On Sunday (6th) we decided to drive the 450km from Catamarca to El Rey National Park thinking it would be a good scenic diversion up north as we headed to Salta. We had a couple of stops to go to the supermarket and to get some ice cream.
By the time we were anywhere near El Rey it was about 8pm. And what the guidebook didn't tell us was that the road leading up to it is not to be attempted in a motorhome at night! It's 37km of uphill, unpaved, bone-shaking road that can only be driven at a maximum speed of 20km/h. That meant we faced almost two hours of rattling at snail's pace up to El Rey. Worse still, about 5km in we were brought to a halt by a river - yep, right across the road.
At that point I was thinking "No way, we've gotta turn back". Paul, on the other hand, had other ideas. He got his flip flops on, jumped out the van and started wading across to see how deep it was!! Luckily it turned out to be "not that deep". So across the river we drove...and we made it! But my relief was short-lived because it turned out there were 5 rivers to cross in total, Paul dutifully getting out and testing the depth of each before we made the crossing. After what seemed like forever, we finally made it to the gardeparque where there was a sign that said 'Camping and Trails: 10km'.
Argh! There was no way we were driving another 10km along a rubble road. So we decided to park there and explain ourselves in the morning. In the end, not long after we'd had something to eat, a park warden came and checked what we were doing. Luckily he was more than happy for us to camp there for the night and head to the actual campsite in the morning.
On Monday (7th) after finally making it to the actual campsite, we decided to trek to the park's waterfall. For some reason a 20km round hike seemed like a good idea after surviving two hours bumping uphill in a motorhome. I was regretting it after 4km of walking uphill in the heat, constantly batting away mosquitoes (Avon Skin So Soft Original Dry Oil Spray really works! Mosquitoes hate it!) And there were more bloody rivers to cross by jumping on stepping stones.
It took us 3 hours to get to the waterfall.
It wasn't exactly spectacular, but it was refreshing! In all, we were out walking for something like 6.5 hours. On the way back Paul found a swing:
But it didn't last long...
That's me done with walking for the rest of this trip.
The drive up the bumpy road wasn't exactly worth it, I wouldn't recommend it but I'm glad we did it. This photo of the only toilet with a seat on the site sums it up.
This was the shower:
The drive down the rubbly road in the day wasn't so bad. On the way up, there was a weird hairpin turn for no apparent reason. At the time, Paul had joked "There's probably a massive drop in the middle." Sure enough...
So we left El Rey this lunchtime (Tuesday 8th) and are now in Salta. One of the hostels has kindly let us have a hot shower and use their wifi for the princely sum of 20 pesos (just over £2). We've also put our laundry in for a service wash and will get that back tomorrow evening. So we're going to do some touristy stuff here tomorrow.
