Route 40: The Only Way Out is Through

El Chalten was our next stop after the glaciER, complete with two days of hiking and some camping in the middle. We just managed to get our gear and food organized as siesta sunk into the quiet, tiny town (where there is one ATM that no one believes is reliable and only satellite internet for $4 per hour). At one point while repacking, Trish remarked that her bag was very heavy. A few minutes later she removed several souvenir rocks she has tucked away in a pocket. Yes, you could call Trish and Barb overpackers.

I was a little reluctant to head out hiking and camping yet again. Doesn`t it all look the same? But the camping was actually very comfortable and warm, and we rolled out of bed somewhere around 10am the next day. The scenery was almost the sequel to Torres del Paine, complete with towering rock formations and lots of mud. Tonnes of mud. At one point we took a trail that traversed near some lagoons, and somewhere between an hour of ankle-high endless puddles and Trish falling into the mud up to her waist we just sort of gave up on being dry. The views of Cerro Torre and Cerro Fitz Roy were both obscured by thick cloud, but what we did see was spectacular. I imagine the area, which is very popular with rock climbers, would be a really funky place to come back to in the summer. I hope by now, on blog post 20 or something, I`ve earned the right to use `funky` in a sentence.

Barb and I forgot our waterbottles at the top of one of the lookouts, and didn´t remember until we were halfway down the (rather steep) hill. Is a water bottle worth saving? Well, mine had some commemorative stickers on it and a basketfull of nostalgic memories. I ran back a bit to catch up to some girls who we had passed going in the other direction, and explained where the bottles were. Down here there are only so many towns and only so many spots in those towns; we knew the pair from the glaciER in El Calafate. In fact, as recent as El Calafate I was still bumping into friends from the Navimag ferry in the grocery store. Barb and I endured, bottleless, for the rest of the day. When we got back to the most popular hostel in town later that night, the girls were gone, but the bottles were sitting in the kitchen. A patagonia miracle!

The stretch of land between El Chalten and the Bariloche area is mostly a dry, empty, endless plain. Travelling on the one lone road that links the cities, Argentina Route 40, is one of those quintessential Patagonia travel experiences that sounds like such a good idea on paper. Two small lanes. Gravel. 1400km. Car rentals were prohibitively expensive (2400 peso drop-off fee) so we booked tickets with the only operating company that made the 28 hour trip north. That bus left at midnight from a small house in El Chalten with a full load of intrepid gringos, a full metal screen across the front window (to protect from rocks), and very few perks.

Given the delay in writing these entries, I admit that the ride was a bit of a blur. It was incredibly hot the first night, I remember waking up in a sickly sweat and seeing the bus windows covered in condensation. There were no movies of any food, I figure the rattling of the road made any sort of disk playback impossible. It sure made reading a stomach churning delight. At one point the bus suddenly stopped at the side of the road and the bus attendant ran out, running up a small hill next to the road. It took a few seconds to realize that he was chasing some sort of ardvaark. Eventually he grabbed it and brought it down for us to take a look at. Adorable. Three minutes later we were back to monotonous open road.

We stopped at towns en route, if you can call them that. Bajo Caracoles was a gas station with some small yards around it, I peed behind one. Rio Mayo had two little corner stores where I bought bananas. We ended up in Gobernador Costa around midnight on the second night. The driver and attendant immediately sat down in the only restaurant to enjoy a spaghetti meal. The 30 minute stop pushed iteself to 90 minutes. The biggest stop, where we switched buses, was Perito Moreno. We ate pizza there. How many of you can brag that you`ve eaten pizza in Perito Moreno?

Did we go a little crazy on the bus? You bet. It`s hard to say whether diving into such a tedious overland experience was a mistake or not, but we got where we needed to go. At somewhere around 3am, Barb jostled me awake. We quickly passed through the bus aisle, exchanging some brief, groggy eye-contact goodbyes with some of our new bus friends. Lights flickered on in the deserted terminal, heralding our arrival in civilization at long last, in the city of Esquel.

Maybe I can buy a Route 40 bumper sticker now or something. Anything, but not another bus ride.

Now bear in mind that all this happened a while ago, and the inevitability of falling behind in the blog has happened. I have some text amassing but another bottleneck is often finding a computer with the speed and capability to upload pictures. So you`re not getting any pictures today. However, Barb has been kind enough to sort through our thousand pictures and upload some of the better ones. They actually look more impressive than I remember. Check them out here.