Day 296: Ruta Cuarenta – Day 1
Today was the day: the day we crossed into ARGENTINA. To tell the truth, we were bit apprehensive – Igor had read many blogs contrasting Chile and Argentina, and Argentina has a less than stellar reputation when it comes to police corruption, tourist scams and infrastructure. But, we didn’t come all this way to stay in or comfort zone – Chile is absolutely lovely, but sometimes it seems a little too much like the United States (too modern, too convenient, too easy) – it’s time for a new ADVENTURE!
The Chilean border agent was very proper and professional (as one would expect) – he sat in a brightly-lit office, behind a counter with a glass window (covered in tour agency stickers from passing travelers). He collected our PDI cards, scanned our passports into the computer and gave us exit stamps before following us outside to unlock the gates to the road beyond.
Rolling up to the Chilean checkpoint at the Paso Roballos border crossing
We expected the Argentinean guard house to be just beyond the Chilean gate, but we were surprised when we had to drive a good 45min through no-man’s land to reach the other side. When we finally parked in front of the Argentinean border station, we noticed quite a difference. First of all, the “office” was a tiny, dark room with a rough wooden table, two stools for us to sit on, and posters of colonial-era revolutionaries tacked to the walls. Second, *everything* was handwritten into a little a little ledger (no computers).
We were relieved when the agent performed only a scant inspection of the back of our car and didn’t find our last few fruits and veggies (yay! We have dinner for tonight!). He did spot our spare gas canister – we were surprised when he told us in Spanish that it’s illegal to carry gas inside your car in Argentina…really? Lindsay replied that we didn’t know, and that all our guide books said to carry spare gas on Ruta 40 in case you run out in between fuel stations. Even so, supposedly it’s not allowed, but he told us to go ahead with the gas anyways – that was really nice of him!
Crossing into Argentina at last!
We had a good 100KM of gravel road to drive until we reached Ruta 40, but the road was just as scenic on the Argentinean side of the Andes, although vastly different in terrain and wildlife. While Chile was all about lush forests, sparkling blue lakes & fiords, and expansive grasslands, Argentina felt more like a rough and wild desert, except FULL of animals! Horses, birds, bunnies, foxes and more!
The landscape is very different on this side of the Andes – much more “wild west cowboy” than the dense green forests and fiords of Chile
A variety of birds – geese and flamingos – populate the marshy ponds
Dozens of huge jackrabbits dart across the road – one stops just long enough to pose for a picture
ZORRO! We spot a trio of gray foxes as we drive through the Argentinean side of the pass, which apparently was recently turned into a national park
ARMADILLO! Lindsay spots this slow little guy waddling through the brush on the other side of the street while we are pulled over for lunch. He is SO SLOW she is easily able to chase him down for a super-duper close-up when he hides under a bush. SO CUTE!
Slowly making our way out of the Paso Roballos on the Argentinean side
Stopping for fuel at the first gas pump we see after we reach the *paved road* of Ruta 40
We were *so excited* to finally reach the paved road of Ruta 40 – we’ve been driving on gravel road almost constantly since Day 2 of the Carretera Austral, and we been very cautious to make sure we didn’t get a flat tire. According to Lonely Planet, Ruta 40 is, like, 90% paved…oh, except for a 115KM stretch between Gobernador Gregores and Tres Lagos. Igor was at the wheel, since our Argentinean permit only allowed one driver, and even though he was going a respectable 60KMPH we started to hear an all-too-familiar thwump, thwump, thwump, out our window. We pulled over, and sure enough, he discovered we had a flat tire.
DAMN IT.
Well, Igor was a friggin’ pro at swapping out the spare tire at this point, I can tell you that. He had the jack up, old tire off and emergency spare screwed on in under 5min. We looked at the flat tire and discovered a dime-sized *tear* in the middle of the tread, making us suspect that Igor might have run over a piece of metal at some point (we did cross a lot of cow guards). We continued at a snail’s pace for the rest of the afternoon, terrified that we might puncture another tire and get stranded in the middle of nowhere.
OMG! After a week of driving of gravel roads we finally get our first flat tire on the ONE section of unpaved road. UGH!
After an hour of going 40 on 40, we finally return to pavement and increase our speed to 80KMPH (30KM below the speed limit), earning us a lot of angry honks and scathing looks from speeding Argentinos
When we reached the small town of Tres Lagos, we asked the gas station attendant where the nearest repair shop was, and were disappointed to hear that our best bet was to continue all the way down to El Calafate – the southern gateway to Glacier National Park. We had originally planned to visit El Chalten on the northern end of the park first to see Mt. Fitzroy, but the gas station guy said the town was too small. Boo. We might double back after fixing the tire, but more likely than not we would have to skip it.
In the meantime, there was no way we would make it all the way to either El Calafate or El Chalten that night, so we started to lookout for potential flattybouch camping spots on the road. Since Ruta 40 has a lot more traffic than the Carretera Austral (and, once again, cops are rumored to be a little more dodgy), we *really* didn’t feel comfortable parking out in the open off the main road. We decided to brave another gravel road and pull off onto a tiny provincial route that looked like it ran along a nearby lake – hopefully there would be beach access!
According to Google Maps, the only destinations on this gravel road were a few estancias (ranches). Many of them do have lodging, but from our research, the prices are astronomical (like, over USD$400 per night) – waaaaay out of the price range for our road trip, and certainly not the kind of last minute expense we wanted to pay on top of getting the tire replaced. On the bright side, we figured no one would have any reason to drive down this road in the middle of the night, so once we were out of sight of the highway, we could probably park anywhere off the road and not need to worry about privacy. Well, we were mostly right. A farm truck passed us twice as we crawled along toward the lake – once as he was dropping someone off at the highway, and again on his return to his estancia. Each time he passed us, he gave us a scowl as if to say, “What the fuck are you doing on my driveway?” Hopefully he would dismiss us as stupid lost tourists and wouldn’t return in the middle of the night to murder us.
We pull off of Ruta 40 around sunset and take a 15KM detour to park in our *only* freedom camping spot in Argentina, along the banks of the Lake Viedma.
10PM sunset in Argentinean Patagonia