Ruta 40: Patagonia

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Hola,

We began our epic journey into Patagonia in Bariloche. It would take us nearly two days to get to our destination El Chalten.

First off, a little bit about Patagonia. It is primarily flat grasslands, with some rolling hills. The point we want to get across is that is a massive exapnse of land where there is very little of anything. It occupies most of the southern portion of Argentina. Take a look on a map, it is huge!!!

We boarded the bus in Bariloche and it stopped three times during the day. We visited small "towns", the word "towns" being used very liberally. These places consisted of little more than a couple of streets, three houses, a gas station and 6 dogs. Other than the employees of the gas station, we think the dogs were the only inhabitants in these towns! After El Bolson, we left the mountains and arrived in Patagonia proper. There was only one road. No towns, no houses, very few estancias and next to no trees. The isolation was surreal. After 12 hours, we finally arrived in the town of Perito Moreno. It was the biggest place we has seen since Bariloche, although that is not saying much, and it was our stop for the night.

The next morning, we loaded back on to the bus and headed south once again. We were in store for another 12 hours on the bus but this time, we were told that there would truly be nothing out there other than us, the road, some sheep and a handful of estancias. Animals did start to appear though. We saw some guanacos, which was the last of the four camelids (vicuñas, llamas and alpacas being the other three) that live in South America. We also some some rheas, which are the South American version of the ostrich. One of the odder animals we came across was quite by surprise. All of a sudden, the bus stopped and the driver hopped out and started running into the field. Our minds were split over whether he had to go to the bathroom or whether he had finally gone mad. It turns out that he had seen and armadillo and he picked it up and brought it back to the bus to show it to us. After he let it go, it ran off into the fields, zig-zagging the whole way in a very comical fashion.

We have not really mentioned what the road is like either. Well, it is about 2300 kilometres from Bariloche to El Chalten. No more than 400 kilometres of that is paved. Let's just say that the dirt stretches are quite bumpy. Even though some of them are straight as an arrow for 20 kilometres or so, they are still dirt roads. It becomes quite taxing sitting through these when the bus's has the same consistency as a worn out sofa from 1962.

We eventually arrived in our destination of El Chalten at 11pm. The company we had doen the trip with had booked us into a hostel but had not booked space for the both of us, only one of us. Essentially, we had one single bed between the two of us until one of the staff memebers was kind enoug to give his bed to Peter. He was very kind.

Ruta 40 was long and arduous, but it was surreal and well worth the journey.

Bye for now,
Valerie and Peter

Things we learned on Ruta 40:
-Some dogs can prance
-Straight road does not always equal smooth road
-The way armadillos run is the basis for the way all cartoon characters run

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