Day 17
Torres del Paine, Chile to Rio Gallegos, Argentina via
Puerto Natales
Who gets to wake up to a view like this?
We had a magnificent morning. I got to wash my girl’s hair
for her and then my own and hear my husband hoot in the distance, enjoying his
own sponge bath. I got to walk next to my boy as he did his record breaking
balancing beam walk on the guardrail. We took in the sights, a waterfall, a
lake, more mountain views, and made our way to our southern-most destination,
Puerto Natales, Chile, where we’d catch a phone signal on Ben’s phone and call
Ben’s dad and my twin baby sisters who were all celebrating their birthdays
very, very far away.
We didn’t stay long in Puerto Natales, only enough to call
folks, gas up, buy food and see a bronze giant sloth.
But this was a big stop for us…because this is where we
finally turned north (after going 2086 miles south from Concepción)! We were finally on our way home! It was 3 May 2014, and
we had a L.O.N.G way to go to catch a family reunion on 8 August. Puerto Natales to Northern California, as the crow
flies, is 6907 miles. But since Jules doesn’t fly, or float, I think we have a
little longer to go than that.
Here's Wells with a rock that looks like Idaho, our final destination (see y'all ~20 August!)
I’ve been in recovery for many years and going to recovery
meetings is important to me. I really want to go to a meeting in every country
we travel to, and the plan was to travel over to Rio Gallegos in Argentina for
one. Unfortunately, after 300km of driving east, we found that the meeting was cancelled for the night due to a church function. They told me to come back
on Tuesday. It was Saturday. We were in Rio Gallegos and, from looking around,
it wasn’t someplace we really were interested in staying for 3 more days.
We decided to get some of that famous Argentinean parrilla.
We asked the priest, who paused from blessing heads, to give us directions to a
recommended place. However, Jules didn’t feel like driving. She’d start, but
she couldn’t idle at all. We could drive, but we couldn’t stop. This is in the
middle of a bustling little city with the Argentinean thing of few traffic
lights at intersections, so you have to guess whose turn it is to go. We pulled
over at a supermarket and unpacked the back to try and get Jules back in
running order. All it took was for Ben to jiggle some wires and then she roared
to life again. Weird. Time for meat.
We found the parrilla joint and ate ‘Cordero al Palo’, or 'Cordero Patagonico', which
is basically a lamb roasted for a long time over coals. It was good. We ate too
much, but more importantly, Dylan finally got the waffle she’d been craving for
days!
Ben wanted to check out the engine a little better before we
headed back into the desert. We stopped at the Petrobras gas station and Dylan
and I soaked up the free wifi while Ben took a peek. At about midnight we
noticed the lobby filling up with guys. There was a boxing fight on the tv and
it turns out it was the Mayweather/Madana title fight. Madana is an
Argentinean, and all these guys—about 40 of them—came to watch. Now, living in
Chile, we’ve noticed that Chileans are a jolly folk who love their sports. You
can seriously hear honking and singing and shouting whenever there is a game
on. And if it’s a Chilean thing—forget it. You won’t be able to sleep without
earplugs. But here, in Argentina, these men were silent. It was so weird.
After the fight (Mayweather won in a close match, no
reaction BTW), we headed out of town and found a spot to camp next to a golf
club along the highway.
Day 18
Rio Gallegos to Bajo Caracoles via Parque Nacional Monte Leon
The next day we continued north and, no joke, this part of
Argentina is barren. Pampas tufts and Mata Negra, Guanacos and, literally,
NOTHING else. For miles. And miles. And miles.
Over the course of the day I marveled at the ability of the guanacos to jump the fences that lined all the roads. Once in a while you see a dead one that didn't make the jump and got stuck. I cut off a little tuft of fur--so soft! I'm surprised we haven't seen handicrafts with their fur for sale.
We stopped at another Tompkins park, now under the
management of Argentina, Parque Nacional Monte León, home of a huge penguin
colony. This was our chance to see some penguins—though we doubted we would
since it was not the right season. But we did! There were 4! Hahaha! The best
part was the wind. We were walking on a boardwalk and it literally felt like we
were going to be blown off. I hammed it up a bit for the kids and crawled a
little. But it was also kinda sincere too. It was really windy. We saw some guy
actually fall off the boardwalk, after we warned him about the wind BTW.
We also had our chance to touch the southern Atlantic Ocean.
We ate lunch on an amazing pebble beach and just relaxed.
I circled the 4 penguins we saw, huddled against the howling wind. I promise they were there! Thanks to Our Open Road for the binoculars!
We hit the road again and drove on and on and on back across
Argentina towards Bajo Caracoles, where we camped along the road.
Day 19
Bajo Caracoles to Paso Ingeniero Ibáñez-Pallavicini via Cueva de las
Manos
Then next morning we turned up the road towards Cueva de las Manos, where you can see a ton of ancient petroglyphs. The caves are 50km
off the highway on a really rough road and tours start on the hour, so if
you’re 5 minutes late, you wait. We were cruising along and noticed something
in the middle of the road. It was a broken down truck and a man was waving us
down to stop. His lips were dry. He asked for help, meaning a ride to his home
30km in the other direction. His wife and two babies were visible in the car.
He explained, frantically, that they had spent the night in their truck after
breaking down at around 8pm. We told him to get in and turned around.
We made some friends. Javier and Marisol (and their babies
Johnny and Omar) invited us to their home to share some mate and we learned
that they had stopped 5 other cars, who told them that they couldn’t help
because they were trying to get to the caves. Incredible.
The Cueva de las Manos was one of those places that I will
never forget. I had a hard time not getting emotional looking at the hands.
These people, over 8000 years ago, did something simple that lasted. There were
little baby hands on the bottom, bigger ones on top and even one with 6
fingers!
You can see the Guanacos
More Guanacos
Blue hand
Pregnant Guanacos and the moon
Lizards
Prints from the Ñandú
Can you see the 6th finger?
Something freaky
Fine lines and geometric shapes.
We had to boogie to try to get to the border crossing so we
could get to Coyhaique for a little dinner party hosted by our friends Brian
and Anna. We were not successful and missed the crossing at Perito Moreno,
Argentina and decided to head up north to Paso Ingeniero Ibáñez-Pallavicini to camp, and cross in
the morning. We found a tidy little place on the side of the road and went to
bed.
