2 March: A super-hot day yesterday as we drove up to Uruguay but basically a very easy drive and border crossing. Camped at a nice little free municipal park on the Rio Uruguay which has bathrooms, showers and electricity for Mr J, all for free. And last night we got to sleep under our mosquito net and with our windows wide open, so slept nice and cool – it was the one downside to our time in a house the last 6 days, we got munched by mosquitos and the nights were hot resulting in disturbed sleep.
3 March: a very long and hot day, thanks to a slow border crossing from Uruguay at Paysandu and then just high heat across the pampas as we roll west. Pulled into a nice campsite with pool and grass under foot in late afternoon and then like chops didn’t use the pool as we were tired and it was full of noisy people – bad mistake as we felt grumpy later for not having washed off the days grime.
4 March: a rest day chilling (in 35 deg heat) in the camp with a few swims thrown in. Caught up on the blog, read, etc
5 March: After a lovely stay in Victoria, we had a very disturbed sleep last night as a club across the road partied from 1am to 5am! Everyone had warned us about the dangers of Rosario so today we set off early (despite the disturbed sleep) to try and get around it early on a Sunday morning – in the end it was total non-event as the main road bypassed Rosario entirely. We had thought we would stop in Villa Maria but when we got there at lunch, it was very hot and windy and the town gave us a bad feeling with beggars who clearly had a drug problem so we moved on and settled in Rio Cuarto at a huge swimming pool complex.
6 March: Once again ended up driving further than planned but it was all good. Initial plan was to a short 150km hop to Villa Mercedes and we arrived there moments before a huge thunderstorm – the last 30km we had been driving into some of the most dramatic cloud formations we have ever witnessed. Rode out the storm at the campsite we had hoped to stay at but afterwards it was totally waterlogged and as it was still early we left and continued West past San Luis (with the most amazingly funky and mod looking hospital we have seen) to the ghost town of Balde – at least it felt like a ghost town.
8 March: a bit of a meltdown day! Started well when we visited mechanic to establish if we need to change oil seal at back of engine which would mean dropping gearbox. His advice was no, but in the meantime, we decided to change the troublesome radiator which has been a bother for a while so went trawling across Mendoza to a spares shop to purchase that at twice the price of a normal radiator – the price of being in Argentina with its crazy import duties. Next on the list was trying to find a dentist and get haircuts. Dentist was a total bust as everything is inside clinics, with zero parking and the issue of trying to find out if it is even possible in Spanish – hence the meltdown! But then we calmed down a bit, had a late lunch and managed to get a haircut. So day ended okay.
10 March: Tried to leave town today and fortunately stopped to take some pictures just 40km out of town, at which point Stuart spotted water underneath MR J – we had a leak! Thankfully it was not the new radiator but rather a hose that had a split. Managed to wrap that in tape and drive back in to town to purchase a replacement hose. At least we knew exactly where the landy spares shop was from our radiator purchase the other day.
11 March: We finally got out of dodge and Mr J ran like a dream, first on Ruta 52 which climbed from 600m asl at Mendoza to it’s highest point of just over 3000m before descending back down again. A really spectacular road just like many old passes in the Cape in ZA. Then Ruta 149 was equally pretty and reminded us a lot of our south leg from Mendoza on Ruta 40 nearly 5 months ago. Cool little free campsite in the national park El Leoncito.
12 March: A great but long day as we drove Ruta 149 and looped back to San Juan, including a detour to look at the 7 coloured mountain. An incredibly barren part of the world where it often felt like you could be on the moon but with a very green valley bottom. Once again Mr J ran really well. Ended the day very tired and a bit grumpy as we drove an extra 30min across San Juan to a campsite which based on reviews offered lots and in the end didn’t..
13 March: We thought we would have an easy day doing some shopping before heading across town to a campsite which was theoretically nice BUT it was not, so ended up driving 2 hours north of San Juan to what turned out to be a great campsite in a little town of San Jose de Jachal.
14 March: After saying cheers to a very inspirational French-Canadian family who are travelling on specially modified tandem bicycles (the kids sit upfront on a reeling chair with pedals), we set about doing small jobs on Mr J and relaxing in between. Finally found that relaxing day we were looking for..
15 March: a fun day: firstly, a spectacular drive from San Jose de Jachal up into the mountains and then a reasonably interesting group tour through the Parque Provenicial Ishchigualasto which is renowned for stark rock and mud formations and the existence of dinosaur fossils. The campsite at park entrance was cool, in a stark way and filled with a fair few overlanders and cyclists so some cool conversations in the evening.
16 March: The leak on Mr J fuel tank has seemed to be getting worse so we headed for the town of Chilecito to see if it could be seen to, of course we got there during siesta time and as always the actual time and length of siesta is never clear so we spent most of the afternoon sitting in the shade of the town square waiting for things to come alive which they eventually did at 4pm. The garage was very helpful and found a small puncture in the tank which needed Mr J to stay overnight so that they could have it welded, thankfully they organised for us to stay in a little chalet in the hills above town at a very reasonable R500 for the night. We had our doubts about the quality but in fact it turned out to be very modern and in a great location.
17 March: Feeling whacked at the end of the day. Spent all day until 4pm hanging around the cabin (thankfully it had decent Wi-Fi) waiting to be picked up and taken back into town. At least it seems a good job had been done on the tank and the cost was for nothing (R1600). As the town offered very little in the way of camping we then drove 90 minutes in late afternoon heat to a different spot.
19 March: We been feeling like we need to slow down as we have covered some serious mileage since leaving BA, so stayed an extra day here. The campsite is also the place for locals to come and enjoy a swim and asado, so busy on the weekend and noisy in that they play music all day but the music is okay and beats hearing multiple boomboxes going. All round a good little stop.
20 March: Camped on the outskirts of Cafayate town which is very touristy but quite pretty. Once reason for coming here was to do some wine tasting and it is nice to be able to walk into town for that it the tastings were disappointing: a little expensive and rather rushed, nothing like the wine tasting experiences you generally get in ZA and the wine is lacks strong flavors and is rather bland.
22 March: Date night last night, it’s not often we can walk into a nice town square from our campsite so we made the most of it yesterday and ate out twice both for lunch and then a smaller meal for supper. Plate of the day for lunch was a great deal and then we had wine and pizza at a craft beer place because they had no beer 🙂
24 March: Feeling rather dissapointed. We were told about a campsite called Utopia, which is run by ex-overlanders, one of who was South African and it had rave reviews on iOverlander, so we came here expecting some good times but sadly the reality was something else. Location is “quite” nice in that it is a little oasis with grass underfoot in the dry desert area but apart from that it offers next to nothing… The shower is behind some bushes next to the owners rondavel (which could be nice apart from the feeling that it does not feel quite private), the toilet for #2 is a hole in the ground with seat at the bottom of the property (again could be quite nice but needs at least a privacy chain or flag at the start of the path leading into the bushes) and the toilet for #1 they proudly tell you is anywhere in the bushes, except that where you are camped is an open field with some hedges around the edge which girls can’t exactly duck behind – thank goodness we were the only campers. The hoped for, interesting conversations ended up more being about trying to steer away from conspiracy theories and or about realizing that while they talk big about plans for the place, in fact they have been doing that for years without making much progress on any projects. And the final straw was that the cost per night was in the upper range of what we typically pay. The place has potential and could be more of a haven with just some minor improvements.
25 March: Was quite exhausted at the end of the day after a 5hour drive and then a long shopping and laundry drop session. On the long descents into Salta Mr J is spewing white smoke which is quite concerning but am hoping it is just an over-fueling and temperature issue from being at higher altitudes and not anything serious. Did get a “nice” reminder in camp that all vehicles subjected to this lifestyle can experience major problems when we met a really nice Swiss guy who is driving a EUR1 million plus truck camper and has been stuck in camp for 10 days as he tries to find a mechanic or even location that can potential help him with some gearbox troubles – he is casting his net currently over 2000km in any direction and across borders.
26 March: It’s been a chilled few days in Salta municipal campsite and strangely we felt more at home here than at the Utopia spot of a few days ago, perhaps just because you can easily do your own thing and don’t feel like you are living on top of the owners and using their facilities.
27 March: Our time in Argentina is coming to an end, tonight is probably the last town we will stay in, its super touristy (Purmamarca) but so far has a cool vibe. Time to spend our last pesos as with Argentina’s hyper inflationary environment what little we have left will be worth nothing in 6 months and we don’t have plans to be back in the foreseeable future.
29 March: After an interesting drive in which we topped out at over 4800m asl we had a very frustrating and anger inducing border crossing into Chile. Their agricultural controls are beyond ridiculous for a country that shares the same landscape and environment as Argentina but applies strict controls over arbitrary stuff – today we “lost” / had confiscated black pepper corns (because they are seeds) and artisanal cheese (because its homemade) but didn’t lose our Gouda (because it wasn’t artisanal). There is fok all logic to the process and we left the border very angry and not feeling like we wanted to enjoy Chile. Ended the day in a campsite which charges ZAR400 per night and gives nothing but a gravel parking lot with terrible water pressure in the showers and poor Wi-Fi. All in all, feeling very grumpy and the wine isn’t even helping!!!
30 March: Another day of being largely irritated by Chile, firstly when we stopped to shop in Calama and one us had to sit by the car cause the town has such a bad rap for robberies to then discover when making lunch that we had left 3 chopping boards at the last camp. Then we endured a long few, very boring hours driving across the altiplano pampas towards a supposedly great camp outside Pozo Almonte to discover upon our arrival, just before sunset, that in fact it was a very dusty and uninspiring spot which wanted to charge R600per night. Fortunately, there was a very nice COPEC gas station, 20km down the road where we could spend the night and that turned out fine. This part of Chile, the Attacama desert, is just one giant gravel wasteland interspersed occasionally with some slightly more interesting fields of gravel or mud like crusty formations.
31 March: After a good nights sleep and shower at the COPEC we drove down to the coast at Iquique but didn’t find it appealing as it is a rather large city with no real camping options. So after a short break, negotiated the 1000m climb back out of town and headed north to a little coastal village called Pisagua which was much more to our liking.