After visiting the fabulous Torres del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia, we drove our motorhome Vdos toward Argentinean Patagonia. On the way, we passed one of the main mountains of the Torres del Paine, the 2,400-metre-high Cuernos del Paine or ‘Pain Horns’.
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| Cuernos del Paine, Torres del Paine National Park, Patagonia |
Although almost covered in cloud, we could see the spiky peaks that give the mountain its name.
At around lunch time, we arrived at the hamlet of Cerro Castillo. This is where the Río Don Guillermo border crossing between Chile and Argentina is located.
Noticing a crowd of workers heading for a small café, we thought that it must be a good place to eat. So, we entered and found that the tiny room was taken up by one long table, at which all the workers were seated.
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| Cerro Castillo Cafe |
Thinking it was a private event, we started to back out the door, only to be invited back in again by the waitress. She asked what we would like to eat and we pointed to what she was serving the workers, not really knowing what we had ordered because we don't speak Spanish.
She seated us at a tiny table, the only other table there, and promptly served us a fabulous home-made chicken soup with freshly baked bread. It was wonderfully tasty.
After the meal, we were honoured with a hearty and friendly goodbye from everyone in the café.
Back in Vdos, we drove easily through border control into Argentina, heading to the famous Ruta 40.
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| Into Argentina and the famous Ruta 40 |
Ruta 40 is one of the longest roads in the world. It stretches 5,224 km from Argentinean Patagonia in the south, to Argentina's border with Bolivia in the north, running parallel to the Andes Mountains all the way.
In the south, a lot of it is unsealed and remote. But it is famed for its spectacular scenery including deserts, mountains, ancient forests, glaciers and lakes. It crosses 18 large rivers, 20 national parks and nature reserves, and 11 of Argentina's provinces.
It's known as a test of endurance, but has a reputation as South America’s best road trip. We were about to put that to the test.
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| The bleak Ruta 40 |
Many kilometres later, hot and tired, we understood the challenge. After driving a particularly bleak section of Ruta 40, and swerving many times to miss potholes, and wild horses and guanacos on the road, we reached the road to El Calafate and turned off, leaving Ruta 40 for a while.
El Calafate is an attractive tourist town on the shores of Lake Argentino. We found Camping El Ovejero there. It had good clean showers, and a restaurant on site - always a bonus - so we booked in there for a few nights.
Then we headed out to explore El Calafate, which didn't take long as its a small town with a population of around 6,000.
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| Main street of El Calafate, Argentinean Patagonia |
That night, we had our evening meal at the camp restaurant, ordering a lamb skewer. When it arrived, it was absolutely huge, and had enough meat on it for both of us. It was so delicious!
We were in El Calafate because it is the gateway to the southern end of Los Glaciares National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The southern end of the Park is home to the Perito Moreno Glacier, one of the world’s most active and accessible glaciers, and we wanted to see it.
The next day, we drove Vdos up the mountain into the Los Glaciares National Park to view the glacier.
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| Perito Moreno Glacier, Los Glaciares National Park (UNESCO) |
At the Park's Perito Moreno tourist site, we were able to get a really up-front view of the glacier, and some idea of its size. It's around 70 meters high, 5 kilometres wide at the front, and covers 250 square kilometres - it's impressive!
We followed a series of metal walkways, built over several levels to see different aspects of this ancient and huge chunk of ice, and the views were fabulous. We felt we got closer to this glacier than we did at Grey Glacier during our expensive boat trip the week before.
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| Perito Moreno Glacier, Los Glaciares National Park (UNESCO) |
The Perito Moreno glacier is very talkative, with its constant crackling, creaking, and rumbling. We would hear a tremendous boom and rumble sound echoing across the ice field, then if we were lucky enough to be looking in the right direction, we would see the glacier calving, with huge chunks of ice breaking off the main glacier and splashing down into the lake below.
Loving our glacier experiences to date, a few days later, we drove back onto Ruta 40 to get to our next glacier stop which is at the northern end of Los Glaciares National Park.
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| Ruta 40 scenery living up to its reputation |
Driving north, we felt that Ruta 40 was living up to its reputation. It was hard going driving with the push and pull of very strong and gusting westerly winds. But while the road was shocking, the scenery was stunning.
The scenery was also diverse - we drove across the steppes and its desert-like terrain, then lakes and waterways began to appear, followed by colourful hills.
Then we reached Ruta 23 to El Chaltén. We turned off Ruta 40 there, and got our first look at the beautiful Viedma Lake and its mantle of mountains. Then, in the distance, we saw the stunning 3,405-metre-high Mt Fitz Roy.
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| Mt Fitz Roy |
El Chaltén is at the northern end of Los Glaciares National Park, and we were there because we wanted to visit Viedma Glacier.
El Chaltén is a small mountain village with a population of around 2,000, nestled at the base of a huge hill. It is surrounded by mountainous terrain, and the houses have steep gabled roofs to cope with the snow.
We found a campground there that had power and some shelter from the wind. It was overpriced, but had a captive market. Unfortunately, the weather was terrible with very high winds and icy showers.
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| El Chaltén |
We parked behind a rickety shelter-fence, then went for a very windy walk to explore opportunities for trips to the Viedma Glacier.
We found out that you couldn't get very close to this glacier unless you trekked or went by boat, and that the boat trip the next day might be cancelled due to the high winds.
We decided to wait and see what the weather was like the next day, before making a booking, especially as we had seen the glacier at a distance from the road.
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| Viedma Glacier, Los Glaciares National Park (UNESCO) seen from the road |
That night the wind increased and our poor motorhome Vdos, was rocking violently. It was all a little frightening. At about 2 am, we got up and moved her so she faced into the wind, but it wasn't much better!
We had a sleepless night and got up the next morning feeling very jaded.
The weather was still really bad and the forecast was more of the same and getting worse. Despite the appearance of a rainbow over the mountains, which brightened our day a little, we decided to move on.
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| El Chaltén's rainbow |
Our next stop is in the middle of the Argentinean steppes to see a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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