Argentina weblog - part six

El Calafate to Esquel – Blog Part 6, Argentina - By Bizzie Frost
 
From El Calafate, our plan was to drive 3,300 kms up the western side of Patagonia on the renowned " La Cuarenta" or RN40, all the way to Mendoza, the wine growing Province.  This route is Argentina´s equivalent of the USA´s legendary Route 66 and because a lot of it is "ripio" (gravel), and across desolate areas with very high winds, it can be a challenging drive.
 
Our first stop was to be Estancia Los Toldos, about 820 kms from El Calafate.  The 9000 year old rock paintings of "Cueva de las Manos Pintadas" (Cave of the Painted Hands) are located on this ranch and we hoped to ride up the huge canyon to where they are located.  From the description in the Rough Guide, I did not expect to be able to reach the caves, so had already resigned myself to just enjoying the ride.
 
From what the book and the locals said, the ripio roads sounded intimidating.  However, after being born and raised in Kenya, and having spent many years returning there for holidays, we were all experienced on what are reputed to be the worst roads in Africa.  When we hit the ripio roads, we felt completely at home because they turned out to be better than most of the main roads in Kenya!  Our Eco Sport with its extra clearance coped very well and a real sense of being "on safari" set in. My husband was in his element at the wheel.
 
Fuel scarcity was still a major consideration and between the towns of Tres Lagos and Bajo Caracoles, a distance of 340 kms on ripio, there are no fuel stations.  We arrived in Bajo Caracoles expecting to see a small town, similar to the dusty Tres Lagos, but there are just a few petrol pumps outside a general store and cafe that is also a rather grotty hotel.  We refuelled and noted that there is a road signposted directly to Cueva de Las Manos Pintadas, but continued to Estancia Los Toldos.  The accommodatioin turned out to be charmless, but the food excellent.  It was served by a very good waitress who the following day proved to be a hopeless guide.  The set up was an extremely frustrating place from which to visit the Cueva and getting information was like squeezing blood from a stone.  They had been impossible to contact by phone, but the horse ride could only be booked a day in advance, so that was ruled out.  From Los Toldos, the only way to visit the Cueva was on foot via a steep, sandy and rocky path down the ravine, and then up the other side to a viewing boardwalk with handrails that I could easily have managed.  This can only be accessed from the road from Bajo Caricoles, a drive of about 70 kms.  Chania loved the hike and the rock drawings, but for my husband and me, (as well as another elderly Argentinian couple)  it was a disappointing day due to lack of accurate information.  According to Chania, the boardwalk is not suitable for wheelchairs but absolutely fine if you can walk using a stick and holding a handrail.  The drawings are not actually inside caves, they are on rock surfaces overhanging the boardwalk.
 
We drove on via Perito Moreno to Los Antiguos, a fruit growing town renowned for its cherries on Lake Buenos Aires on the Chilean border,  There is only one hotel in the entire town that takes advantage of the gorgeous view over the lake with snow-capped Andes mountains in the distance and understandably it is the most expensive.  After our Cueva disappointment, we felt that we hadn´t driven thousands of miles to ignore such a view and at only GBP34 for the three of us, it was hardly expensive.  It was wonderful to wake up at dawn and look out of the huge picture window and see the sun rising over the lake and a lone fisherman at the end of the wooden pier, casting his line.
 
The next day, February 25th, became known as our "Los Monos" (The Monkeys) day as we successfully got lost in the heart of deserted central Patagonia.  Our first waste of time was to return to Los Toldos to collect my jacket that I´d left hanging in the wardrobe.  Chania and I then left my husband to his own navigational devices as we had heard him asking for directions in the petrol station.  About an hour and a half down a fast asphalt road, he suddenly asked; "Where is Fitz Roy?"  Chania and I huddled over our map and she eventually found it on the east coast of Patagonia, just south of Comodoro Rivadavia - miles in the wrong direction.  At the next dusty little town, Las Heras, we refuelled and plotted a new route, via towns of Los Monos and Sarmiento, where we would rejoin the main road to Esquel, our next stop.  The people in Las Heras all looked a little blank when we asked the way to Los Monos, but pointed us in the right direction down a ripio road and told us to ask the way to Sarmiento once we got there.  On the map, the distance was roughly 85 kms.  As a photographer, I am constantly on the look-out for things to photograph and after an hour or so driving, I spotted a roofless, derelict white building standing alone in the wilderness of Central Patagonia.  We stopped to take photos, and after a while realised that we were at a junction and this was Los Monos!  From the Las Heras side, there was nothing to indicate the junction and all the signposts faced the other way.  Here we learned a valuable lesson: when in doubt, always check the signposts facing the other way.
 
This area of central Patagonia is in the heart of the oil industry and the only traffic we passed was the very occasional company pick-up or truck.  At another doubtful junction, we did a wide turn on the ripio and managed to get stuck, burying the front left wheel deep in the heap of loose gravel on the edge of the road.  Our desert sand-driving experience came in useful, and after digging the stones away behind the wheel, we took the rubber foot mats out of the car and placed them in the tracks and reversed out - with Chania pushing and me cheering them on.
 
By now, Chania had introduced us to the ritual of "Mate" (pronounced mahtay) - the national drink of Argentina.  The Argies are big on sharing food and drinks  (their beer comes in giant sized one litre bottles) and Mate is the epitomy of sharing.   It is a herbal brew that is served hot in a dedicated container, also called a mate. It is drunk through a steel straw with a sieve at the base, and passed around a group of people, each person drinking it empty before it is topped up and passed on.  Apparently, it has stimulant properties similar to cafeine and whenever we are feeling a little weary, we declare a "mate moment" and Chania servers up the bitter brew.  All fuel stations have a hot water dispenser for topping up travellers´thermoses.
 
After driving 996 kms, we finally arrived at Esquel at 9.15pm and checked in to La Tour DÁrgent Hotel.  After dinner, we watched a firework display from our balcony as the locals concluded a week of celebrating 102 years of the town”s existence.  Apparently, the entire week had been mayhem, with celebratory noise continuing virtually all night.  After our marathon drive the day before, we took things easy in the morning - even the internet in the town was down - so it was a cafe morning, watching the town go by.  A large number of cars in Argentina are well over 35 years old and it is entertaining to watch one battered, dented old car after another rattle its way down the street, often with a tattooed arm at the wheel.  They are generally Fiats, Fords, Renaults, Chevrolets, or VWs. 
 
In the afternoon, we took a ride on "La Trochita", the Old Patagonian Express, our reason for coming to Esquel.  It is a steam train that runs on a narrow 75 cm track to Nahuel Pan 22 kms away.  The original 402 kms of line was constructed at a snail´s pace between 1922 - 1945 to connect Esquel to the Bariloche - Carmen de Patengones main line further north to carry passengers, and freight such as wool, livestock, lumber and fruit.  By 1993, the line was proving to be unprofitable and it was closed.  Soon after this, the Chubut Province took over the running of their section and it has become a major tourist attraction.  Its narrow little carriages with their wooden benches (cushioned in First Class) are pulled by a smoke-belching steam engine through the scenic hills of the huge Estancia Leleque, owned by the Italian clothes magnet, Benetton, Argentina´s biggest landowner.
 
After our train trip, we drove on to Trevelin, only 24 kms away, with the intention of spending the day in the Parque Nacional Los Alerces.  On the way, we stopped to take photos of a huge cloud of smoke rising up from behind the hills on our right.  At our next hostel, the delightful Casaverde overlooking Trevelin, we learned that the area has had no rain for weeks and that the fire was in the park. 
 
February 27th:  In the morning, the Tourist Office informed us that most of the park was closed due to the fire.  We decided to give the park a miss and continue towards Bariloche, one of the main resort towns of Argentina.  Back in Esquel to collect our laundry and stop at our street cafe, the wind began to blow up - just what the locals had been dreading for the fire.  Along with lots of people in the town, we watched as the smoke increased and blew like a huge, dark bruise across the sky.  Meanwhile, Buenos Aires was heavily flooded after a series of huge rainstorms.