Now reporting from Ireland and over the next 10 days approximately, hopefully during the week from the Netherlands and Germany where we will meet many of our fellow ‘large and heavy camper friends’ along with their vehicles. I will update the blog with photos and news from our friends over the next week or two.
Here is a resume of our travels to date:
31st March 2013 – Puerto Natales, Chile
We headed off to Punta Arenas, it was a surfaced road so we made very good time.
We went into the town centre to find out where the ‘camping was’ Jan got some information. We headed up to the very end of Avenida Indepencia and couldn’t find it. We then parked just at the end of the dual carriageway.
Claire witnessed a car accident a few metres away from the kitchen window where a woman hit the kerb and overturned her car. She managed to crawl out and some friend arrived and brought her home (we assume). Shortly afterwards that man and we presume her husband/brother arrived and the two men up righted the car and drove it off. After having dinner and cleaning up, we decided to move closer into the city. We weren’t 100% happy with our parking place.
1st-2nd April 2013 – Puerto Arenas, Chile
We got up and did some shopping (mainly, meat, fruit & veggies along with other stuff) at the Unimarc just across the road. Then we headed to the Mall (about 3km away) in the expectation to get internet contact as Claire wanted to update her internet banking transactions.
We eventually reached the Mall, right beside Sodimac and it took a while to sort out where the internet was i.e. in an internet café. For 90mins it cost $CLP 1,200.00 ($CLP200 per 15minutes). After this we went looking for the ferry office at the ferry area to book a very across to Porvenir on the island of Tierra del Fuego, but it was closed. We asked around as to whether there was another office elsewhere that we could make a reservation. We, went out of town about 1km to their main office and made a reservation for this coming Wednesday.
Once all this work was completed, we parked up for the evening and discovered that we had Wi-Fi and after dinner we spent some time on the internet.
3rd April 2013 – Porvenir, Island of Tierra del Fuego, Chile
We spent yesterday Tuesday in the camper using the internet. Claire got a chance from about 17:00hrs onwards using the antenna and got her photographs up onto the website. However only about 3 of the galleries have been tagged so far. Also, she did not manage to get any of the blog text uploaded.
On Wednesday, after breakfast Claire cooked all the meat that was left and also the remaining potatoes so that dinner would be quick when we arrive. All the fruit and vegetables have also been skinned etc. and all the waste left behind so that as little as possible will be surrendered to the customs officials.
The crossing was only about 2 hours and very pleasant at that! When we arrived at the port, they had no record of the booking even though we had made a reservation on Monday last. It turns out we did manage to travel on the 15:00hrs sailing.
4th April 2013 – Island of Tierra del Fuego, 10km inside the Argentinian (southerly) border crossing
Today we were a little late leaving i.e. in around 10:45hrs or so. We travelled reasonably slowly for the entire day as it was entirely un-surfaced once we left the town of Porvenir. The original landscape was full of drumlin type hills. After some distance we ended up I an area where there was a lot of disused gold mines along the river beds. Most of the day the travelling was mainly staggered starting east then south, then east then south again etc. Some of the areas looked quite peaty or boggy. The first part of our route took us around the ‘Bahía Inútil’. Once we reached Cameron we headed east again to Russfin. We stopped here to take photos of the old mining dredger. We continued on to Pampa Guanaco, from here then we branched off to take the border crossing road.
We also noticed that when the land became more flat in parts there was no vegetation worth talking about but in other areas, there were beautiful coloured (due to Autumn) wind swept trees. It was a lovely sight in the wilderness.
The noticeable feature of the day for us was, that we did not see another vehicle on the road until 12:55hrs. For the entire day, I would say we came across a total of 10-12 vehicles.
The second noticeable feature was that once we had passed the Chilean immigration and border post, it was about 4km to the Argentinian ones. The only thing no documentation warned us of nor did anyone else warn us of was at the last minute we noticed a river in our way and no bridge to cross over it.
In the end, we just forded it and hoped for the best. It turns out; it worked out ok for us.
5th-6th April 2013 – La Pista del Andino Camping, Ushuaia, Island of Tierra del Fuego, Argentina
On the trek across the island on both parts, we saw many ‘Estancias’ (stations also known as ranches). We stopped at one of them to take several photographs. The name of this particular one was ‘Estancia Despedida’, I mention this now as if you see 10th April below, you will notice how life can surprise one from time to time.
Just before we reached Rio Grande, we were stopped on the road by ‘thousands of sheep’ (one or two photographs included) the farm hands were corralling them. Neither Jan nor I, have ever seen so many sheep in one bunch.
We did some shopping for groceries in Rio Grande and immediately turned south again heading for Ushuaia.
On the 6th, Claire went in to the campsite office to extend our stay but also to book a boat trip for the morning (7th) out to the island and lo and behold, it was snowing …. Ahhhhhhhhh
7th April 2013 – trip to the islands in the bay of Ushuaia
On the trip, we saw two different types of seals, seaweed kelp, a whale but I am not sure which type, normally these do not appear till about June and remain in the area till about December each year. We also tasted Mate for the first time in Argentina, courtesy some of the other guests on board the ship. The tour included a visit four of the many islands in the bay. It was lovely to be so close to a lot of the wild life.
When we returned to the mainland, we visited two of the local museums. All in all, it was a lovely day, even if it was cold and misty with snow on the mountains surrounding the town of Ushuaia.
8th April 2013 – San Sebastian – Argentina
We left Ushuaia this morning, and on the way out of the town, we managed to re-fill the Argentinian gas flask at a local gas filling station. So now we have almost two full tanks. We are currently using the ‘European’ tank which we managed to fill in ‘Orsono, Chile’ much to Jan’s delight as up to this point, no one would entertain filling up a gas flask that was not from any of the South American countries.
Travelling north from Ushuaia, at Rio Grande almost at the city Police check-point, a flying object hit our windscreen and has done a lot of damage.
We were travelling on a lovely surfaced road, but this object came from the truck of an oncoming vehicle. You can imagine the mind-set and humour that both the driver and co-driver ended up with for the remainder of the drive that day. One again, of course the truck driver that caused the damage was long gone within seconds of the impact. We discovered later on the trip speaking with locals, that the main insurance that foreigners cannot get if they hire a vehicle in Argentina is ‘windscreen cover’ but mainly because of all the gravel on the un-surfaced roads. C’est la vie!
Our plan is now to use the ‘northerly border crossing to return back into Chile’. We travelled to be relatively near the border crossing for the next morning, however we arrived at the crossing much sooner than we expected and the camper was not ‘ready’, so we overnighted at the crossing itself and travelled back into Chile first thing the next morning.
9th April 2013 – Punta Delgada, Chile (on the mainland)
This was one of the very interesting days that we have had, both unplanned and very enlightening. From the border crossing until we reached the mainland later this evening, we travelled on un-surfaced roads.
The beginning of the journey this morning was peppered with a lot of oil pump rigs, some large, some small all sorts of varieties. As we went further inland, we came across the undulating hills with mainly scrub land and of course plenty of estancias scattered along our route.
In the early afternoon, we noticed one farmer on a quad, fixing a fence. Further along this road, we had stopped to check something on the camper and this ‘farmer’ came across us and asked could he take a photograph of the MANKAT, of course we agreed but he informed us that he didn’t have his camera on him at that moment, he would have to retrieve it from his estancia and return to our spot on the road. To make a long story short, it ended up he invited us to his estancia, Mario and one of his workers namely Camillo showed us all around this farm and afterwards we had ‘afternoon tea’. It was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon. We took many photographs around the farm, and in like manner Mario took plenty of photographs of the MANKAT and Jan gave the men a tour of the camper as well.
Later in the afternoon, we reached the port. There was a large queue but the frequency of ferries like most of the ports in this general area is high. We only had to wait for about 20/30 minutes and we were on our way to the mainland. We arrived at Punta Delgada and ate in the restaurant at a Hosteria at the side of the village. It was a set meal, good and wholesome.
10th April 2013 – Comadante Luis Piedrabuena – Argentina
As we had quite a few Chilean Pesos left over, our plan was change them as soon as possible. We had done some research as to where they could be changed. Up to now, we have only used the ATM at banks to avoid the huge queues and bureaucracy that each transaction entails. Our plan was to look for a ‘cambio’ (currency exchange).
As we were departing from Rio Gallegos, we need to fill up with fuel and water, this process can take up to an hour or more depending on the size of the filling station. As it turns out on this occasion, while we were at the pump, a woman approached Jan and told him that they saw us on the island of Tierra Del Fuego after we had crossed into Argentina (after the Radnan border crossing) they noticed Claire photographing on their Estancia (see 5th April above). We had a decent chat with them at the filling station, they like ourselves were filling up to the brim with fuel, they i.e. her husband and two sons were travelling north for about 2000km to attend a wedding. So, you can do very little in the big Yellow and Green vehicle without being noticed. By the time we had filled up with diesel and filled up our water tank it was 15:30hrs approximately, so we decided to drive late in the evening to make up for some lost time. We stopped driving in/around 18:45 hrs. today, which is one of the latest times we stopped, we prefer not to drive when the light fails or in the dark.
11th April 2013 – Fitz
We tried to cash the remaining Chilean pesos into Argentinian but in the ‘Santa Cruz’ bank in Cmdte. Luis Piedrabuena they couldn’t do it and recommended Caleta Olivia. We did some shopping in the local La Anonomi supermarket and then hit to road. We drove all the way to Fitz Roy and stopped for the night there. Claire took some photos of the bridge in the area, with the water from the river we could see some lovely green after days of dry scrub all along the route. We also noticed a few Nandu and some Guanaco’s, but they are getting scare and scarcer.
12th April 2013 – Trelew
We got up at about 07:05hrs and were driving by about 08:00hrs. We wanted to make the bank (or Thaler cambio) reasonably early as they close in general at 13:00hrs and also on Fridays, we notice huge queues. As it turns out we ended up parking along side of the road (Claire remained with the car and Jan headed off to it on his own). When he got to the cambio, they one in the guide and also on the website did not exist anymore at the address, but a different one did and he managed to exchange his CLP for ARP. It was best that he change them sooner than later and the rates in this part of the world, change dramatically and very speedily at times. When we reached a suburb of Comodoro Rivadavia we also filled up with fuel as we are about to leave the ‘southern part of Argentina, where the state subsidises fuel. As it turned out we only needed 326L of fuel as we had filled up completely further south in Río Gallegos.
13th April 2013 – Trelew
Today, after a lot of driving, we took the day off and spent a lot of the day, ‘Skyping’ people back in Europe. Some family and friends contacted us and vice versa.
14th April 2013 – Puerto Pirámides, Península Valdez
We drove into the park and spent some time at the entrance/interpretative centre which we found very interesting. It is a few kilometres further inside the park perimeter. We also went up into the tower and had a look at all the surrounding area. The land is mainly flat with low lying scrub type plants. While in the centre, we were told that we would have to park at the camping (which makes us very wary, as most of them cannot cope with our height and/or they are not on level ground or have width problems for our vehicle; however we decided to continue on and see what offerings there was in Puerto Pirámides). To our astonishment and delight we found at the end of the beach this place for Motorhomes to park. The municipal camping is closed (we assume because it is not summer).
15th April 2013 – Puerto Pirámides, Península Valdez
Today we went for a drive around the peninsula and saw: Orcas’, seals, birds, penguins and they were moulting, elephant seals, armadillos. Ironically, we saw not whales as I mentioned above, it is not the season for them, and we were just very lucky further south. The information that we received at the interpretive centre when entering the park and the map that they gave us was excellent. Even though there is quite a few kilometres between each of the locations to be visited, it was a lovely day, no crowds queuing up anywhere (we are out of the peak season) and the weather could not have been kinder to us. Another of those memorable days on our long trip.
16th April 2013 – San Antonio de Oeste
We visited one remaining sight on the north side of the peninsula before we hit the Ruta 3 (north) where they have a replica of a 16th century church. They also have built an interactive centre in this area and the guide here was also very informative and helpful to Jan and I. There is also a ‘tidal island’ just off the coast and even in the 1-2 hours that we spent in this area, you could see the difference in the water levels. The tidal range in this entire area is close to 9 metres per tide.
After our sightseeing in the morning, once we got onto the main road, we just drove and drove. When we stopped for the day, we went into the town and did some shopping for food for about 3 days supplies.
17th April 2013 – Baja Hondo
Our plan for last night was in fact to park in Bahia Blancha but as it turns out this did not happen. We ended up overnighting in the village of Baja Hondo. There was a grain mill in the village and Jan suggested that we ask and see if we could visit it. We did and our gracious host was ‘Cristian’ who spoke English to us (very helpful) and showed us all four levels of the granary along with meeting some of the rest of the staff. We wished them every success for the future and later in the morning after the visit we continued north.
18th April 2013 – Azul
We went into the town in the morning and did some domestic shopping. For the rest of the day, it was just driving and driving and more driving.
19th – 24th April outskirts of Buenos Aires and Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires
We had to go into Buenos Aires for a day or two as we had ordered replacement parts that has been used up when we got the repairs done after the accident back in Lota (February 2013).
In the Puerto Madero region of Buenos Aires city, (fairly near to where we arrived in Buenos Aires one year ago) we arrived in town about 13:30hrs, the place was alive with people and cars for us, a real disaster to find a parking place for us. All the parking places are taken up by locals out for the Sunday, a day of rest and asados (barb-a-cues) and festivals. Eventually we just drove around and around and we spotted some trucks in the distance, we drove over to that area, initially we tried to park behind another truck and the local self-designated park attendant or driver (we were not sure) told us to move over to another area (only metres away) and we managed to park there.
When we had settled in, we decided to go walk about. The weather was lovely and we had a real insight to this lovely renovated ‘port’ area of Buenos Aires. We had early drinks in a café along the water way that evening. On returning to the camper we stopped in an area with all food stalls and had our evening meal, leaving that area a few metres behind it we stopped and wallowed for a while at one of the ‘street dancing’ venues. To see the locals just dancing on the street to the local music was lovely.
The next day, we made our way to the business address where we managed to pick up all the spare parts. From here we made our way back to our parking area. We started our preparations to return to Europe.
25th April 2013 – Ezeiza Airport, Buenos Aires
26th April 2013 – arrival into Schiphol airport, Amsterdam and then onto a connecting flight to Dublin Ireland. After that, we took a bus to Navan, Co. Meath.
Since then, we have been visiting Dublin quite a bit for family visits and the very normal domestic issues. This coming week, we plan to visit the Netherlands to visit family members and friends and also visit our friends and the bi-yearly get-together of our friends who are interested in, or who already have an off road vehicle, some of course being large 4X4 and/or 6X6 off road vehicles.
