Entry #12:

This entry was sent with enormous difficulty due to poor communication opportunities some days ago and lost in the ether, hence the delay in updating.

6th February, El Calafate.

Our stay in El Calafate began with a spectacular sunset on the evening of our arrival, seen from the windows of a restaurant from which enjoyed panoramic views of the Lake Argentino.

The following day we spent in housekeeping and looking at the very tourist oriented town that however managed to charm. It is a young town developed almost entirely for the traffic to the Perito Moreno glacier and park. The sunshine was welcome and all enjoyed the respite from travel.

The following day the four cars set off to travel 48 miles to glacier park. The road runs alongside the lake for most of the way, its powder blue colour always attracting the eye. Although sunny the air was crisp and chill as it poured off the mountains and glaciers towards the Patagonian plain.

The last  few miles were rather chaotic because the road is being paved and resembles a construction site in which the carsw act as compactors for the stone layers which precedes concreting. In the last few hundred metres we were directed past the road we had intending to take onto a track which disgorged into a car park, most of which was taken up with a huge spoil heaps and giant Tonka toys loading materials.

Walking towards the water that we could see through the trees, finding a picnic table in a stand of trees we paused to eat the lunch brought with us. All around new facilities are being built mostly in wood and of superb design and finish. We walked to the shoreline and found ourselves at a loading jetty for the boat trips which we were not going to do. A new walkway, under construction, gave no access and a little disheartened to think we might not be able to reach the walkways we had seen in the brochures we looked at the glacier in the distance.

Returning to towards the car park a determination set in  not to miss the opportunity and Johny and I walked back towards the place where  we had been diverted and realised that the cars had been diverted only for a few minutes while a concreting machine had been manoeuvred into position and that there was an access road. We walked up the steep and partly finished road, the others followed by car and in 15 minutes reached the top of a hill from which the Perito Moreno glacier could be seen, its 5Km front directly before us. We descended the walkways, although beautifully built and positioned they have no indication of direction or destination and so one had to guess or try all of them to discover the different views.

And what a spectacle it is. It is difficult to convey the drama of the forward bulge of the glacier. A few kilometres back up the mountain the glacier, which combines from several tracks is combined and squeezed between the flanks of two mountains before spreading out and dipping into the lake at its foot. The bulge in the centre is both forward and down 180 metres to the bed of the lake and it has sometimes reached the far bank of the lake, when it forms a dam to divide the lake. The water in the undrained half then rises until it bursts through the dam, creating an ice tunnel through which the water again reaches a uniform level.

The distortion of the ice by these pressures causes it to creak, groan and fracture with load report, often in the late afternoon when the sun has been on the face for several hours huge spires and columns of ice break away and fall into the lake, where several minutes later the reappear as bergs with an attendant ring of smaller chunks.

The guide book advises  that an afternoon at least is needed here and it is easy to see why. There is an endless curiousity to spot the next face to fall and all the time one is distracted by the noises of the glacier. With such a wide face it is not possible to view it all at once and as the sound of a major fracture travels slower than the break itself, one is often only in time to see the resulting splash rather than the fall.

Concentrating on a smaller front can bring results, but the temptation to turn to look at a sound in another  direction is such a distraction that one often misses the next fall closetr at hand.

Sated at last we returned to the cars and with lingering glances we reluctantly made our way down from the viewpoint and the return run alongside Lago Argentino. This lake is the largest Argentine lake and the third largest in south America. With a surface area of 1600 square kilometres. Its depth keeps it at a constant 8 deg C, under a cloudy sky its surface represents molten lead, but the polarized blue is mesmerising when the sun shines.

7th February. El Calafate.

We left our comfortable and friendly hostel refreshed for the horrors that lay before us. The next section of Route 40 “La Cuarenta” “The 40”, has a reputation of ferocity. It had been described to us as variously ‘only possible with four-wheel drive, passable with extreme care, a car eater, not suitable for those unused to its ways’.

Retracing the 32 Kms to Route 40 we turned north and passed over the first 37Km paved section, the next 30Kms were unpaved but relatively benign, passing the foot of Lago Veidma, followed by a further 57 Km paved section to Tres Lagos. This was possibly the last fuel stop for two days, as the one petrol station in the middle was known to not always have supplies. Tanks and cans filled we launched onto the ripio in two pairs separated by about 20 minutes.

The next 114Kms seemed to take all our energu and concentration to navigate, the stone highway, which although wide and relatively flat had all the descriptions of surface we had encountered to date and a few new ones. At times we were able to maintain about 25 mph and at others we crawled aver the rippled areas, casued by wind erosion of the smaller particles leaving a surface like a flat beach with the tide out. This was probably the worst surface as the bumps unsettled the rear suspension and the cars, lurched sideways in unctrollable hops, slowing down being a perilous activity if the brakes were touched.

At Lago Cordiel we turned to the east for the final section of the day to Gobernador Gregores. A curious feature of this body of wateris a dark blue patch in the middle, said to be the suspension of solids, at that point, by currents in the lake. It was certainly evident and under the gradually gathering rain clouds we found ourselves travelling over a new surface of hardened mud.

The road began to narrow and with a few Kms had become little more than a single width track, with deceptively deep drainage chanels at either side. This, it has to be remembered, is the main north south route on the western side of Argentina. Passing would have been difficult between opposing traffic and we were fortunate to not meet any for almost the whole 60Kms.

Towards 19.00 hrs we reached the edge of an escarpment and descended into a wide river valley, as the light left the sky and the first fat drops of rain spattered the dusty windscreens. The narrow and slippery road delivered us to a narrow concrete bridge over a rive lined with tall poplar trees and onto a paved road into the hamlet of Gob. Gregores. We were prepared to camp, the only option we had been able to find in advance, but were fortunate to call at a restaurant where the owner had a house opposite that we could rennt for the night.

As the rain intensified we were quickly under cover and G&T’s appeared to revive our weary selves. We ate at the restaurant and were relieved to find the rain had stopped as we walked back. The cars looked forlorn in the street lights, wet, bedralgled and streaked with partly washed dust.

8th February. Gobernador Gregores, Santa Cruz Province.

We left the town around 09.00, passing the statue of a gaucho on horseback at about 1.5 times lifesize. The proud symbol of this part of Patagonia, reflecting its more recent history and European ancestry.

The road ahead was by all reports  worse and more intense than the day before. There were no intervening towns or stops and we had 155 miles to reach Baja Caracoles.

Almost immediately we entered a section under construction, the new road, driven straight and avoiding the bigger obstacles was crossed and recrossed by the old. The path in places not obvious, so much so that  at one point, Rusty went off to investigate a road, only to return from having had a birds eye view of the construction and the correct route.

After 71 Kms we reached the junction with route 29 and the road resumed a more straightforward course. It being Sunday we were able in places to take advantage of the road under construction, freshly grqded as it was seemed preferable to the poor state of the old road, unrepaired for years.

LATEST SCORE RIPIO 1 – AUSTINS NIL

At one crossing point, we were leading and I noticed as we slowly regained the new road the chummy turn sharply to the left and halt, as I thought to wait for the others to catch up. After continuing for 5 Kms we stopped to determine the route and waited for the arrival of the other three cars. After 29 minutes or so a car stopped and said that our party were stopped back along the way with a broken axle.

Hurriedly retracing our steps we approached in trepidation of what might be found. The chummy was resting on its nearside front wheel and offside axle the wheel and hub being tucked up under the wing. The first view showed that the kingpin had moved up through the axle eye and the hub mounting points until the hub could leave the end of the axle and the car dropped to the ground.

Jacked up, the damage  appeared to be minor, the steering drag link bent, the thrust washers and king pin plug missing. The mystery was how it had happened as the pich bolt, which should hold the kingpin in place, was still in there and tight.

Whilst Vince and Stan put the parts together, eagle-eyed Chris found the thrust washer a few feet behind the car. The components went together and a new cap was found in stores. A roadside anvil was assembled and the drag link persuaded back into shape with the help of the 2Lb micrometer.

The ripio is a place where help and support is always on offer. Most passing cars stopped to enquire or at least receive thumbs up before continuing. One even donated bread rolls for the soup being brewed on the roadside, the time now approaching 17.00 and a chill wind blowing.

Once the axle was together again, the mechanics cleaned up as best they could and we set off to our night stop at Baja Caracoles, reached at 19.50. The day had included 155 miles of which 119 were on ripio, deemed on this day to be named ‘killer ripio’.

Baja Caracoles a dusty windswept place featured inBruce Chatwins ‘Patagonia’ and lived up to its reputation for a line of windswept  poplars bent under the weight of the incessant wind. The down at heel bar of the hotel, the only gathering place for many miles was the preserve of  a bunch of weather beaten locals, drinking, smoking and falling silent as any stranger passed through the bar or indeed Caracoles.

Asking if we could eat there, enquiries of the kitchen were made and we enjoyed homemade soup,  ravioli and the ubiquitos crème caramel or as it was known here German Bread? We went to bed to the sound of the wind whistling past the doors and windows and you could almost here the tumbleweed brushing past the outswide walls.