Category Archives: Argentina

Puerto Natales & Punta Arenas

February 11, 2019 – February 14, 2019

What I left out of our last post was how, on the way to El Calafate, we had stopped at a mirador, and when we got back into the truck and tried to start it, it would not start. Dutch tourists that we had been chatting with, and who were also about to pull out of the mirador, knocked on our window to see if we needed help. “No, I think we are okay,” said Derek, and so they pulled out. We sat. We cursed and we both pondered a bit. Finally, Derek “bumped” the ignition to cycle the new lift pump a few times, and then was able to start the engine. We continued on our way to El Calafate, neither of us stating the obvious….the truck was clearly STILL not fixed.

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El Calafate and Perito Moreno Glacier

February 8, 2019 – February 11, 2019

Our next stop along Ruta 40 was the town of El Calafate, where most tourists stay before and after a visit to Perito Moreno Glacier. Calafate is the name of a berry producing bush that grows in the Patagonia region of Chile and Argentina and that tastes similar to the Saskatoon berries we have at home. It is said that if you eat a calafate berry that it ensures that you will return to Patagonia….so we bought a jar of calafate jam, as this is a region of the world that is definitely worthy of a return visit.

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El Chaltén

February 4, 2019 – February 8, 2019

El Chaltén is a small village full of outdoor gear shops, hostels, cervecerias, bake shops and restaurants, all focused on servicing the thousands of visitors that come during the short summer season to hike in the surrounding Parque Nacional Los Glaciares. It is a fun and friendly little town, whose existence is completely reliant on tourism.

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Cueva de los Manos

February 2, 2019 – February 4, 2019

Our parts arrived and Derek successfully super-heroed them into the camper, having to make some adjustments to get the new, different shaped electronics to fit into the old space. We hooked everything up, and all systems were go! We packed up the camper and got the heck out of Coyhaique! Cue Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again”.

Flamingos and sheep on the border of Chile and Argentina.
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Blowing through Bariloche, Loving El Bolson and Heading Back into Chile.

December 14, 2018 – December 19, 2018

The town of Bariloche in the Lakes District of Argentina is a place that we had known about long before embarking on this trip. As we got closer and did more research, however, we kept running into one troubling piece of information….it seemed that Bariloche has had a bit of a problem with petty theft and vehicle break ins. Just a day or two before we were planning to arrive we had read about a couple who had parked on the street and went for a coffee in a nearby shop. Half an hour later they returned to find their vehicle had been broken into and the thieves took almost everything they owned. Overlanders, we read, were being targeted in Bariloche, as the thieves knew there would be computers, cameras, iPads and other goodies on board. We decided one lake town is as good as another, so we blew through Bariloche and headed to El Bolson, a town reputed to have a more relaxed vibe that had become popular with the “hippies” in the seventies.

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Villa de Angostura

December 13, 2018 – December 14, 2018

We had read about a restaurant in the town of Villa de Angostura that we wanted to visit, called Tinto Bistro. It is run by the brother of the Queen of Holland (Queen Maxima is originally from Argentina).

The restaurant was great. For starters we had trout wrapped in pastry and a veal and salmon tartar. For our main dish Derek ordered ribeye steak, and I had lamb. We also had beautiful sweet deserts. We also ordered a very nice bottle of Argentinian Syrah red wine from the lower end of a list that topped out in the Cdn$1000s. We’re pretty sure that in Canada, the wine alone would have cost more than the whole meal. This all, after having washed up and put on clean clothes in the camper in our stealth camping spot in a parking lot close to downtown….we do what we can.

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Junin de los Andes, San Martin de los Andes, Camping Libre Chachin

December 8, 2018 – December 13, 2019

We camped for a night on an island in a river that runs through the town of Junin de los Andes, then headed to San Martin de los Andes, which reminded us very much of Banff townsite, with its outdoor gear shops and candy stores. The next day we headed out of town towards the border with Chile where we camped for a couple of nights in a free park-run campsite at the end of a mountain lake….I will let the photos tell the rest.

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Las Lajas, Lago Alumine, Wild camp, Piedra Mala in N.P. Lanin

December 2, 2018 – December 8, 2018

Driving so many kilometres, often on rough roads, means that there is almost always something that needs to be adjusted, repaired or replaced. Probably about 50% of the time when we arrive at a camping spot, one of the first things Derek does after we are set up is get his tools out and work on something. The fridge is finicky and doesn’t always work, screws rattle their way out of the camper and need to be tightened or replaced, one time the electrical connection for the solar panels on the roof was loose or filters need to be replaced on the truck. Sometimes it is more complicated, like when we noticed that the camper batteries were completely discharged and not being charged as we drove anymore. The computer chip governing the relay had quit and so Derek wired a manual bypass… we now have a manual switch in the cab that we need to remember to turn on for charging camper batteries when we start to drive, and off before we shut down the engine so that the fridge doesn’t end up draining the engine batteries. He is one handy guy!

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Lago Caviahue and Volcan Copahue

December 1, 2018 – December 2, 2018

Our guide book for Argentina is not very good. It highlights a few regions of Argentina, but is more focused on luxury hotels and expensive restaurants, and gives only a few highlights of things to do, in only a few regions of the country. So we didn’t really have a plan for what we wanted to see and do in between the larger, well known sites in Argentina. We looked at our map and at iOverlander, and decided to head to Lago Caviahue for a night.

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Atuel canyon, to Malargue to Catch some Cosmic Rays and Volcan Tromen

November 28, 2018 – November 30, 2018

We left the city of Mendoza and drove through several wine producing regions, towards the Atuel Canyon. We watched people raft down a beautiful mountain river as we drove the narrow road built along the base of a cliff. Deeper into the canyon, we began a short series of switchbacks, then entered a tunnel carved out of stone, emerging at the far end to find ourselves driving across the top of a dam. The resulting reservoir was fantastic.

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