Argentina 2006 Cross Globe Reisverhalen / Travel stories

COMODORO RIVADAVIA

From Camarones, we rejoined the paved main road RN3 and headed south. In Comodoro Rivadavia we bought 6 CDs in a huge supermarket because by that time we realized already for a looooooong time that there is no radio transmission outside the cities/towns. We never found the landscapes boring, we liked the vast emptiness of Patagonia, the space (that we lack in Belgium), .... but a little bit of music during the long rides was welcome.

BOSQUES PETRIFICADOS

At a passport control a police man asked us what our next destination was. When I told him we were going to Monumento Natural Bosques Petrificados, he told us there was nothing interesting to see at Bosques Petrificados and that it was not worth the trouble to drive the 50km ripio (one way) with our little car. He had said we couldn’t drive faster than 20km/hour on that ripio and that it was in a real bad shape. Based on his comments we almost changed our whole travel plan …. But we have done that once in China and we still regret that and something inside me said that we should stick to our plan and see it with our own eyes. So we decided to ignore the advice of the police man and to go for it.
And we were happy we did so! With the evening sun we got spectacular views on the surrounding landscape and the “Madre e Hija” volcano. The feeling that we were walking between such ancient trees (millions of years old) was special. On top of that we met again some very friendly people during our visit to the park.

PUERTO SAN JULIAN

That same day we arrived very late in Puerto San Julián (around 11pm). We had to sleep on the campground because all hotels/pensions were fully booked. Just when we had put our tent, it started to rain heavily and it didn’t stop until the next morning. It was a very quite campground, completely different from the one in Puerto Pirámides: no party-animals this time ;^) but we didn’t sleep well because of the constant fear that our tent wouldn’t be rainproof enough in this kind of weather. Peter and I don’t have much experience with sleeping in a tent so we don’t feel at ease in a tent when the wind is blowing so hard and when it’s raining so hard. The next morning we noticed that there had been no leaks in our tent, the only “damage” was that our sleeping bags were a little bit damp.
The weather was not ideal for a dolphin excursion so we skipped that excursion in Puerto San Julián.
We had a long driving day ahead of us: we followed the RN3 south and then the RN5 all the way to El Calafate. The weather was bad: dark clouds everywhere and lots of rain. Still, the landscape was very special: we drove through the typical Patagonion "estepa": a wide, empty, dry landscape, … it was yellow, I guess due to the type of grass that was growing there.

EL CALAFATE

We stayed 3 nights in El Calafate with our main focus to explore the Parque Nacional Los Glaciares (Glacier National Park). This was definitely one of the highlights of our trip and even one of the most beautiful places we have ever seen in our lifes.
As soon as we arrived in El Calafate, we had good luck. First of all we found an affordable room in El Calafate. After that we were just in time to book all the excursions we wanted to do. To top it all of: the dark clouds that were hanging above El Calafate when we arrived, completely disappeared the day afterwards. Nothing but good weather during the Upsala, Spegazzini, Onelli cruise, Nothing but sunshine and blue sky (with views up till the mountains of Chile) when standing on the platforms to admire the Perito Moreno glacier, nothing but sunshine and blue sky when doing the “minitrekking” (1,5 hr walk on the glacier).

Just brilliant! Before we left for Argentina we knew that the weather could be very bad in Patagonia but we had said: “We don’t care if it is bad weather when we are driving, as long as the weather is good when getting to the highlights like the Perito Moreno glacier, Fitz Roy in El Chaltén and the lake district”. In a way we were very lucky weather wise. It was raining on driving days instead of on site seeing days which would have been far worse. So, one of our wishes was fulfilled.
A few remarks on the excursions we did:
The “Upsala, Spegazzini and Onelli” cruise:
This is an excursion nobody should miss. It was fantastic! The magnitude of the glaciers you see is overwhelming. The blue colour and the beautiful forms of the icebergs floating in the water makes you silent. Onelli Bay is a heavenly place where you can enjoy the little ice ”bergs” floating around like art sculptures slowly melting away.
It is a very expensive excursion but even for the budget travelers: you have to do this. Save your money on food, drinks and souvenirs but make sure you do this trip! You won’t regret it.
Perito Moreno:
We spend a few hours on the wooden platforms overlooking the Perito Moreno glacier. You will hear the ice crack and you will see big pieces of ice breaking off the glacier and falling into the water with a lot of noise. We were told that most ice activity is to be seen in the evening.
Minitrekking
It was a very nice experience to walk on the glacier, it was incredibly beautiful (especially when the weather is good) but we found it too expensive for what they offered.

Positive things about it:

• you first take a boat from Puerto Bajo de la Sombra and get the chance to see the south side of the Perito Moreno, so you can skip the “Safari náutico” excursion which does exactly that boat tour.
  
• it was easy going so even young children, old people or people who are not fit can participate.
  

Negative things about it:

• It was an excursion of half a day but we spent only 1,5 hours on the ice, with a lot of breaks.
  
• if you really like hiking, like we do, if you are not afraid of a tough walk, it’s not long enough and not enough action.
  
• we didn’t see any ice caves (I think we got spoiled in New Zealand: we did a similar glacier trekking in New Zealand and entered some great ice caves there, so it was a bit disappointing that there were no caves on the Perito Moreno) I think it’s better to do the “BIG ICE” trekking where you go further on the ice and where you have more chance to see caves in the ice.
  

Just a hint: if you go to El Chaltén, there is an glacier trekking too and it’s much cheaper than the one on Perito Moreno.
We saw 2 bad accidents on the ripio between El Calafate and the Perito Moreno glacier: we think one deadly accident. This reminded us of driving carefully on the ripio. Some people really drove like crazy on these roads … but lots of them end up badly injured.