To The Lighthouse

We left the campground in Gaiman before the other campers were awake. 

Argentines towing trailers appeared overnight and the place was packed when we pulled out. We had jobs to do in Trelew, the main city founded by the Welsh miners in 1865. It’s just one more architecturally uninspired Argentine city now but it had a fully equipped oil change shop at 110,000 miles GANNET2 was ready for fresh oil. 

His brother lives in Pinecrest Florida and he’s on his way there in June (mid winter) for a vacation. We got fresh oil for $110 and the change for $65 and we provided the filter. Breathtakingly expensive fur South America. We change it every 5,000 miles and I hope the next will be in Brazil or French Guyana. 

Next door was Willy, the guy anyone with a large vehicle in Trelew goes to for a wheel alignment. Our front left tire had been starting to show signs of uneven wear so after we got them rotated last week this was the place to get the front end aligned. 

KISS another 65 bucks good bye and it was eleven am and time to shop for good. We had some beach camping on our minds. GANNET2 ready to go: 

Layne likes to get fruit vegetables and eggs from fruit stands not least because they are fresher and also because they aren’t refrigerated. Argentine is horribly expensive, on a par with the US and I’m done ways worse. Shopping is more enjoyable in Chile. 

One area we do fiend less is for regular gasoline (“Super”), which costs about $5:20 a gallon in Chile and is around $3:75 a gallon in Argentina. Another oddity is we get an excellent exchange rate on our VISA card. Dollar bills go for about one thousand pesos to the dollar but the credit card exchanges at around 1100 pesos to the dollar. Odd but very welcome. 

The plan was to load up with groceries at the supermarket, some steaks from the butcher and meet Sue and Hugh at the Punta Ninfas (“nymphs”) lighthouse, a spot famous for orca spotting. 

The only annoying problem was 50 miles of gravel on provincial road 6 starting at the town of Rawson (another formerly Welsh community). I stopped to sit down the tires to make the ride more comfortable and it was a lovely spot. 

We are less than half way up Argentina still firmly in Patagonia. 

You’re just going to have to believe me when I say it looks much smoother in photos than it is in real

life. 

When locals speed on gravel they tend to create what’s called washboard, small parallel ridges across the road that cause your suspension to bottom out repeatedly. 

So you either drive 50mph to try to smooth the bumps out or you drive 15mph to minimize the shock. 

With the tires at half normal pressure I varied the speed between ten and twenty mph as the smoothness of the road allowed. 

And it wasn’t bad or perhaps I should say that after twenty thousand miles of Latin American roads we’ve seen worse. Much worse. 

It’s not on this scale of map but there is a road that goes from Rawson straight to the lighthouse (“faro”) on the coast. 

And the local land owners don’t want you hunting or taking their wood, not that I could see anything that might resemble firewood. Argentines love to grill meat on an open fire. 

We did see signs to various ranches (estancias) but of other vehicles we met but four driving the opposite way. One was a Sprinter tour van, two were private cars and one looked like a farm pickup truck. Most of the time it was us and the air conditioning and the book on tape. And a few sheep:

It took about three hours of not at all technical driving, trying to avoid the worst of the washboard and me grumbling about following those bloody Canadians into the worst roads… which is an exaggeration of course. 

We had some adventure drives with Hugh and Sue in Colombia’s coffee country following their Land Rover down ghastly steep muddy trails but we ended up having a grand time and that was the plan here. 

It went on and on. 

There’s a sand dune across the road at one point.

Hugh nonchalantly drove across it he told me later but we stopped and decided this wasn’t going to work for us. However there was a bypass cut into the bushes and we used that.

Too easy. 

The washboard got worse as we got with five miles of our destination and we reduced speed to walking pace even as my cursing at the distant Hugh went up a notch or two. Bloody Canadian and his crazy ideas. Finally we reached the lighthouse. 

And in the distance a mile away on the headland we saw not just one Land Rover but several vehicles. 

High and Sue, a family of four from Utah and a German couple in a Sprinter van. Quite the congregation. 

The cliffs were impressive. 

And some locals from Rawson were chasing fish. 

They use a rather South American piece of improvised assistance to start down the cliffs: 

It’s a long way down:

We parked next to the Land Rover and made a wind break do we could sit out and all tell lies. 

The couple called overland for good, also known as Scott and Keri (with  their two children) told of their four days stuck in the salt flats of Bolivia. They went off the track and got lost in an area where the salt wouldn’t support the weight of their Toyota camper, so they and two others got stuck breaking through the salt crust. It took a massive reducer operation to get them all out. GANNET2 is not going on the salt when we get there as we will hire a guide.  

One hell of a spot. Wait till you see what we saw. Tomorrow.