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Once we had our fill of the Patagonian fauna, it was time to make our way to Buenos Aires and a mere 1400km were ahead of us, which we covered in 1.5 last days with a few stops.

Heading north on the Ruta 3, Cédric and I made a pitstop at a local olive oil producer because, if you read Cédric’s post from Spain, we have a aficionado among us. Despite the fact that Cédric invested in two liters of olive oil shortly after returning from Spain, we’ve now added an additional 1/2 liter to our collection in Augsburg. Apparently we charmed the producer and upon leaving, he stuffed our pockets full of delicious walnuts and took multiple pictures of us for hours website.

The next day, after camping in the mosquito-infested town of Rio Colorado, Cédric and I continued driving north. We noticed that once we entered the Rio Negro province, the landscape shifted from barren steppe to fertile farmland. However, the more north we drove, the more flat and endless the horizons became. On our second day of driving, we were surprised to see the Sierra de la Ventana mountains suddenly appear our of nowhere. Thankful to have scenery, Cédric and I stopped in Villa Ventana for lunch. After a few minutes back on the road we picked up a hitch-hiking veterinarian who was also on his way to Buenos Aires (hitch hiking is quite common in southern Argentina because the long distance public transportation is both sparse and expensive). Our hitchhiker explained some more of the Argentinian way of life and taught me how to prepare a perfect yerba mate tea while riding in the car.

In Buenos Aires, we spent two days stretching our legs after 8000 km in the car. We covered the who city, from hip Palermo to the painted neighborhood of LA Boca. As Cédric and I were wandering through the city, we found that Buenos Aires reminded us of other cities that we had visited, it had some Parisian architecture, the vastness of Sao Paulo, wide, lighted streets like New York… To say the least, it was completely different than the serene steppe that we had only seen a week before.

And, since Cédric and I ate through our supply of campfire food, we opened ourselves up to various cuisines in Buenos Aires. The first night, wanting something a bit different than the normal Argentinian fare, we had a Peruvian dinner. Our last night, with extra pesos to spare, we treated ourselves an asado steak but the half serving was big enough to share. Instead of the traditional side of french fries or mashed potatoes, we were craving a salad and fresh greens.

The next day, with our car cleaned from the nice people in the parking garage, we drove back to the airport and took off back to Germany.

About this trip, it’s been possibly one of the record wildlife watching month:

• go-kart driving between owls the first days,
• foxes and rabbits or other rodents pretty much all the time,
• the strangest birds: cormorants, condors, penguins (a loooot of them), rheas (local small ostrich), birds who prefer to examine cars in the middle of the road then take off, vaultours and other eagles
• (possibly) a Puma (Cassie wasn’t sure cause it looked like a huge rabbit from behind)
• We’re now experts in the life of sea lions and elephant seals
• Guanacos (aka. sort of southern south America Llamas from all-weather proof) – by the way, Cassie should write about how I rescued a Guanaco!
• Armadillos (indescribable animal – sort of cute-hamster/ninja-turtle/prehistoric-survivor)
• Commerson dolphins
• Patagonian skunks, possibly the stinkiest animal ever, regularly killed by cars on the roads, they make you switch off the AC at lightning speed (except the few times when the skunk smell comes from the passenger seat…all windows open!)
• Many others (sorry for all those tiny ones collected on the windshield…)

Argentina has also one of the richest variety of landscapes and climates. Our trip has already gone through almost anything imaginable:

• Humid and tropical arriving in Buenos Aires (where we arrived dressed with winter down and fleeces clothes thinking immediately of the Cape Horn
• Being in the pampa a few hours later: a gigantic agricultural area producing most of Argentina’s cereals and meat. If Martians are observing that area, they’d probably imagine that cows have managed to enslave a few remaining humans there to produce cereals for them…
• Being on a dry and rocky, almost arid desert plateau a few hours later
• Freezing and fighting to pitch the tent in furious wind gusts the next day
• Tundra-like landscapes afterwards before spending a few days in dense forests between snow covered mountains and alpine lakes (and chocolate producing almost Swiss villages)
• Getting lost on dirt roads surrounded by glaciers (not Europe type of dirt roads, more like ”well, if we’ve got a car problem here, we may reach a town within a few days with the satellite phone and lose probably less then a week…”
• Enjoying the views of pristine lakes in fjords going further south
• Somehow loosing the Andes for over a thousand kilometers continuing down through dry steppes
• To arrive in amazing mountain shaped like towers, and possibly the world’s most difficult climbs (we stayed at the bottom wondering how we could even begin)
• And enjoy the zenitude of landscapes at the end of kilometer- and decades-long glaciers (also called by me “the spirit of the mountain”, or also kinda my only almost-spiritual moments
• Feeling like reaching the end of the world while getting closer to the Tierra del Fuego and almost touching Antarctica just a little bit further across the ocean
• But nevertheless finding the lively city with petroleum exploration, duty-frees, malls and night clubs in Punta Arena (humans are really spreading their crap everywhere…)
• Walking on an asteroid while scrambling into the volcanic region of Pali-Aike.
• Observing giant sea mammals and other birds in a UNESCO wildlife reserve probably bigger than several European countries with only a handful of people in it and wondering which animal we’d be. Cassie thinks more Magellenan penguin, I’m more Guanaco cause you can just walk randomly anywhere in the continent and nobody cares, or maybe a sea lion cause you can burp anywhere, walk over others and piss off the entire colony just for fun…but we both agree that being an Orca is definitely a better idea in the food chain positioning)
• Wondering if kilometer 980 just didn’t look exactly like km1432 or km1758 on the Ruta 3. I swear there has to be some kind of hyperloop-quantum-worm-hole experiment on that road…

Randomness about Argentina:

• Life is crazy expensive, luckily for the budget wild camping is very easy. We kept on wondering how people live here with regular 3$/h wages… Argentina is in my very top of most expensive countries, some travellers met saying it more expensive than Australia (usually a top reference). It appears that the Gini index is high here, with very important disparities. Hiking alone in a natural reserve may cost you more than a concert of an international band…
• But as a result, hotels and restaurants are mostly empty (and therefore probably even more overcharging anyone daring to enter…)
• By the way, if anyone reading this post has possibly positive ideas about protectionism, blocking imports, currency rate decided by governments, etc. like it’s the trend in some western countries…you should check out Argentina! They’ve tried all of that and have greatly succeeded in destroying all their industry, made everything overpriced (and thus affecting only the poorest, others go abroad), and finally by playing with the pesos and having a continuously unstable economic situation Argentina is a rare country where Argentinian investments abroad are more important than in the country…if you have a tiny bit of money you simply protect it abroad. Whichever country anyone comes from, there are always 200+ others available. Argentina has managed to make the poorest poorer, and the richest simply using $, € and other foreign financial instruments.
• Argentina is huge, Buenos Aires about as huge…result: the land is mostly empty (therefore nice, clean and photogenic), and the capital a 100x100km concrete nightmare with a third of the country’s population (the very center – about 3x3km – is nice enough though). Maybe it’s actually a good solution: humans compacted and more nature around.
• Driving in general isn’t so bad, road are mostly everywhere okay even with the tiniest car, including dirt roads. There isn’t much traffic anyway so it’s easy to pass trucks, avoid potholes and drive basically anywhere on dirt roads
• Not much religion in the country, not many churches in town (or none at all), especially compared with Mexico (or Europe…but European ones are more monuments than anything). Buenos Aires seems a bit different though. However Argentina has thousands (millions?) of shrines for a famous Gaucho Antonio Gil/local Robin-Hood/unofficial saint. We thought at first that those red shrines on the side of the road were for car accidents…but we figured out that it was way too much!
• Food (my opinion) isn’t particularly amazing…a lot of meat with meat, nothing elaborate, not vegetables, even less fruits, and every single restaurant propose the same menu pizza/sandwich/pasta/steak/milanesa. We cooked and it became better and better over time on the camping stove!

I’m done with the most disorganized post of the trip (so far!).

Cédric

So, in exasperation, we pushed on more northwards, hoping to get a sizeable portion of road out of the way. We figured that the fishing village of Camarones and the Cabo Dos Bahias National Park were surely not affected by the rain. There, we were hoping to see a large colony of Magellanic penguins. But first, we came across a large group of sea lions on our way north, near Caleta Olivia- the males are particularly ugly in real life and make constant belching noises (just like my brothers) . 

As we found out the next morning, the dirt roads to the Cabos dos Bahias were also closed. So we moved northward again. Luckily, the Punta Tombo National Park was close by (only 200 km), where nearly 1 million penguins come to nest and mate each year. There, we saw more juvenile Magellanic penguins since the parents had already gone off to sea for the season. The juveniles are on land until they finish molting, teaching themselves swimming and fishing techniques for their big 4 month swim at sea. 

After hanging out with the animal life at Punta Tombo (rheas, llamas, armadillos, and other bird species were there as well), Cédric and I drove north to Puerto Madryn to check out the Valdes Peninsula. 

For two full days, we traveled around the peninsula to see more wildlife. Because we were so inspired by the animal life and wanted to preserve the nature, Cédric even found time to rescue a llama that was stuck in a wire fence. In addition to more sea lions and penguins, the island is also a place where orcas, elefant seals, and whales are known to mate and feed. The second day on the peninsula, the wind was so strong that it ripped Cédric’s pants as we were exploring the pink salt flats. 

We stayed in El Chaltén for two days to hike around the base of the Cerro Torre and Fitz Roy peaks. The views on the hikes were nothing less of stunning, with nearly every moment requiring us to simply enjoy our surroundings. The village of the El Chaltén was also budding with climbers and hikers, where one was not out of place walking along the street with a grimy hiking backpack and muddy boots.

We decided to head on towards El Calafate after the second hike, since the weather started to look more foreboding. In contrast to El Chaltén, El Calafate catered to an older and more posh crowd, where minimal hiking was rewarded with luxurious hotels and dinners.

The next morning we saw the main attraction of the area, the Perito Moreno glacier. This behemoth took up our full view as we stood 150m in front of it. Since this glacier moves about 2m every day, we were also audience to decades old blue ice calving into the lake.

On this third day in Argentina last, we also met a (now) familiar friend: gravel roads. Here, we slowly moved south, following the Aluminé River and through small settlements along the shores. The landscape there was also not much more than brush and rolling mountains. Once we reached the final pass, the landscape started to morph into something more alpine and inviting… A few more turns and we began to see a lake. We finally reached the lake district! That day, we drove into Lanin National Park to stare in amazement at the deep blue lake and see the Lanin Volcano from behind. After a hearty asado lunch, we hopped back in the car and followed the route of the 7 lakes down to Lago Espejo. On this route, each glacial Lake was serene and deep blue, surrounded by nothing but forests. 

The next day was sporadically sprinkling, but it allowed us to see a total of 6 full rainbows. This day we drove into the Nahuel Huapi National Park to see the Cerro Tronador and its surrounding glaciers. It was amazing to see the cascading glaciers come down the mountain and end in a lake. We also hiked into the forest to see more glacial waterfalls, all of them vaporizing before the water could hit the ground. 

After camping in the national park, we hopped in the car and drove to Los Alerces National Park to see more stunning, tranquil lakes. 

The lake district, with its log cabana houses and multitude of backpackers, gave us the feeling of being in Colorado. With all the outdoor adventures that this area has to offer, it would be nice to stay and explore the area a bit more extensively. 

Cheers, 

Cassie and Cédric