Gobernador Gregores

The Patagonian devil wind was honking when we woke up parked in the middle of nowhere along the gravel section of Ruta 40. January 15th was Layne’s birthday celebrated previously by going to check out those icebergs so this day was a work day.  GANNET2 swayed in the breeze and the roof fan rattled and the air conditioner next to it on the roof groaned as 40 mph winds plucked at our home and pushed and whistled on by. I was glad not to be in a tent or a vehicle with a pop up roof. The map shows our route over the next slow moving week or so. We are planning a slow drive. 

We have developed the habit of slow starts in Patagonia. It gets light around five but it’s usually pretty cold and bleak. For some reason Layne does her best sleeping in the early morning which gives me time to get up and if we have Starlink out or a strong cell signal I can write up previous progress here. 

By the time we were ready to get on the gravel road for the last 29 miles it was 10:30 and we reached pavement two hours later. Patagonia:

There is often fierce debate in the US among the few youngsters contemplating a PanAmerican journey on the value of four wheel drive. For those seeking to impress and make money producing videos it’s important to show off huge tires and dirt roads and impressive drop offs. For the rest of us whatever we have is what we use. This RV was built in Brazil: 

And they rattled off down the dirt at full speed ahead. 

We have found no cause yet to regret driving our Promaster which we find to be comfortable and the correct size for us. With our own design it is simple enough to not need full RV park facilities to function but it is also large enough to give us a comfortable home easy to park most places. 

The consensus among travelers is not to bring travel trailers south. We see them everywhere in Argentina as locals take off with their families for summer vacations.

Like in most endeavors the perfect equipment is less important than the desire to do something. Indeed we’ve met Europeans  in expedition trucks who wished they had something smaller to drive, while others love their huge machines. It just depends where you want to take your compromise, in comfort, off road travel, or ease of parking.  

We stopped to ask this Argentine couple in an older Mercedes if they needed help, not that I’m a mechanic, but they smiled and waved us on as he held onto what looked like a replacement hose. 

Argentina and Chile have a well developed RV culture and if you want to explore these countries you can easily rent an RV or truck camper to spend a few weeks exploring.  

I admit I got pretty fed up with this unexpected chunk of gravel highway as I only drive dirt to get somewhere or see something and I don’t like to drive dirt just for fun. I like time to brace myself and get my head in the game. Being surprised by gravel gets me irritated; silly me.   

We are planning a scenic drive through Chile on the famous (to some) Carretera Austral (southern highway) when we cross back into Chile in a few days. Parts of that road have yet to be paved but we are prepared for that on our way back through the fjords to Puerto Montt. 

There is a campground near the lake but the reviews on iOverlander are mixed, and mention that the shower is cold water in an overhead bucket was enough to convince smelly us we need better facilities to induce us to park our first world backsides and pay money for the facilities. We pressed on. 

You can imagine I was delighted to see snow in the frigid distant hillsides. 

And finally we reached the northern end of the damned gravel. No fanfare, no signs just a blessed relief from the noise and dust clouds.  

There was nowhere sensible to pull off for lunch so I made do at the entrance to a farm gate served by a dubious looking culvert that gave me room to get well off the highway. Layne put a couple of empanadas in the air fryer. They are Argentina’s national food found everywhere and in this country are baked meat pies that look like pasties.

Rusty went hunting and found a delicious guanaco foreleg to snack on. I left him to it and his resurgent wolf instincts that seem to be drawn to the surface by wild Patagonia. I did not share any kisses with him for several hours after his lunch. 

Not one sign of anything human anywhere in sight. 

The track faded away to nothing with no farm buildings or any sign of human activity on this side. Not even a power pole. Cañadon Molinari sounds like an Italian immigrant built his farm in a nearby valley but it’s out of sight. 

Lunch with a view:

The SOS poles continued for a few miles on the pavement but they were planted in the most eccentric spots, across gulleys, on hill tops and a couple of them even were behind fences requiring athleticism for a stranded motorist to call for help. 

By early afternoon we arrived in the town named for a former governor of Santa Cruz province, Gobernador  Gregores.  This is, you will be delighted to know a farming town noted for making jams and growing tulips, not that we saw any sign of either activity. 

It has a rather pleasant town square which resembles a very nice pine forest. 

Rusty thoroughly enjoyed it and it was easy to pick up after him as the park is well supplied with trash cans. There was also a plaque to a local resident who was disappeared by the government in 1976 when he was 22 years old. Argentina has a long history of dictatorships and political cruelty. 

Indeed this town, population 5,000, founded in 1922 by an Austrian immigrant who set up his blacksmiths shop along the river, has its own dark moment in history. This area known as Cañadon Leon (Lion Valley) was the scene of some barbarity in 1921 when soldiers caught and executed striking farm workers. 

We did some food shopping at La Anonima the Patagonian supermarket chain and managed to get a few fruits and vegetables not too limp but prices here will make you sweat. Layne figures it’s more expensive than the US in some foods and the minimum wage here is $400 a month. They may be ripe for another revolution. 

After World War One infested wool prices the value of sheep herding sank and Patagonian farm employees in Chile and Argentina found themselves under employed and underpaid and starving. So they had the great Patagonian Revolution of 1921 which unaccountably did not make it into my history books. 

No one knows how many farm workers were executed after they surrendered to the army because their lives were that valuable but historians estimate up to 1500 and a few were shot in this farming town. 

Nothing much happened after that until 1958 when someone decided to rename Cañadón Leon and they called the town Gobernador Gregores, after a provincial governor so undistinguished he seems to have dropped off the historical map. 

There is nothing special about this town though I will note the absence of any prominent churches which is a reminder that Spain never populated Patagonia so baroque colonial church architecture never made it down here. 

It looks fairly suburban full of small homes more or less middle class, no stray dogs and an attractive statue to celebrate the cowboys of Patagonia. 

And there is one YPF gas station. We saw lots of overlanders stopped here apparently for the night though there are prettier options around town. We drove north. 

We drive north half an hour and found a pleasant slightly protected spot to drive the night. 

I have found that bridges seem to offer intended open spaces good for wild camping. The water encourages trees to grow so you get a pleasant garden feel and a wind barrier as well. 

This is overlanding. Drive, look, park. Notice how I parked up against the trees with the sliding door opening downwind. Sailors know that objects blocking wind through a wind shadow three times wider than the height of the object. 

So twenty foot tall trees should protect sixty feet of dirt from the full effects of the wind, plus we have GANNET2’s body for added protection. 

It was a pleasant spot and largely garbage free. The road was a gravel

provincial highway with hardly any traffic at all. No signs of farm vehicles or nearby activity. 

But we were not alone for long… a motorcycle drove in as we were eating our dinner of air fried eggplant with lamb chops. He found a spot around the corner and of course we flagged him down.  Turns out he was from Denver, Colorado and he set up his tent around the corner in the bushes. 

Mason works in construction and has spent the past year riding a Yamaha Teneré 700 around South America. We had a lot in common and lots to talk about surprising perhaps because he’s thirty years younger than me.

I’m hoping we meet again down the road.  He’s planning a slow ride north to build a Land Rover camper to take off longer term. Or maybe he’ll stick to motorcycles. Choices, choices. 

You don’t say good bye, you say see you down the road. 

Time for us to plan our next small step north. 

The Damned Of Ruta 40

I can’t make my mind up about Patagonia. It’s summer so some days it’s bright and colorful and the clouds push overhead and you get a spring in your step. 

It’s a vast open space, empty to a degree that leaves you feeling like a speck on an ocean of withered grasses, and it makes famous lonely roads in the US look positively suburban. 

The Santa Cruz River, wide rushing past our campground full of energy. 

Poplar trees (“Alamos”) are common around here or at least they are if there are any trees at all. They grow tall too and seem unaffected by the endless winds. 

Patagonia was named by Ferdinand Magellan when in 1520 he encountered a very tall local whom he called “patagon,” a term that was thought to refer to people with big feet but lately it’s believed there was a giant in a popular story of the time called Patagón, and in any event the name has stuck. 

Patagonia is not clearly defined but it is roughly the area of southern Argentina and Chile with a northern boundary where you prefer. Generally in Argentina the northern edge is the Rio Negro though you can pick your own line while in Chile its northern edge is just south of Puerto Montt. It’s a huge area.

We’re still a long way south and that’s why it’s so windy here. We’ve seen 60 mile an hour gusts but it’s famous around here for winds strong enough to knock you to the ground or to rip the door off your car. We know of one overlander blown out of his truck who fell to the ground and broke a bone. Caution is the watchword when the wind howls. This far south winds blow around the southern oceans with no land masses to stop them so they sweep Patagonia uninterrupted. Every iOverlander camp site mentions wind protection ton or lack thereof. We park for the night bearing wind direction in mind. Rooftop tents on top of cars and  tents on the ground get blown around routinely. We were looking for this gravel pit to get out of the wind but we couldn’t find it. We figured the grading of the road had covered the exit to this spot but relief from the wind looked nice on paper. 

And there you have it: Patagonia the lovely and Patagonia is the awful. Colors and sunshine and gorgeous clouds and then the wind and abrupt weather and harsh conditions. I want to love Patagonia but I can’t. It’s fascinating and bizarre but so repellent. 

You drive through country that looks like the Great Plains or the western states and their hills and escarpments. I see buttes and mesas as we drive like we were in Arizona. It’s so bizarre and disorienting. And then you spot a turquoise glacial lake to remind where you are. 

Check out these pictures for yourself. There’s nothing here, nothing at all beyond the always irritating fences.

In the photo below is a road maintenance yard. There are no electrical wires or poles, no radio or phone antennae.  No workers or signs of life either. 

On this drive the vast emptiness continued with no signs of human habitation or work. There  are no farmers, no tractors, no work crews, no tracks or farm roads, no herds, no signs, no electrical wires, and no indications anyone lives or works here. 

There’s nothing out here. Nothing. 

It’s actually quite intimidating. I used to mock America’s loneliest road as we drove highway 50 across Nevada. It was a great drive and I’d recommend it but lonely it’s not. This place really is empty. 

Everyone stops at La Leona a hotel and restaurant with mixed reviews. Layne bought a brown paper bag of empanadas, baked meat or cheese pies and they were really good, well filled and flavorful. 

Rusty took advantage to stretch his legs and let his tail fly in the endless wind. 

And then back into the void. 

We arrived at Tres Lagos, a village dying a slow economic death with stores closed and windows papered over. Even the police checkpoint was abandoned for the evening. 

There was a gas station but to our surprise they didn’t take credit cards so we cobbled together enough paper to buy five gallons and leave us some cash. In theory we had plenty of gas to get to the next big town a hundred miles away but around here keeping the tank as close to full as possible just feels reassuring. 

Later we were glad to leave the village of Tres Lagos with at least three quarters of a tankful. Oh and I had time to be enchanted by some puffy cloud formations. 

And then the evening went to shit. Suddenly the asphalt ended and gravel (“ripio”) began. Wasn’t that a lovely surprise putting us in the position of wondering how long the hell this went on. We burn a lot more fuel per mile in low gear skidding across dirt roads. 16 mpg on highway versus 10 mpg in the rough.  

It was nicely graded though we didn’t see construction crews making repairs and paving. In a couple of miles we came across the grading crew resting after a days work; they were in a couple of travel trailers with their grader parked outside. We should have stopped to find out how long this went on but looking back I think smoothing the highway is their summer job.  

We had no cell signal and we weren’t going to stop to set up Starlink so we just kept driving and hoping the paved road would return soon. What we didn’t know at the time was that this section is notorious and known as the damned (malditos) and it’s 73 kilometers of gravel, 45 miles of 10 to 15 mph bouncing and rumbling in our heavy van. An abandoned farm: 

Actually that farm was a potential parking spot for the night even though one entry in iOverlander said the place was creepy with dead cows everywhere. Notwithstanding the poor review we were desperate to get off the road for the night and we had it in consideration. We chickened out at the driveway with Layne worrying we would be trespassing on private property. She wasn’t creeped out by the dead cows you understand. Or so she said.  We pressed on towards eight o’clock. 

The grading ended, the gravel got thick and the rocky road got bouncy. 

Lacking human contact we spotted guanacos doing what they do best which is jumping fences. Sometimes they miss and get hung up and die. You’ll see desiccated corpses hanging off the wire. Another reason to love Patagonia. 

We passed a van that was stopped in the road and asked if they were okay, they gave us a thumbs up and we drove on. Ten minutes later they buzzed past us as we are the slowest in the road especially if it’s gravel. 

The guanacos were having fun. We’d end we seen the youngsters running around chasing each other.  Then they started head butting the older guanacos who started chasing butting and playing with the youngsters. We watched, fascinated for a few minutes. 

There are emergency phones every few miles if you get into trouble. And indeed we came across an SUV stopped by the side of the road so we stopped and a small tough looking Asian man got out and started speaking English to us. He said he had had two flat tires x and his friend had got a ride to take his tire and get it repaired.   He totally five and thanked us for stopping but he said he was planning on spending the night in his car and he seemed totally okay with that. He told us the gravel lasted a couple more hours and he put his hands together and bowed to us. The gesture reminded me of Dith Pran, the translator  in “The Killing Fields” movie so I wondered if he might be Cambodian. His English was excellent and he didn’t even try speaking Spanish to us. I wonder what his story is. 

We could not locate any of the iOverlander stopping places. It looked like the road had been graded so often the gravel on the edges obliterated any exits. We saw flat spots but no exits to them which was weird. Eventually we found this: 

I got the Starlink out and converted gravel mystery. It turns out the stretch of gravel  marked on the highway and I hadn’t noticed it. 

We got 19 miles into the gravel with 26 miles to go before we stopped for the night. It’s marked on Google as the Damned 73 North and South referring to the unpaved 73 kilometers between the two points:

For some reason Google could t locate us so our blue dot isn’t on the map but here we were Tuesday night: 

The great empty:

A great sunset saw us to bed. 

Darkness starts to get too dark for driving around ten pm. Full darkness falls around eleven.  The wind never seems to stop and Rusty has gotten so used to the wind it no longer scares him.  That’s a plus. 

Good night.