Menelik, the windy estancia...

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The place has only electricity from 8pm to 11pm by generator....the wind is blowing madly 24 hours a day, and still we fall in love with Menelik.



Menelik is an estancia at the door of the Perito Moreno National Park. It has nothing to do with the Glacier which is a good 450km south of here.



The Perito Moreno National Park is one of these "lost" parks...it's just 90km away from Ruta 40, at the end of a gravel track. Imagine, the closest petrol station from Menelik is a short 200km!



So after Los Toldos, here is Menelik where we stay for 2 nights. The car need a rest...the driver too....and obviously Leslie and Tiffany can do with more fresh air...outside the car. We shared our stay and dinner the first night with three photographers from US and Argentina making a book on the local birds....pretty interesting dinner. But by next morning, we had the place for ourself...nice!



Picture a comfortable home, with nicely cooked meals, in the middle of nowhere. The wind is blowing non-stop...making the home a refuge...and we don't even need music, we have the wind!



We arrived by 4pm...settled, than planed to go on a little walk. There was a little too much wind...and too much water flooding the area around...so we kept it to the local grounds. Menelik is a working estancia...translation, it's a cattle farm! They have cows, horses...and few funny dogs...great for the kids!



They go twice per month to Rio Gallegos for groceries...it's just a 600km one way....for groceries! So here, it's meat...meat and meat. They killed a cow the day of our arrival...so forget about lamb, we would do with beef...at every meal!



We had a first night nice dinner...nice bottle of wine...and early in bed! Next morning, plan was to visit the national park. We spotted tons of guanacos (lama family), choiques (little ostriches), tons of rabbits, cows, flamingos, even condors, plus a fox...the only missing one was the puma.



Menelik is 20km to the entry of the park. Crazy wind as usual...on a track making me think I'm ready to do some "rally driving"...but maybe not with this car. We registered first with the lonely ranger. Seems they have only 1200 visitors per year here...The ranger explained to us the three options when it come to tracks, all reaching a different lake. It's not really an option to walk anywhsere from the ranger station as the closest lake is 10km away...I've got two kids...and it's too windy and not specially warm!



We made it 500 meters further on the first track...till we found a nicely flooded track...sorry, no way...at least not without a 4x4. Next...we were more lucky, we did around 10km from the ranger station...even passing one or two nicely flooded area....but the third was too bad for me, I was simply not going to risk it. So we simply backtracked, and made it for lunch to Menelik.



The afternoon was going to be one of these great afternoon....we made it with Marcello on a 4 hours horse ride...wow, that was amazing, beautiful...and yes, slightly windy. Hot chocolate was waiting for us on our return....the kids would be in bed early that night.



Night morning it was already time to hit the road...more gravels...a funny adventure...and finally reaching El Calafate....way south...so more to come soon!

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