Blogs from Santa Cruz, Argentina, South America - page 16

Patagonia is breathtaking.Good luck with weather. I might have traded in some Spanish for Italian and Portuguese (portañol) trying to converse with other tourists. Lost in Los antiguos but I'm trying to make my way to Chile today.... read more

After an amazingly fun Christmas in Bariloche it was time to head south to see in the New Year in Ushuaia. Ushuaia lies just over 1500 kilometres from Bariloche, so its 4 days of driving, 2 border crossings and a ferry to catch across the Magellan straights to reach our next stop, so with a quick goodbye to the staff at Los Coihunes we get an early start to hit the road… Whilst its summer over here and we’re essentially chasing the sun for most of my trip as we head south we’re heading into colder territory. Ushuaia has an average temp this time of year of 10’C…. So it’s away with the shorts and vest tops, and on with the thermals, lots of layers and sitting on the truck covered in blankets, just as we’re ... read more

We've reached the southern point of our two weeks Patagonian Odyssey...we've reached El Calafate. But first, there was the road from Menelik to El Calafate...some 480km with few gravels kms on the way. I did get 10 extra liters of nafta (fuel) from the Estancia Menelik at a serious premium, but that was what it was...long journey, without a single petrol station on the way. First, 80km on gravels...went smoothly, we left early...life was good... Than 40km on a proper road...nice....than it came...180km on gravels. Sometimes it's fun, when the gravels looks like stones, I don't really like it anymore! It went mainly smoothly...thinking that pretty soon, we are already doing this road one more time, on our way up. The gravels road finished at Tres Lagos...and 2km from Tres Lagos, I found a flooded track. ... read more

We haven’t reached the end of the world, aka “La fin del Mundo” in Ushuaia, but trust me, this place feels much more remote than Ushuaia does. Once we left Esquel north of us, it’s on for a land where men are pretty rare. Most tourists will hop on and off of planes to Bariloche, El Calafate or even Ushuaia. Then you’ve got the more courageous, who are taking busses in between each point of interest. But by doing so, you lose all the fun of getting alone in the middle of nowhere. Ideal was to rent a 4x4 to go around…but trust me, prices are steep. I went for the “crazy” option of renting the cheaper car Avis had. Made sure to let them know ahead we were heading 1500++km south….took the insurance, and we’ll ... read more

Well Folks it has been awhile since our last update so we have lots to tell about our latest travels. After leaving Coyhaique we were driven with the common goal to head south to see more mountains. We started south the day after getting out of the Castillo range, leaving behind dark sky and unforgiving rain. Or at least that is what we thought we were doing. To continue south our route traversed us across Chile into Argentina. As soon as we entered Argentina we encountered the strongest wind any of us had ever experienced. The wind reminded us of the storms on the Oregon Coast during winter when foam from the ocean gets blown up onto the roads and houses. We drove and we drove. As we went south the terrain grew more and more ... read more