Hello community!
With today's post I continue the story of our trip in Patagonia Argentina.
Last time I showed you the first stage up to El Bolsón, today I will tell you about the stage from El Bolsón to El Calafate.
I had to select very well the photos of all the posts because there are so many and I wanted to share them all!
Hola comunidad!
Con el post de hoy sigo el cuento de nuestro viaje en la Patagonia Argentina.
La ultima vez les mostré la primera etapa hasta El Bolsón, hoy les contaré de la etapa que va desde El Bolsón a El Calafate.
Tuve que seleccionar muy bien las fotos de todos los posts porqué la verdad son muchísimas y las quería compartir todas!
We started from the Andean region in the morning knowing that we had to drive for about 700 km to get to Perito Moreno (city) to spend the night in a hotel that I booked at the last minute because we actually had to stop to sleep in another town, the thing is that when we got to Rio Mayo we realized that we would not have gotten absolutely no place to stay given the size of the place and the complete lack of any kind of tourism.
In the whole stretch we saw nothing but kilometers of steppe with several plateau hills (without peaks, with truncated peaks) peeking out and we crossed - if we were lucky - two or three cars but in general it was a stretch without much to tell.
The next day we had to leave to get to El Calafate not too late, but obviously when you make plans, something has to go wrong and the "not too late" turned into 1 am. Now I tell you about the adventure.
Arrancamos desde la comarca andina por la mañana sabiendo de tener que manejar por unos 700 km para llegar a Perito Moreno (ciudad) para pasar la noche en un hotel que reservé al ultimo momento porqué en realidad teníamos que parar a dormir en otro pueblo, el tema es que cuando llegamos a Rio Mayo nos dimos cuenta que no habríamos conseguido absolutamente ni un sucucho dada la dimensión del lugar y la completa inexistencia de algún tipo de turismo.
En todo el tramo no vimos nada más que kilómetros de estepa con varios cerros meseta (sin picos, con picos truncados) que se asomaban y cruzamos - con suerte - dos o tres autos pero por lo general fue un tramo sin mucho para contar.
El día siguiente ya teníamos que marcharnos para llegar a El Calafate no muy tarde, pero obviamente cuando uno hace planes, algo tiene que salir mal y el “no muy tarde” se transformó en la 1 de la mañana. Ahora les cuento la aventura.
We left the hotel and surprise! A flat tire...we go to the first tire shop we find and wait for it to open, the guy cauterizes the tire for 50 pesos (cheap, we think...) and we go to a huge and very beautiful lake nearby, Lake Buenos Aires, on the shore of which is the town of Los Antiguos, well known for the production of cherries and for nothing more than that as it is very small and sparsely populated.
Lake Buenos Aires is so windy that the few bushes present in the area are melancholically bent to one side, where the strong Patagonian winds blow and the view of the mountains of the Chilean Cordillera is a spectacle not to be missed.
After drinking some mates we decided to continue because it was already mid-morning and we had to drive a lot since this was by far the longest stage, more than 800 kilometers and the only and last gas station with gas was in Bajo Caracoles, a few kilometers from where we started but just in case we always had two tanks of 5 liters of gas each in the car.
Salimos del hotel y sorpresa! Una goma pinchada…vamos a la primera gomeria que encontramos y esperamos que abra, el tipo nos cauteriza la rueda por 50 pesos (barato, pensamos…) y vamos hacia un lago enorme y muy bello que hay en la cercanía, el lago Buenos Aires, a la orilla de lo cual se encuentra el pueblo de Los Antiguos, bastante conocido por la producción de cerezas y por nada mas que eso ya que es muy pequeño y poco habitado.
El lago Buenos Aires es tan vientoso que los pocos arbustos presentes en la zona están melancólicamente doblados hacia un lado, por donde soplan los fuertes vientos patagónicos y la vista de las montañas de la Cordillera Chilena son un espectáculo imperdible.
Después de tomar unos mates decidimos seguir porqué ya era mitad de la mañana y teníamos que manejar muchísimo ya que esta fue en absoluto la etapa mas larga, mas de 800 kilometros y la única y ultima estación de servicio con nafta se encontraba en Bajo Caracoles, a unos cuantos kilometros de donde arrancábamos pero por las dudas siempre tuvimos dos tanques de 5 litros de nafta cada uno en el auto.
Anyway, we stopped in Bajo Caracoles - oh, what an absurd place! - because shortly before we realized that the nice guy at the tire shop who charged us cheaply never fixed the tire so we were forced to stop to see if we could fix the issue by changing the tire.
Obviously the rented car didn't have the jack (or the binda, or the chassis, or I don't know what you would call that device to lift the car and change the tire) and we had to ask the singular owner of the only store/hotel/public restroom/gas station/handyman of that strange and very very isolated parador in the steppe of Santa Cruz who had to ask a peon who finally got us one that was missing a piece but that fulfilled its task.
Having changed the tire and bought something to accompany the mates we continued our journey and I do not know where, we asked for information to a policeman who gave us wrong information (we will never know if on purpose or not, but my suspicions will remain for life) about the number of kilometers of gravel that awaited us and I swear that for us was a very important piece of information because our car did not support very well that kind of terrain and the chances of puncturing a tire again were very high and we no longer had the spare tire.
Igualmente nos paramos en Bajo Caracoles - ay, que lugar mas absurdo! - porqué poco antes nos dimos cuenta que el simpático señor de la gomería que nos cobró barato no arregló nunca la rueda así que estábamos obligados a parar para ver de arreglar la cuestión cambiando la goma.
Obviamente el auto alquilado no tenia el jack (o la binda, o el chassis, o no se como se llamaría ese aparato para subir el auto y cambiar la rueda) y lo tuvimos que pedir al singular señor dueño del único almacen/hotel/baño publico/estación de servicio/manitas de ese extraño y muy muy aislado parador de la estepa de Santa Cruz que lo tuvo que pedir a su vez a un peón que finalmente nos consiguió uno a lo cual le faltaba una pieza pero que cumplió su tarea.
Cambiada la rueda y comprado algo para acompañar los mates seguimos de viaje y no se bien en donde, pedimos una información a un policía que nos dió una información errada (nunca sabremos si a propósito o no, pero mis sospechas quedaran de por vida) sobre la cantidad de kilómetros de ripio que nos esperaban y les juro que para nosotros era un dato muy importante ya que nuestro auto no soportaba muy bien ese tipo de terreno y las probabilidades de pinchar una goma de nuevo eran muy altas y ya no contábamos con la rueda auxiliar.
The fact is that the 40 km that the policeman had told us were only a small part of the 120 km that actually were! For a long time we searched the horizon for a passing car or truck or whatever to tell us at least how much time was left to reach the asphalt or if the gravel road had at least ended...well we found no one, but no one until the night around 23:00 when we arrived in a small town called "Tres Lagos" near El Calafate. There we could have a well deserved coffee and we asked with our hearts in our hands to the guy at the bar if from here on there was asphalt or not, luckily right there was the end of the gravel road, so with courage we headed to our final destination, which was only two hours away.
Under an incredibly starry sky in the middle of the darkness that had just appeared in these latitudes (it was November, that is, full spring in the southern hemisphere), we arrived at our destination where the owner of the hotel was waiting for us, a very kind lady who, knowing well the difficulties of the road, waits for all her guests at any time with a delicious homemade pizza (one of the best I've ever eaten!).
We ate and said goodbye to go to rest because the next day was the most expected day, we were going to visit the majestic Perito Moreno glacier and we were all very excited, my dad first because seeing it was one of the dreams of his life.
I will tell you about the visit to the Glacier Park in the next post because it deserves a special mention and many photos!
I thank you for having come this far and for having looked at the photos I shared with you, greetings and have a nice weekend!
El hecho es que los 40 km que nos había dicho el policía eran solo una mínima parte de los 120 que en realidad fueron! Por mucho tiempo buscamos al horizonte el paso de algún auto o camión o lo que sea para que nos dijeran por lo menos cuanto faltaba para llegar al asfalto o si el ripio por lo menos hubiese fin…bueno no encontramos a nadie, pero nadie hasta la noche alrededor de las 23 que llegamos en un pequeño poblado llamado “Tres Lagos” cerca de El Calafate. Ahí pudimos tomar un merecido café muy rico y preguntamos con el corazón en la mano al chico del bar si en caso de acá en adelante había asfalto o no, por suerte justo ahí se terminaba el ripio así que con animo nos dirigimos a nuestro destino final a lo cual faltaban dos horas de viaje nomas.
Bajo un cielo increiblemente estrellado en el medio de la oscuridad que recién se asomaba a estas latitudes (era noviembre, o sea plena primavera en el hemisferio sur), llegamos a destino donde nos esperaba la dueña del hotel, una señora muy amable que conociendo bien las dificultades del camino espera a todos sus huéspedes a cualquier hora con una rica pizza casera (una de las mejores que comí!).
Comimos y nos despedimos para ir a descansar ya que el día siguiente era el día mas esperado, íbamos a visitar el majestuoso glaciar Perito Moreno y estábamos todos muy emocionados, mi papa primero porqué verlo era uno de los sueños de su vida.
De la visita al Parque de los Glaciares les contaré en el próximo post porqué merece una mención especial y muchas fotos!
Les agradezco haber llegado hasta aquí y haber mirado las fotos que compartí con ustedes, saludos y que tengan un lindo fin de semana!
The photos that make up this post are my property. / Las fotos que integran este post son de mi propiedad.
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Es un placer nuestro @elethedog629! Que bueno ver tus primeros pasos! Vas bien!
Muchas gracias! Estuve ausente unos dias pero ya voy a seguir publicando en esta hermosa comunidad! Saludos!
The landscape on the beginning photo of the Andean region looks amazing!:)
Yes, the truth is that Patagonia Argentina gives emotions! Thank you, I appreciate your comment!
What a crazy adventure... but hey, at least you got some incredible photos. That seems to be a wonderful place! 😎
Oh yes, it was a crazy adventure that I still remember today as if it were yesterday!
Thank you so much 😊
I love photography and those places lend themselves to amazing photos!
Cheers!
Hiya, @LivingUKTaiwan here, just swinging by to let you know that this post made it into our Honorable Mentions in Daily Travel Digest @1209.
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