Argentina 2006 Cross Globe Reisverhalen / Travel stories

FROM BUENOS AIRES AIRPORT TO SIERRA DE LA VENTANA

Our plan was to drive for maximum 3 hours in the direction of Bahía Blanca after we landed in BA and picked up our rental car. We considered a longer drive impossible after having spent 14,5 hours in a plane. We wanted to get as soon as possible out of the BA area, which we thought would be a busy urban area.
We were surprised to see that we had been completely wrong: as soon as we left the airport and we hit the RN3, we were in the wide open space: no big city life at all, we could see green fields until the horizon, only a few “estancias” here and there, little towns around incredibly big gas stations and parking places, ... nothing else. Very few people, a lot of birds. When we shared our first impressions with some Argentine people in a gas station they laughed and said to us: “If you find it ‘empty’ and deserted here, wait until you go further south!”
We were so enthusiastic about the “what-a-space!” feeling that we kept on driving, all the way to Sierra de la Ventana (6 hours from BA), a nature area with lots of hills. When entering the village it felt almost surreal to see so many people, restaurants and shops … after having driven through such low populated area. We ended up in an old casino hotel: “Hotel Provincial”. The girl at the reception was really friendly, just like all the other people we had met that day. We really enjoyed that but we were afraid that this friendliness would change into a more “reserved” attitude the further we would go south, to colder places.
By the way, a very positive note: the further we got from BA, the better the weather became: at the end of the day we enjoyed a clear sky and sunshine!
After having traveled so long and having dragged all of our luggage into our hotel room, we didn’t have the energy anymore to go for dinner. We just wanted to take a shower and sleep.
We were convinced we had found a good hotel: a big and clean room, good mattresses, role shutters so that it was dark in the room … excellent! Very soon we found out it was actually very noisy: the guest in the room below thought it was really necessary to laugh and to sing all the time which kept us awake for a few more hours. Eventually we fell asleep anyway.

SIERRA DE LA VENTANA

Sierra de la Ventana is a beautiful and peaceful area, ideal for walking and horse riding. Unfortunately we didn’t have the time to do more there than just driving through it, on our way to Carmen de Patagones. But even the drive was worth it and gave us a good idea about the area. We stopped at the viewpoint where we could see the big hole in the mountain that gives this range the name of “Sierra de la Ventana” (ventana means ‘window’).
We got another nice view after leaving Sierra de la Ventana where we saw train wagons standing in a field full of little flowers. It seemed as they had been used as houses but now they were abandoned.

CARMEN DE PATAGONES / LOBERIA (PUNTA BERMEJA)

We visited Carmen de Patagones - not touristy at all and therefore very cheap. “not touristy” isn’t really correct: there were some tourists but only from Argentina itself but you don’t see the Western or Japanese tour bus tourists or individual backpackers. Most tourists skip the whole stretch between Buenos Aires and Península Valdes because it is a really huge distance and there is not so much to see in between.
We found Carmen de Patagones interesting enough to spend half a day: it’s a relaxed town and has a few beautiful spots. Plaza 7 de Marzo is a shadowy square with a beautiful church. It’s worth to get off that square and to stroll around through the streets that lead to the river Río Negro. There we could admire some historical buildings like a bank and a little tower, the only remainder of a fortress and some colonial houses. The Historical Museum (Museo Histórico Regional Francisco de Viedma) is an interesting museum about the Mapuche Indians and the European colonization.
It was the first time that we got confronted with the weird opening hours of Argentina. When we arrived in Carmen the Patagones at 4pm and went to the Tourist Office we were a bit stressed because we wanted to visit the historical museum and the Carlota house and I asked if we still had the time because it was already 4pm! The people in the Tourist office looked at me as if I had said the strangest thing and he answered that the museum was closed at that moment and would only open again at 7pm! In Belgium and most European countries, museums are open between 9am until 5pm. In Argentina, some museums open in the morning, close in the early afternoon (for the siesta) until 4 or 5 pm and then open their doors again until 7 or 8 in the evening. So we had time enough for the museum and the Carlota house.
In Carmen de Patagones we also discovered that you can get very good Italian food in Argentina. Being real pasta minded people, We would eat lots of pasta in the next 3 weeks.
The next day we visited “La Loberia”, officially known as the Reserva Faunística de Punta Bermeja. It’s the habitat of a sea lion colony located at 60km from Carmen de Patagones (one hour driving, the last 3 km over a ripio road). When we left Carmen de Patagones the sky was dark and it was raining as if it would never stop but when we arrived at La Lobería, the sun broke through the clouds and we were all alone to enjoy the beautiful cliffs and the many sea lions. On the way to the loberia we saw hundreds of very colorful parrots.