Day 297: Ruta Cuarenta – Day 2
Wow – freedom camping in Argentina is not as fun as Chile. As if our anxiety over safety wasn’t bad enough, the WIND coming down from the mountains was brutal! It howled like crazy all night and even rocked the car back and forth – no doubt, we in Patagonia! We awoke a good hour earlier than normal and decided to get an early start back out of the gravel road – good thing too as our surly friend in the white truck drove down the road and passed us *again* about 15min after we started driving. He gave us another death stare as if to say, “I know you camped illegally on my land, you assholes.” Whatever – he never saw us *parked* anywhere, so he can’t prove anything!
A beautiful sunrise over Lake Viedma
With shoddy bridges and bumpy gravel roads like these, it’s an Argentinean Miracle we only had the one flat tire!
Once we reached the pavement again, we chugged along at a weak 80KMPH all the way to El Calafayte. Even though there was always *plenty* of room to pass us, all the Argentinos would lay on their horns as they swerved around us, seeming to take pleasure in cutting us off within inches when they pulled back into the right lane. Look, we know we are going slow, but there’s no need to be dick about it! Plus, the posted speed limit on Ruta 40 is seriously fucked up. The only reason we know the limit is supposed to be 110KM is because we read about it online. If we went by the *posted* limits, we would be incredibly confused as they have 40KM & 60KM signs everywhere (which NO ONE obeys, BTW) – it’s like there was a discount sale on signs and the Argentine govt. just bought a bunch and decided to randomly place them along the road.
We finally reached El Calafayte around 9:30AM and drove to the nearest gomería (tire repair shop). Most businesses in South America open around 10AM, so we had a short wait, during which time we made friends with the owner’s pet Golden Retriever. Unfortunately for us, when the tire guy arrived, he took one look at our busted tire and said it was unrepairable. The tear was too large for a patch and he said we would be in danger of blowing the tire to bits if we tried to drive on it. He recommended a tire store to buy a replacement.
A doggy begs for treats while we wait for the local gomería to open shop. When he tells us the tire is unfixable, he sends us to a tire store on the other side of town
Any of my friends and family have a Subaru? Ever had to replace a tire? I know for a fact my aunt & uncle in Connecticut did – I was joining them for a visit to Martha’s Vineyard one year when their Subaru got a flat. We spent the rest of the weekend driving around on a spare tire because Subaru (for some INSANE reason) has a *different sized tire* than every other car. (Weird, when they market themselves as an outdoorsy, all-terrain brand with 4WD on all their car & SUV models – you’d think that flat tires would be a common problem for their customers.) Not only did the first tire shop we visit not have the size in stock, they called 2 other stores in town for us and verified that NO ONE had Subaru tires. They recommended we return to Chile and look for a tire shop in Punta Arenas. URGH!!!!
In the meantime, the tire shop did offer to patch our busted tire so that we would have a second “spare” tire in case we got another flat, but they warned us to drive super slowly if we ended up using it and it was for an extremely emergency only.
Yeah, no way a rock busted this tire. While it’s not repairable, the tire shop gives us a patch to use only in an extreme emergency if we pop *another* tire on our way to Punta Arenas
Even though we had our marching orders to return to Punta Arenas, we didn’t see the point in hitting the road immediately – after all, there was no way we would reach Chile before businesses closed for the day – so we decided to keep driving carefully on our spare and finish our sight-seeing around El Calafayte. After all, the roads around here were 100% paved, so if we drove slowly we should be safe from another flat tire (even though we may get beaten to death by frustrated Argentinos).
Our first attraction was the Glaciarium – a museum solely dedicated to glaciers. It was highly recommended to us by our pal Luciano from the Seabourn Expedition Team (he is a Calafayte native and one of the curators of the museums…so a bit biased…), and it was pretty cool (Jaja! Pun intended!). There were lots of plaques and videos explaining the formation of glaciers (old news to us by now, as we had attending many of Luciano’s lectures on the cruise), and reiterating the sad FACTS that REAL SCIENTISTS agree that climate change is happening at an unnaturally fast rate and rapidly destroying glaciers all around the world.
After jamming 2hrs. worth of edu-tainment into our heads, it was time to kill a few brain cells, so we headed downstairs to the Glaciarium’s Ice Bar for some shots of Fernet Branca.
According to our Seabourn friend, Luciano, the glacier museum is the #1 attraction in El Calafate. The “glaciarium” is even designed to look like a glacier
The museum is packed with information – mostly serious climate-based science, although there is a little room for fun and jokes as well!
As we look at the pictures on display, we notice one of a zodiac full of people in orange parkas…kinda looks like a Seabourn excursion in Antarctica! When we look at the photo credit: “L. Bernacchi” – it *is* Luciano from the Expedition Team!
Lindsay feels smart sitting down for a 3D educational film…until she realizes Igor didn’t tell her she had two pairs of glasses on her head
Enough learnin’, it’s time for a drink! Lindsay really wants to visit an “ice bar” – too bad all the drinks were nasty Fernet Branca cocktails, bleh!
We drove back to town after the museum and headed down to the water to visit the Laguna Minez Nature Reserve – a 2KM trail where you can see a variety of sea birds, as well as birds of prey. Initially we thought the trail was kinda lame, especially when we realized we couldn’t get very close to the flamingos, but the action heated up when we started walking through a caracara nesting area – all of a sudden we had dozens of falcons dive-bombing us to protect their nests!
Taking a late afternoon walk through the city’s bird reserve: Laguna Nimez
Lots of sea birds, flamingos and geese, feeding in the waters
A stray dog sneaks into the bird park, on the prowl for some fowl!
The staff warn us that some birds of prey are currently nesting and may be aggressive at one section of the trail – the fact that the stray dog is with us doesn’t help matters! The birds repeatedly dive bomb us as we walk along – Lindsay runs through and cowers in the bushes while Igor stands his ground and tells the birds to, “BRING IT ON!”
The Chimango Caracara – a falcon native to South America
A vicious looking caracara photobombs Lindsay’s picture of Igor!
A Calafayte berry bush (where the falcons love to build their nests) and many wildflowers in the reserve
A Golden Hour view of El Calafate from the Laguna Nimez Reserve, where a Southern Lapwing hides in the tall grasses
A caracara keeps a close watch on us as we leave the park at sunset
Since we were staying in town tonight, we decided to sleep in the comforts of civilization and treat ourselves to both a *hotel* and dinner *in a restaurant*! OMG, y’all, that HOT SHOWER was like a religious experience! And HOT FOOD that Lindsay DIDN’T HAVE TO COOK?!? She felt like a princess.
Talk about luxury! We are staying in an actual hotel tonight – with walls and beds and showers, and a WINE BAR
Hot food and a generous glass of wine – after a week of camping, this feels like absolute heaven!