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Published: November 19th 2006
When we left Mendoza in the bus it was pretty warm . . . 20 hours later we arrived in Bariloche and, although of course it is that much further south and is therefore going to be colder, I hadn't quite twigged that fact. The bus had been very warm - too warm - and I stepped out into the open air in a t-shirt. Blimey. That was a bit nippy.
After I had recovered from the shock of the cold (which, in comparison to where I am now, was nothing!) I looked around me and realised just what a beautiful setting Bariloche has. The town is in the heart of Argentina's lake district and boy, what lakes they are. I have never seen water so blue and clear in my life.
Having decided to rent another car and drive down the infamous 'Ruta 40', the boys (Alex and Matt) and I first spent three days in Bariloche, which I found to be a lovely town. It is rather touristy, as you would expect and as I had been warned, but it has still retained a lot of charm and individuality. We shopped (I had to buy a pair
Stunning view in Bariloche
I took this while sitting on my horse - impressed? You should be!of trousers to replace the ones that I had accidentally split while in Mendoza - no jokes about too much food, please), ate chocolate (Bariloche produces the finest chocolate in Argentina - although it still isn't as good as Green & Blacks), and went for a half-days kayaking on a stunning lake near the town. I was a little worried at first, it having been years since I was last in a kayak, but Nick (my partner in rowing crime) and I managed pretty well after a wobbly start. Both being right-handed and complete novices, we were a little left-turn biased so we probably rowed about twice as much as anyone else, our route being a little more 'haphazard'. But it was fun, and by the end of the session we were rowing like pros. Well, nearly!
The highlight of my stay in Bariloche was when Alex, Matt and I went to an estancia (ranch) for a days horseriding. I haven't been on a horse since I was a child, and I only remember doing that a couple of times then, so I think it's fair to say I was a beginner. This aside, I had a fantastic time.
For the morning session, Jesus (our gaucho guide) took us on a 2 hour walk around the fields and mountains, which gave us the chance to get a different perspective on the area we were staying in, and it was so beautifully peaceful. The weather was warm and sunny, my horse was very placid (if a little smelly at times) and it was a great experience. After this ride it was back to the estancia for lunch. After dismounting the horse, I realised that my knees had seized up and I couldn't actually walk, or at least I couldn't walk without awful pain. Much hilarity ensued, apparently, at the sight of me trying to walk up the stairs to the toilet. Ha ha. Oh yes, I laughed. Lunch was a HUGE asado (BBQ) with the most divine meat and potatoes I had had in a while, accompanied by fantastic red wine. I got a little tipsy, which only added to the fun of the afternoon's ride and assisted in numbing the overwhelming pain in my knees. During this second ride we took a different route through some green fields and into the forest, ducking to avoid getting knocked off our
View from the road
Andes in the background - we had this pretty much the whole way down. saddles by low-hanging branches. It was a beautiful, if a little painful, day and well worth the money.
So, the time came for us to bid a fond farewell to Bariloche and embark on our 2-day roadtrip extravaganza. We were planning on driving the length of 'ruta 40', a mostly unpaved highway, from Bariloche to El Calafate in 2 days. 1850km. In a hire car. In 2 days. For some reason unknown to any of us, this didn't seem like insanity.
Day one saw us (all slightly hungover) driving from Bariloche to Los Antiguos, a tiny town on the Argentina/Chile border. The drive was relatively uneventful and extremely beautiful - we stopped only for lunch, photographs and to let the most sheep I have ever seen in one go cross the road in front of us. Most of this section was paved, and so progress was good - the only hazard being often enormous potholes in the road that we had to look out for. It wasn't so bad once we'd learned the Spanish word for them, so I could then read the roadsigns and warn Alex if they were coming up. We finally made it to Los
Antiguos at around 10pm and we had been driving for around 9 and a half hours. Dinner and a relatively early night followed.
Day two we set out on the second and final leg of our journey to El Calafate, detouring slightly to visit a UNESCO heritage site called Cueva de las Maños (Cave of the hands), home of some pretty groovy cave paintings set into the rock on one of the sides of the Rio Pinturas canyon. It is said that they are some 9000 years old, and the cave-dwellers that lived there created them by taking dust from the different rock colours in one hand, putting the other hand on the cave wall and blowing the dust over and around their hand. When they lifted it, the shape of their hand was shown in the dust. There were hundreds of hands, covering the cave wall, including baby prints and a six-fingered hand which was a little disconcerting, alongside other cave paintings of men and animals. It was an interesting, if rather costly in time and petrol, detour.
Our journey then continued along the unpaved, loose stone and rock-covered route 40. Te national speed limit for this
road is 80km/h. When either of the boys were driving we reached speeds of up to 120 km/h. I should point out at this stage in the story that this road is in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, with cars passing every hour or so, and that's probably being a little generous. Everyone says that petrol stations and other signs of life are few and far between and it is wise to fill up when you can, and take a spare fuel canister with you in case of emergencies. The hire car we had didn't have a spare fuel canister so we went without, being careful to fill up with petrol when we could. We knew that in the last leg of the trip we wouldn't get to a petrol station for some time (there are so few that they are all marked on the map we had) so we would be cutting it fine but it would be totally manageable.
After we had been driving a while, we noticed a very strong smell of petrol in the car and started to get a little worried. We stopped, and a look under the car and at the faster-than-normally depleting fuel
guage confirmed our worst fears. We were leaking petrol, so obviously at some point along the rough and slippery journey a stone must have ruptured the fuel pipe. We had approximately an eighth of a tank left, and it was around 100km to the nearest petrol station. And at this point we were still leaking fuel, so we were still losing what little we did have. At this point I had a mild panic (Alex wrote 'Emily is scared' into the dirt on the boot of the car - an accurate observation at this point) and it took an enormous amount of willpower for me not to smoke one of Matt's cigarettes. Luckily, we had stopped near where some lorry drivers had pulled over (the first signs of the life we had seen for literally a couple of hours) and, armed with my useless phrasebook (what? You mean there isn't a section about driving a hire car too fast over one of the world's most desolate highways and rupturing a fuel pipe? What kind of rubbish phrasebook is this?!) and the use of International Sign Language, I explained to the bemused drivers what had happened. After laughing with each other
for a little while (oh yes! ha ha! so funny!), and various trips to and from our car and their lorries, they managed to patch up the leak with some rubber stuff. As all of their lorries ran on diesel, they couldn't help us out with some fuel, so the three of us decided that the only thing we could do would be to drive until we ran out of petrol and then wait until someone passed and flag them down.
So this we did, and about 30kms down the road, after the petrol light had been on a fair while, we decided to stop at a junction (again, the first one we had seen for some time), figuring that we would have more luck trying to get help here than on just one road. At this point it was about 7:30pm, and I was convinced that we were going to have to spend the night in the car - a less than appealing prospect, especially considering the temperature-drop at night and the fact that Matt and Alex were still laughing at me for being scared . . .
However, less than half an hour after we stopped,
Proper gaucho, innit
No chance of me running off with this one though, Grandad! a pick-up approached and, again using International Sign Language, we explained to the driver what had happened. And lo and behold, he had a large metal barrel of petrol in the back of his truck! We couldn't believe our luck, and after Alex had gone with him to a nearby estancia to get a hose, he was able to syphon enough petrol into our tank to get us to the next petrol station, around 80km away.
The rest of the journey continued relatively uneventfully, thank goodness, with only the odd moment where I had to tell Matt and Alex to slow down and remember that there was a piece of rubber holding our fuel pipe together. But we made it to the petrol station, and eventually arrived in El Calafate at around midnight after having been driving for about 14 hours. Having been on the edge of my seat for about 7 hours, and despite the fact that we hadn't had a decent meal in about 24 hours I went straight to bed when we got to our hostel, and pretty much fell asleep from the moment my head hit the pillow.
The next morning we awoke and
it sunk in how lucky we had been. Firstly that we noticed the leak near where the lorry drivers were, and secondly how quickly someone passed us by that could help after we had stopped. Considering the road and the sparse environment, it could have been far worse and, although pretty bad at the time, it's given me a pretty cool story to tell now! And the experience has taught me a few things - first, never believe a car hire guy that tells you it's ok to take a normal car on route 40. It's not. Second, if you do believe him, make sure you insist upon him providing a spare fuel canister or get one yourself. Third, don't drive over 80km/h on a surface that can only be loosely described as 'road'. Fourth, always take out the extra insurance on car hire if you know you are going to driving on route 40. Thankfully, we did so weren't liable to pay for any of the damage caused. Phew. Every story has a happy ending, after all.
More about El Calafate in the next post, due to be written up tomorrow . . . I'm determined to get
this thing up to date before I go to Antarctica.
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Russ Pearce
Definitely the bus for me!
Right, that's it. Absolutely no way I'm driving on that road. Great blog and look forward to reading about the far South before I get there. Russ.