Parque Nacional El Rey

We've had a couple of days just getting mileage under our belts.  Camping is getting more popular in Argentina and there are free municipal campsites all over the place.  So we spent one night at the municipal camp in La Rioja, where we were treated to wonderful wedding party music until something like 4am.  Then another night in a municipal campsite near Catamarca where the only other visitors were kids on motorcycles letting their girlfriends have a go, and dogs marking their territory.  Paul had bought the cable and plug we needed to hook the van up to electricity, so after a bit of camping DIY, we had our first hook-up!

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.

Yep, they had to saw a hole in the door so it can be closed.

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.  

Talampaya National Park

On the way to our next stop in Talampaya national park we saw 3 fellow motorhomers, a huge increase in the 0.1 daily average we have seen so far. The first was a German couple in a rugged looking 4x4 overland camper. They had just come from Bolivia and were able to allay some of our fears about the road conditions up there but also warned us of potential difficulties getting the locals to sell tourists diesel. Next was a converted Mercedes van we saw on the road and finally was a cool homemade truck belonging to John and Linda, an American couple who we met in the campsite at Talampaya. Their van was beautiful inside with all wooden ceiling, floors and fittings. We spent the evening there drinking beer and chatting to them about their travels. They had spent the last 40 years traveling the world by various means, bringing up children as they went and had some amazing tales to tell.

The guidebook describes the campsite at Talampaya as desolate and windswept but I think it is quite pleasant, especially the new toilet block where I had the best hot shower I have had since arriving in S America...it's the little things.

The park offers bus, hiking or cycling excursions. The bus was out for us as we already spent a lot of time sitting around in a vehicle, so we decided to opt for a combined walking and cycling tour. What they didn't tell us at the time was that we had to drive the campervan for about 1/4 mile through really deep sand to get to the bikes. It didn't help our confidence that we got stuck in a very small amount of sand coming out of the car park and needed a push from our fellow trekkers to escape! 

In the end it was actually quite good fun driving at breakneck speed to keep up the momentum while we slid all over the place.

The tour was really good and we made sure we had a guide who spoke English this time (well sort of).

The place only gets 80mm of rain a year so all the flora is pretty specialised. We saw trees which lose their leaves in the summer, grow them back in winter and flower and fruit in just 2 weeks during the rains, and plants which have no leaves (to reduce the loss of moisture) and photosynthesise in their stems instead.

There was also some pretty amazing scenery.

Los Libertadores border crossing from Chile to Argentina

Skip this post if you don't want to read all the ins and outs of crossing the Chile-Argentina border via Los Libertadores.  I found it helpful to read about other travellers' experiences, so this is in the hope that someone doing a similar trip will be helped by the info.

There were three tolls along the way, costing between 800 pesos (£1) and 3,300 pesos (£4).  We also stopped off at a shop in El Sauce to buy our international insurance (seguro internacional) - 24,000 pesos or £30 for 10 days.  If we hadn't bought it there we'd have been able to buy it at the border, as Mario had to do because the woman put the wrong dates on his, making it invalid (spotted by the eagle-eyed border dude).

The Los Libertadores pass winds up the mountain in a zig zag, with 29 hairpin turns up to the top.  It's a well-maintained road though, and big lorries were easily clearing the turns.

Crossing the border was quite a convoluted process.  The Chilean and Argentinian border guards are located at the same place, so you're allowed of out Chile and in to Argentina at the same time.  Still, getting across the frontier involved jumping through several hoops.  

1. At the first post, we had to show the dude our insurance document and passports.  He asked how many passengers were in the van and gave us two copies of the same form requesting information about the vehicle and owner (I'll call this Form A) and a long strip of paper with space for lots of stamps (I'll call this the Stamp Sheet) -- it was to be stamped by everyone we saw so that the last person could check that we'd jumped through all the hoops.

We filled in both copies of Form A (Word Lens came in handy!) - think you're supposed to fill them in with identical info cos they keep one and give you the other.  We filled in one each but no one seemed to care.  We then drove on for quite a while until we hit the actual border crossing - if Mario hadn't been with us, we'd have driven right past it -- it's possible to do that so trucks with prior clearance can just go straight through.  There's a sign in Spanish telling cars and buses to turn left in to the border crossing.  Our van only just fitted under - we're 2.9m and the hut you drive through is 3.05m.  Suppose if we'd been taller, we'd have followed the buses.

2. The first booth at the border crossing is for human immigration.  We had to fill in the usual immigration form and also give them 2 x Form A, the Stamp Sheet, our passports and our Chilean landing cards.  They kept the Chilean landing card, stamped the immigration forms, 2 x Form A, the Stamp Sheet and our passports and gave them back to us. 

3. Next we rolled along to the vehicle immigration section.  Here we had to present 2 x Form A, the Stamp Sheet, the vehicle owner's passport and Chilean tax number (RUT), the vehicle registration document and the document written by the notary saying Salvatore gave us permission to take the van out of the country.  First the vehicle was allowed out of Chile - the Chilean rep checked everything was in order.  She put my passport, RUT and vehicle registration document aside quite early on.  She stamped and signed the notary document and kept it, then she stamped both copies of Form A and the Stamp Sheet and passed them to the Argentinian rep.  The Argentinian rep then had to look something up on the computer but there was some problem with some sort of code which meant we had to wait ages, but eventually she stamped both copies of Form A and the Stamp Sheet, gave us one copy of Form A and the Stamp Sheet back and we were on our way.  Oh yeah, while I'd been sorting that, Paul had allowed a dude in to the van to check for things like fruit, veg, meat and other products that aren't allowed across the border. 

Then we were off.  We didn't actually cross the border until some way away.  The frontier is inside a tunnel and marked by little Chilean flags and Argentinian flags on the wall.  Not very obvious and easy to miss. 

4. Some way after that, there was police post where we had to give the officer the Stamp Sheet.  And that was it - first border crossing of the trip done!

Ischigualasto Park (Valle De La Luna)

On Wednesday (2nd October) morning we had our first cup of tea made in the campervan and used our new pan for the first time to make fried egg and pastrami sandwiches - bacon is really hard to find!  Then we filled the van with water and headed off to San Augustin de Valle Fertil.  It's a little village centred around a small area of fertile land in the middle of the desert and is the place most people spend the night en route to Ischigualasto Provincial Park (full of interesting rock formations and dinosaur remains were found there).  The road was nice and smooth and incredibly straight, but undulating like a rollercoaster in places!  There were a lot of shrines along the roadside (maybe for people who'd died there?) and we saw a cow skeleton :o(

After what seemed like ages of driving through nothingness, we arrived in Valle Fertil mid-afternoon and headed to the tourist office.  In Ischigualasto Park, the tours are done driving around in convoy and we wanted to check we could take the van (yes), could we camp there overnight (yes) and was there somewhere we could camp in Valle Fertil (yes).  Unfortunately the municipal camp was a bit deserted and not very inviting.  And nowhere was open for food (damn these siestas!) so we stopped off at a shop, bought some bread (low-carb has gone out the window here), had a snack, filled with petrol and decided to head to Ischigualasto that night.  It was another drive through barren desert along rollercoaster roads, but as we were driving later the light was different and pretty cool.  We got to the park at about 8.15pm.  Tours stop at 5pm but the information office is open until 9pm, so we were allowed on to the campsite, with light, electricity and free wifi (although my iPad wouldn't connect, hence no blog update that night).  

We were the only ones there that night.  There was rain and thunder & lightning and the odd fox running around.  But really, I wasn't scared at all.  I'm just glad we had our own toilet and didn't have to trek to the bathroom in pitch black.

We joined the tour on Thursday morning.  Saw some pretty cool rock formations and had a really informative guide.  But didn't understand much of what he was saying cos it was all in Spanish!  Bit disappointing given that they charge foreigners almost twice the price for Argentinians.  But it was fun testing the van's off-road capabilities (not sure we'll be doing very much).  

Mendoza to San Juan

On Monday (30th) Mario's cousin Fabian gave the van a clean bill of health.  But we had to wait til Tuesday for the alarm to be fitted.  Mario and his parents had to leave Monday lunchtime, so Paul took the opportunity to catch up on sleep in the afternoon, while I went with Mario's nieces Eveline and Micaela, and Eveline's boyfriend Miguel, to central Mendoza to buy a SIM card.  

With Mario gone, I had to speak Spanish full time.  It took a lot of patience from all of us but we managed to learn a bit about each other and 'Operation Argentinian SIM Card' was a success.  

(For info, we've gone with a network called Personal because they're meant to have the best internet service.  We paid 30 Argentinian pesos (a bit more than £3) for the SIM.  That includes 20 pesos of credit, and we topped up so we could buy a 'pack' for 34 pesos that gives us 10MB of data a day for a month.  Miguel had to activate it for us because it involved ringing the network and going through a menu of options.)

The van had its alarm fitted on Tuesday morning.  It's pretty loud and reassuring.  It cost a fair bit, but we decided we needed it after some lads on motorcycles tried to open the door on Monday afternoon while we were inside (with the doors locked).  Mario's nieces saw and came out of the house and they rode off, otherwise we're not sure what else they would have done.

So, alarm fitted and goodbyes said, we set off on the first leg of our road trip on our own!  Our destination was San Juan - about 200km north of Mendoza, en route to the national parks of Ischigualasto and Talampaya.  I think we were both struck by how flat and barren it was.  The road was good and even though we did about 2/3 of the distance we travelled on Sunday, we used nowhere near as much fuel because it was so flat.  There was a random checkpoint along the way where they asked if we had any fruit and let us carry on when we said no.  I also had my first go driving the van!  It's nowhere near as scary as the 25ft RV we had for Burning Man!  And kids have been waving at us as we go past - we almost feel like celebs!

We were aiming for a campsite called Don Bosco that was mentioned in the guidebook, but when we got there, the gate was locked.  Luckily, as we'd stopped, a pickup truck had emerged from the gate next door, so Paul went and asked the woman about camping and it turned out the family allowed campers on their land for 25 pesos (£2.50 ish) per person.  They even supplied electricity and drinking water.  Unfortunately, we've yet to get the cable we need to hook up, so we just charged our devices from the outlet!

The first thing Paul did was wind out the van's awning and set up the BBQ.  

First leg of our road trip!

At last!  We're on the road.  Our first drive was from Santiago to Mendoza.  It's a popular route across the border, over the Andes.  Mario met us at about 1pm on Sunday 29th, with his mum and dad along for the ride as well.  Unfortunately Paula had to work so couldn't come with us.  

We went across the Andes via the Los Libertadores mountain pass - 3,200m at its highest point.  I'd read about the route and seen pictures of the 29 hairpin turns up the mountain, so it was wicked to be there actually doing it ourselves!  Each turn is numbered so you can count up (or down if you're going the other way).  The road was excellent and lorries were managing the turns with ease, although I'm sure there's skill involved!  

Mario (the van) likes to take it easy going uphill, so poor Mario (the man) kept having to drop back so we could keep up with him.  All in all, the drive to Mario's cousin's place in Mendoza took about 7 hours, including a stop to buy insurance and 3 stops to get across the border (I'm writing a separate post on the actual process, as some will find it interesting/useful and most will find it boring!)  Mario says it usually takes him about 4 hours!

Not long after we arrived, Mario's cousin Fabian got the Argentinian barbecue going.  He used wood instead of charcoal.  Mario said it was a kind of wood that catches quite easily but I can't remember what it's called.  Anyway, the Argentinian way is to basically create your own charcoal.  So he got a big fire going, then set most of the embers aside and created a thin layer with the rest.  Then while he was cooking the meat, he kept adding embers as needed.  Mario said Argentinian beef is so good because the country is so flat and the cows don't build big muscles.  But another reason has to be the care, patience and organisation of the chef!

Fabian cooked two cuts of beef, a regular sausage and a black pudding-esque sausage.  It really was delicious - too good to stop and take photos!!  Dinner was quite late actually (a) because we arrived late but (b) partly because that's the Argentinian way.  People work from about 8am-12pm then go home and have lunch and a siesta, then work from about 5pm-late and then go home and eat late.  I was surprised by how different to Chile it is - there lunch is the main meal and little is eaten in the evening.

After dinner, Paul went with Mario to buy ice cream.  The shop was open until 2am!  We were up chatting and laughing with Mario's family until quite late - poor Mario having to translate quite a random conversation involving lots of double entendres!

Paul and I then had our first night in the van.  We're pleased to report Mario is very comfy, although I'm not quite used to not being able to sit up in bed, and bang my head regularly.

On the road

Just a quick update to let you know we're on the road - yay!  But we also now have limited connectivity - boo!  I'm writing blog entries along the way, to be uploaded with pictures when we have wifi.  We've now got a rough plan to drive north through Argentina to Bolivia.  We're in San Juan at the moment where we had our first night camping.  About to try the van's shower for the first time!