all the way”, but now he isn´t sure where to tell people where he is heading when they ask….

That night, we stayed at an estancia recommended by the Swiss guys and had dinner there- roast lamb and potatoes and several salads and veggie casserole and a fruit salad with at least 10 different fruits in it for dessert. Really, really good, and as much as we could eat, it was put in front of us. There was a French family staying at the estancia that night too and I found that I can no longer speak French properly. My French vocabulary is now hopelessly mixed up with my new Spanish vocab that I have been trying desperately to expand over the last 2 months. I will be enlisting the help of my French-speaking friends to help straighten this back out when I get home. But the funny thing is that we were hanging out with an Italian guy touring Argentina on a rented Honda Transalp the other day and he spoke some French, some Spanish, but only a little English, so when we were talking, it wasn´t a big deal to speak in half-French-half-Spanish, because he was doing the same thing too…..

The next day, we tried to go to El Chalten, to see Mt Fitzroy. We eventually got there…. I have to save that story for my next update though as this report is getting far too long and it is dinner time (10 pm in Argentina). We should be in Ushuaia within a few days and I´ll be sure to send an email from the most Southern city….

Cheers all,
Scott and Pam

P.S. Happy Birthday Dad!!

Posted by scottandpam at January 20, 2005 01:22 AM