Ruta 40 & El Chalten

Route 40
Route 40 is Argentina's longest highway.  It stretches from the north of the country all the way south along the western edge.  Its famous in the same way our Route 66 is famous, huge long highway across the largely untamed country.  Its still mostly just a “ripiro” or dirt road and the trip to Bariloche to our next destination, Chalten took 2 full days of driving.  Most people just fly but we had the time and it was just slightly cheaper than flying.

Ruta 40- Headed South

I think the thing that amazed me most about the trip is how much wildlife we saw on the way down.  You'll see some of the pictures but Patagonia looks and feels like a total wasteland.  There are no trees and the vegetation that survives is the very tough and usually dead-looking tufts of grass and tiny hardy plants that go on for miles and miles.  But as I said, we saw tons of life.  Alpacas were constantly on the side of the road as were sheep.  We also saw an armadillo sort of animal, some flamingos, ostriches, ducks, jackrabbits, and lots of birds (we think they might have been condors).  I think some reasons for seeing this diversity is that we couldn't go faster than 40 km/hr on the dirt road and the roads aren't generally the death traps that they are for animals when they're paved.

The tour also included a tour of the “Cueva de las manos” or “Cave of the hands” which is an UNESCO world heritage site where the natives a long time ago did a lot of rock art on these cave walls.  The interesting thing is that the main feature, the hands, were painted in the same way you would spray paint a hand.  They got their pigments into a dust, put their hands on the wall, and then put the paints in a hollowed out bone and with their mouth blew over their hands, creating a stenciled hand on the wall.  It was very interesting and I thought of my Mom and her studies of rock art out in New Mexico.  I think she would like this place a lot.

Cuova de las Manos

Chalten
Chalten is the “Trekking capital of Argentina”.  It sits on the north end of a national park dedicated to the glaciers.  It's main attraction is Mount Fitz Roy which is a very impressive set of spires jutting straight up from the ground.  Unfortunately for us the weather never did clear all the way so we only got an occasional glimpse of the mountain but we did get to capture some of the crazy weather that goes on here.  Both days we were here, in Chalten it was nice and sunny but up at the mountain it was always shrouded in clouds.  And the wind was like nothing I've experienced.  At Laguna Torres, which the site of our first day's hike, we were almost literally blown off our feet, which you can see in some video we shot in our photo album.  The wind here is pretty much constantly strong.

The second day we tried to get a view of Fitz Roy and headed up a different way.  However, as you can see, while we got some good shots, we didn't quite get to see the whole thing.  While we waited for it to clear, I got to make some time lapse movies of the clouds while we chatted with a young family from southern Colorado that we met.  Eventually, we gave up and headed back.  On the way back (as well as the previous day) we encountered some woodpeckers looking for food.

I think the more expensive and more touristy a place you go to, the more the locals dislike you.  I sense that here (the most expensive place we've stayed) where most of the locals are a lot more impatient and seem annoyed with the fact that you're even there.  I guess we can't help that, but its definitely something to remember as we head to places like Machu Pichu and the Galapagos.  So far we're going a little bit over our budget but we're hoping to make that up once we get to some of the cheaper countries (not Chile or Argentina).

El Chalten