Chile to Uruguay February - May 2013

click on the photos to see them full size

This was deemed unsuitable for public consumption in April last year when we visited this charming little town in the heart of Pennsylvanian Amish country. Now that any casual readers have got too bored to continue, I can include this under the 'good name' category. For those of you who, like me, are a bit simple, we are no longer actually in USA.

Between the Andes and the Pacific is a desert and that desert seems to go on and on, especially in Chile. We had decided to take the desert route south for several reasons:  the high passes in Bolivia are subject to bad weather at any time and autumn was getting on, we felt like we needed a bit of warmth after the High Andes in Peru, we wanted to see the Atacama Desert and Chile is reportedly a nice place (and the brave Pinochet supported us in the liberation of the Falklands Islands). 

The Atacama is wonderful.
 It’s the driest place on Earth and as there is a perfectly good tarmac road
going through the middle, it’s easy to cross with little risk of running out of fuel or dying of thirst.



A very fancy shrine to a poor Chilean who didn’t make it (maybe he tried it on a monocycle – people do).
Complete with toys he had as a nipper and a decorated Christmas tree, despite it being February.

Empty straight roads – a good time for the limited game of betting on ‘how far to the horizon?’
(5 miles in this case.)

A camp on the Chile desert coast south of Pan de Azucar.

Chile seems to be a clean and civilized place, especially after scruffy Peru. On the other hand, the beaches are a different matter – they are invariably filthy, by far the worst that we have seen so far. The locals  are very keen on getting out and enjoying their beautiful scenery, but they leave all their rubbish behind. If they bag it up, they leave the bags behind for the vultures and dogs to rip open and scatter. The above photo looks wonderful but the rocks have everything imaginable piled around them. Dirty nappies are particular favourites.

Brown Pelicans

Chileans are a refreshing change from some of the more macho Latin Americans further north. They are friendly, happy and polite – even taxi drivers – and they sometimes stop at zebra crossings; unheard of. Towns and main roads appear even quieter due to the lack of the swarms of local mini-buses (collectivos) and tuc-tucs, found to the north.

After sticking to the Pan-Americana through the desert in the north we meandered through the green and fertile central valley south of Santiago. This is the bit where most of the fruit and veg comes from – and the wine. I know that our local Sainsbury always seems to have Chilean apples; when one is driving alongside the orchards it feels a hell of a long way to come for fruit. Talk about carbon foot-prints!

Our book told us that the next bit which one mustn’t miss is the Lakes district. Unfortunately, being at the end of the school hols and peak holiday season, Chileans thought the same thing and so the area was pretty populated. Not as bad as the Brit Lake District but crowded in comparison to what we had been used to. It is a pretty area with spectacularly blue lakes and classical snow-capped volcano cones.

Lago Villarrica with Volcan Villarrica beyond.
We spent several peaceful nights on the western slopes
despite this being one of the more active volcanoes in the Andes.
If you look closely ,or click on the photo, you can see steam coming out of the top.

Most people doing similar trips to ours continue south through Chile and visit Chiloe Island. It’s reputedly very pretty with arable and dairy land and lots of rain. Sounds like home so we gave it a miss and turned east and crossed into Argentina over the Paso Cardinal Antonio Samore. The route over the pass had suffered the serious effects of the series of Volcan Puyehue eruptions from 2011 to 2012 and deep ash drifts are still evident. 

Ash fields on Paso Cardinal Antonio Samore.

 

Cero Pantojo – an impressive volcanic plug
(or any other kind of plug for that matter).

There are three main routes down to the south and to Tierra del Fuego. The Carretera Austral through southern Chile is a project started by Pinochet to link remote southern areas  and to help develop the region. It is mainly gravel roads and tracks of varying quality which are linked by ferries across the larger lakes and fjords. It is a very scenic route but can be pretty punishing on a vehicle. Across the border in Argentina is Ruta Nacional 40. Again this is a classic overlanders’ route south which runs practically the whole length of the country. Again, it is mainly gravel and can be very rough, although the government is trying to pave it in places. The third route south is down Ruta 3 to the east of Argentina. As it was probable that we would be returning up this way, we ruled it out for our southern leg.

In the end we chose a combination of the Carretera Austral and Rt 40. It meant zig-zagging 7 times  across the borders between the two countries, with the normal vehicle importation and customs restrictions each time. This wasn’t such a pain as it sounds as most of the crossing points were very efficient and helpful for about the 1^st time in Latin America  (apart from dear Belize, but they aren’t Latinos). It’s boring though, that one isn’t allowed to take across fruit, meat and dairy stuff, especially in some of the more remote places where there are few shops. 

Sunrise from our bedroom window on Lago Mascardi.

 

 

Rio Futaleufa.
 

A camp on the banks of Rio Futaleufa. One of the world’s top 5 white water rivers.
It is, of course, threatened with a hydro-electric project to dam it.

Carretera Austral - Stupid cows.

 

Carretera Austral – minor landslide.

 

Carretera Austral – a very small church.

 

 

Carretera Austral – roadside views.

 

Carretera Austral – roadside views.

Carretera Austral – roadside views from the Nav’s station.

 

Carretera Austral - Volcans Cay & Maca down Fjord Puyuhuapi .

Carretera Austral – roadside views.

 

 

Ubiquitous noisy and unidentified curvey beaked birds.

 

In Coyhaique we came upon a mad but charming Irishman called Saun.
He has been riding this Honda Cub 90 from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.
 I haven’t looked at it yet but he has a website which must be amusing:
 www.hondavstheworld.com

 

Carretera Austral – roadside views.

 

Carretera Austral –view from the bedroom window.
Cerro Castillo above Lago Morales.

They were right about the Carretera Austral – it is very pretty and we were very pleased not to have missed it. We only went as far south as Puerto Ingeniero Ibanez on Lago General Carrera. This is where one crosses by ferry to Chile Chico prior to re-entering Argentina. Although the tourist season was ending we had to spend a few very windy days there waiting for a crossing. There is nothing in the village so we took to the hills on the north shore above the lake (the 2^nd biggest in South America). 

Chile -  From our camp above Lago Gen Carrera.
Although the colour in this picture looks fake - it isn't.

It was a brilliant spot to spend some time – totally wild and almost uninhabited. We saw masses of what we thought were hares but my friend Charles (Darwin) tells us that they were probably agouti. Condors flying from the cliffs and  puma evidence (shit) - we didn’t see one.

A very wild and violent waterfall above Ibanez.

Condor over Lago Gen Carrera.

Another condor over Lago Gen Carrera.

A view of our campsite (under the pointy hill) from Lago Gen Carrera.

Our camp at the entrance to Reserva Nacional Jeinemeni.

Before re-entering Argentina we wanted to spend some time in Reserva Nacional Jeinemeni.
It was reportedly little visited and unspoilt with turquoise lakes, spectacular snow-capped mountains
and pink  flamingoes. After many miles of bumpy gravel tracks and hours of walking
to one of these  famous flamingo lakes - and in the rain, there were none.
The Nav was ordered to pose as one.
 

Rhea became increasingly common  and although we screeched to a halt
 to take snaps of the first few, we soon didn’t even notice them - apart from
ordering the Nav out to pluck some nice fluffy feathers from a road-kill.

After leaving Chile Chico and returning to Argentina we had a long drive south from the village of Perito Moreno to the fantastically spikey and impressive Mount Fitz-Roy. We had been rather worried about this 500 kilometer trip down Ruta 40 as according to the map it was mainly unpaved. As it turned out, this was one of the sections that the government was sorting out and we had some great stretches of new and deserted tarmac. Frustratingly, we also had some quite long bits where our rough gravel track ran alongside new but un-opened paved roads.  The countryside was rather bleak and windswept. There was little livestock grazing but many guanaco and rhea.

 

Argentina - Views from Ruta 40.

 Our first objective, for this part of the trip was Mount Fitz-Roy. It’s situated on a bit of unresolved border between Argentina and Chile, about halfway down the southern Patagonian icefields. Although the more southerly Torres del Paine gets all the main touristy limelight, Fitz-Roy is possibly even more spectacular. It is named after the RN Captain of the Beagle, a small ship which spent several years surveying and exploring the coasts of southern South America.( It was on one of these voyages that Charles Darwin scrounged a lift and you know what he turned out to be.) The group of peaks are a magnet to climbers and hikers from everywhere and a sort of purpose-built village, called El Chalten,  caters to them. The village was rapidly put up by the Argentinian government  in 1985 to beat Chile to a land-claim. As with many of these impressive Patagonian sights, Fitz-Roy is normally covered in cloud but as you can see in the pics, which don’t really do justice to the views, our customary accidental good luck held and we had perfect weather.

 Argentina - Mt Huemul & Viedma  Glacier – part of the Fitz-Roy group.

Exciting approach to the mountains.

Mount Fitz-Roy.

Cerro Torre.

Grilled lamb – a la Patagonia - very good.

There you are; you do get monocyclists.
This mad woman was battling into a gale-force headwind and smiling! Actually, it could
have been a grimace of pain. I couldn’t find out who, what and why – she didn’t want to stop 
as she would have fallen over. I think she was a foreigner.

The next stop on our tour of spectacularities was the Perito Moreno glacier in the aptly named Parque Nacional los Glaciares. Confusingly, it has no connection to the P-M village that we passed through earlier or to a national park of the same name. We had seen shed-loads of glaciers etc in Alaska but hadn’t been up close to the face of a real biggie and Perito Moreno is big. It’s also quite big business as loads of trippers come here. 

 

One can take boat trips around the faces of this and a couple of other glaciers in the area but they are bleeding expensive and we have been told they pack the punters in tight. Also, it was hoying it down with rain and I am trying not to make the Nav even more anti boats in bad weather. (We are spending nearly 4 weeks in one crossing the Atlantic.) Anyhow, I’m getting off the point; this icy creature (not the Nav) is definitely worth a visit – on land. The bangs and creaking noises and then huge crashes as it calves into the lake are well worth it. It is a difficult thing to capture with my instamatic  as I always seemed to be looking in one direction when the action was happening elsewhere but below (or above) is a taster.  

 

Perito Moreno Glacier.

 

Calving (no wonder cattle farming is so tough).

 

Crested Caracara.

Argentina - Views from Ruta 40.

Argentina - Views from Ruta 40.

What do they think English speaking people do?
 It would have been far more appropriate and useful to put this in Spanish.

Next on our tourist itinerary was Torres del Paine back in Chile. We had some serious doubts about going here as all the books and blogs etc say it gets crammed. It is often covered with cloud and it is notoriously windy and some quite large areas have been recently burnt in forest fires. Despite all that, we decided to go as it wasn’t too far and it had been one of the views on an old calendar we once had of something like “the World’s Top Ten Views” (it also had a view of Corton Denham from the Beacon – only 3 miles from home).

We were very glad we did. We saw everything we wanted and found a beautiful place to camp for free.

Torres del Paine – our first view.

Our camp across Laguna Azul.

Generously posing Nav  - she didn’t even charge.

 

 

Laguna Azul – the other direction.

Fiery sunset behind Torres del Paine.

Same place in the morning.

Generously posing guanaco - she didn’t even charge either.

The Chilean province of Ultima Esperanza supply the smartest bus shelters.

Chile - Patagonian sheep beside Ruta 9 – nearly all the sheep in Patagonia are Merino.

Chile - A shelter for the night from the STRONG and gusty Patagonian wind near
Skyring Sound (named after the Beagle’s 1^st Lieutenant)

Having reached this far down Patagonia without winter setting in we decided to keep going and drive round Tierra del Fuego. It’s hard to describe the place as we stuck to the main routes to Ushuaia as the gravel minor roads are very rough and we didn’t want to damage the truck at this stage. The shortest way to cross the Magellan Straits is by a 40 minute ferry from Punta Delgarda; it was calm with blue skies and not the sort of crossing one could expect at that time of year.

Chile - Loading to cross the Magellan Straits – flat as a pancake

It’s then best to head almost due south to a place called Onaisin (I don’t think anyone lives there) on a long, dusty and bumpy track and then East, across the border to san Sebastian and finally on the paved road South to Ushuaia – the Argentinian capital (of T-d- F - obvi).  On the way we stopped for a couple of nights near a protected King Penguin colony on Bahia Inutil. There are only a few breeding pairs of these impressive birds in this colony but they are on the increase after being wiped out in the last 50 years or so. According to the old biddy who looks after them, people used to capture them and take them home as pets.

Chile - Northern T-d-F has many of these small, grey foxes.

Chile - King Penguins - very smart, rather pompous looking and pleased with themselves (should join the Life Guards)

Chile - Northern T-d-F grass/moorland

Argentina - Oh yeah? Well the Falklands are Brit!

Rush-hour Tierra del Fuego
(Argentina - Densely wooded central T-d-F with the southern mountains beginning to appear.)

We were a bit disappointed with Ushuaia. It was a nice enough place but scruffy and the people seemed rather surly. Everywhere else in Chile and Argentina everyone has invariably been friendly and helpful. Here shopkeepers didn’t want to serve you and the whole place was a bit of a mess. If either of you two readers go there, avoid the free municipal campsite. It’s  run by a slovenly tramp and is horrid. We don’t really like towns and this one didn’t  change us. I think that we may have imagined a small settlement at the end of the world with sheep wandering the only street, not a large and busy town that includes  the Falklands on the agenda of its council meetings.
 


God knows where La Quiaca is but Ushuaia is a very long way from it
 and anywhere else for that matter.



Argentina - Ushuaia with Beagle Chanel and Isla Navarino (Chile) beyond.



Someone had better tell Port Stanley



Beagle Channel -  named after one of Darwin’s dogs.
Other places include Basset Bay, Poodle Point,
 Saluki Strait, Dog Bight and of course, Labrador.



The Argentinian navy

Argentina – Ushuaia - Thieving bastard trying not to be conspicuous.
Probably a mate of the Peruvian one who burgled our truck.

A v. cheesy snap to show we did get there.

Honestly!

These were not real soldiers but larger-than-life green plastic things.
When I was much younger one could get bags of these only they were much smaller.
The green ones were, I think, N Korean or Soviet.

You may remember from my last episode that I was going to let you know about the final resting place of The Kettle. Well, it was cast into the eastern entrance to the  Straits of Magellan. The wind and tide were set to take it out into the Atlantic where it should pick up the northerly current, then the Gulf Stream and, hey presto, wash-up on the Donegal shore. We should pass it while on Grimaldi’s Grande Benin on our way home.

The Throw.

Bobbing along.

While in Ushuaia we contacted the shipping company  in Buenos Aires to book the truck and ourselves on a mid-April ship home. No problem, we were told, and as we had about 9 driving days to reporting for loading, off we set. Our next email told us that we could no longer go on that or the following ship after all – they were full. The earliest we could achieve was 20^th May from Montevideo in Uruguay. As there were no other feasible RoRo options we had to accept it. However, it meant that we now had 6 weeks to cover the distance left. Eastern Argentina is pretty dull with hundreds of miles of featureless scrub and occasional low hills. We didn’t want to continue north to Paraguay and Brazil as the distances are huge and we hadn’t budgeted for the considerable amount of extra fuel etc.

 

Anyhow, to cut a long story short we drove slowly north in Argentina stopping where we found nice places – often by the sea.   



Sea lions keeping an eye-out for passing kettles.

And Magallenic penguins.

Beware – sharks crossing.

Argentina - hell city - Pico Truncado.

 One of the best of these places was on the coast a few miles south of a small and sleepy village called Camarones. We spent several nights at Bahia Carolina tucked out of the fierce wind and generally keeping a low profile over the 2^nd April Malvinas anniversary celebrations.

 

Our camp on Bahia Carolina.

 

From the truck in our little bay we could see flamingoes, steamer duck (flightless, but v fast across the top of the water), king shags, kelp gulls, turkey vultures, crested caracaras, oystercatchers, blackish oystercatchers, armadillos, guanaco, small rabbity things (non-zoological term) and lots of other unidentified sea and shore birds.

Steamer duck Bahia Carolina.

One of the problems of staying put at the end of the month, before the pension goes in, is that one starts  to run out of necessities; sugar in sarnies at teatime instead of jam and half-strength whiskies shortly afterwards – hell.

Steamer Duck

Just our luck – travel 40,000 miles and Plan B is shut. Had to try Plan D.

Playa Isla Escondida - Punta Clara.

Another place of note was one of the famous Argentinian Welsh settlements – Gaiman or Gayman as the non-Welsh probably call it. The Welshness is a bit of a myth in my opinion, there are only about   20% of any Patagonians  with any Welsh blood. Anyway, Gaiman is famed for its  Welsh Teas and one is meant to be able to buy a rich fruit cake called torta negra. I love cake but they wanted to charge us £8 for a small and very light rip-off,  look-you.

Maybe now would be a good time to wake you up with my customary short list of local place names. Colonel Pringles, Zorro, Percy H Scott, Juan Thomas, French, America (confusing for the postman), Bovril, Murphy, Sauce, and Frey Bentos (in Uruguay).

0.01% of the 35,000 pairs of Burrowing Parrots at Balneario El Condor.
The largest parrot colony in the world (according to the people of B-el-C who put the info sign up).
 The burrows riddle the cliffs for 12 kms.

In a pretty and civilised little town called San Antonio de Areca we stayed for a few more days. It’s the gaucho capital of Argentina  and is only a couple of hours from Buenos Aires. There is an interesting gaucho museum and while we were there, we saw a demo of their roping skills. I think it was being laid on for a couple of professional photographers but hell, I’m almost professional so we watched too.

The Driver trying his hand at lassoing the Nav

Locals showing how it should be done.

An Uracca at Parque Nacional El Palmar.

Arg polo pony or Capybara as they are locally know.

 

Parque Nacional El Palmar. 
 One of only 3 camps in 15 months where in the morning someone has said
‘you can’t camp here’.

Parque Nacional El Palmar - Blue butterfly.

Before we leave Argentina, a few observations. Apart from Ushuaia, the Argies have all been very friendly and welcoming. I was even kissed by a police sgt in Los Toldos (she was a girl so I didn’t have to hit her) she kissed the Nav too – takes all sorts! In fact, we were both kissed again the following morning by the tourist info man’s wife.

The wind, especially at this time of year is very boring and VERY strong at times. We have feared that the truck would blow over in the night, despite the stabilizing legs being deployed.

Distances are huge so the state of the roads is important. Many of the rural paved roads are terrible with sharp potholes and many of the normally-to-be-feared gravel roads are great. On one 200km stretch of gravel road we averaged over 35mph and only saw 2 other cars and a grader.
 

Despite having 2 Union flags on the truck and a large Light Dragoons badge on a mud-flap, only one car was aggressive, with the occupants throwing a bottle at us and making rude gestures with their fingers.
 

They have a good attitude to their dogs i.e. they feed and look after them and so the dogs, like their owners are also happy and jolly.
 



We left Argentina across the hydro-electric dam which spans the River Uruguay at Salto and provides Uruguay with 65% of its electricity. We have both loved Uruguay  - it’s been a good surprise. It’s very rural and quite pretty in a modest sort of way. Everyone (guide books, blogs and Uruguayans) describe the country as muy tranquilo or ever-so peaceful in English. And it is. 



Countryside -  share the road in NW Uruguay.

We have seen far more gauchos and working horses here that in the whole of Arg, where they seem to have ploughed up most of their pampas and planted soya. They (Argies) now have to finish off their beef in huge and fairly revolting feed lots. The North of Urg looks like a huge Salisbury Plain – endless grassland with stands of gum and pine trees.

Uruguay - northern countryside from Rt 5.

The coast towards Brazil is also lovely and, for the time being, unspoilt. We camped for 5 days on a stretch of deserted beach about 30 miles long with no one around. Huge waves, huge sand dunes and us.



Playa La Esmeralda



The past 10 days or so have been spent in or around Montevideo. We didn’t want to stray too far away as it’s quite likely that Grimaldi’s agents could call at anytime to say that the delayed ship has been brought forward so get yourselves loaded now. In fact, as they warn you in their ‘terms and conditions’, they can (and do) change the schedule at the drop of a hat. We have recently been told, for instance, that they have cut out England altogether on this service and that we will now have to get off at Antwerp instead of Tilbury. I, of course, ticked like a meter and demanded an upgrade as some small form of compensation. It worked! We are now being given the ‘Owners Cabin’ with sitting room and bathroom etc instead of bunks in the bilges.

Montevideo Rambla - gale & showers

Montevideo is, thank god, rather like the rest of the country  - “nice”. Although quite a large city, it’s got a good feel to it. There are some wonderful statues in shady squares and a long and popular, but unspoilt, seafront called the Rambla. It has been on a grassy bit of this that we have spent the nights here. The only down-side is that it’s the area where most of the population come in their cars as soon as it’s dusk, to ‘do things’. We are not sure what but they don’t take long.

 

Montevideo - Ox cart statue

We might be loading tomorrow - or we might not. If we do, this is possibly the end of this edition of P&& On the Run in the Americas. If not, I will be contacting you all individually to ask for more cash.

I may do a bit more on the boat, if I can find the time. Bye.

This edition’s competition. Identify this bird and you could win a bottle! (It’s not a little fluffy bird with a big nose sitting on a fluffy stick.)