February 21, 2019 – March 2, 2019

To get off the island of Tierra del Fuego and continue north in Argentina one must first re-enter Chile, then take a ferry to the mainland, and then re-enter Argentina. We drove to a small municipal camp on the Chilean side of Tierra del Fuego on the first day, then took the ferry to the mainland before re-entering Argentina the next day. We were tired of the frequent rain, wind and cold, and hoped to make some longer driving days north in search of warmer temperatures.

Back in Argentina, we were stopped at a road construction site. The flag man waved us on, Derek turned the wheels to enter the other lane, and that is when we heard a horrible screeching sound. “Do you hear that?”, I asked….of course he could hear it, it was loud. “Yeah, I hear it, but we got to get through the construction site.”

About 1 km down the road, we pulled over on the side of the road and started to investigate. Derek drove slowly on the shoulder while I walked beside the truck to determine where exactly the sound was coming from….front passenger-side wheel.

Out came the jack and the tools, and off came the wheel. Derek determined that the brake caliper was stuck on its slide pin and the front brake wasn’t releasing properly. This meant the front right brake was slightly on as we drove. The disc was hot, but not cooked. Derek used some WD40 to get things unstuck, reinstalled the wheel and with a few brake tests, we were good to continue for now, without the risk of cooking the brakes. Later that night at our camping spot Derek removed both front tires and lubed the caliper slides…. Despite providing a tube of special grease, we suspect they didn’t bother to lube the slides when we had gotten our brake pads replaced in Peru.

While travelling north on Ruta 3 we did do a few side excursions . We visited Parque Nacional Bosques Petrificados de Jaramillo (Petrified Forest National Park of Jaramillo). Here we saw the remnants of a 150 million year old forest, preserved in stone.

Our next detour was to the town of Puerto Deseado, from which you can take a boat tour to see Rock Hopper Penguins. We knew that we would need to wait for the weather to clear up before we could head out on the small boats, but I had read that there was a nice campground with strong wifi, so we thought we could hang there for a few days while we waited out the weather.

The campground turned out to be less than what we had hoped for. Electricity (and therefore wifi) was only available after 7pm at night, and the area was run down and depressing. With no end in sight for the cold wind and rain, we decided to forget about the boat trip and keep heading north. I was a bit disappointed, as I really wanted to see the Rock Hoppers, but the hope of better weather won out.

We also stopped at a point along Ruta 3 to visit a loberia, which is a sea lion colony.

The next detour was to Cabo Dos Bahias to visit a colony of Magellanic Penguins.

The weather did get warmer, although still not hot, but we were feeling the need for some good internet, laundry and a break from the camper, so we used the wifi at a gas station to book ourselves into a small house in the beach town of Playa Union for a few days. We hung out for a few days, did laundry, cooked pizza, and prepared for a further push north.