We went to the most popular bus/tour company to start to plan our trip, but it turned out to be the last day of the season for this trip and it sounded a little too pricey. The road closes for the winder due to ice and snow, so the buses stop running in April. Rental car companies are abundant in Bariloche because the entire province is a very popular tourist area for Argentines and foreigners alike. In the winter, it's a ski haven and gorgeous mountain/lake community in the summertime. Anyway, we went to about 7 different rental companies to compare prices. Some of the companies refused to give us anything but 4-wheel drive vehicles after we told them we plan on driving down Route 40 to El Calafate. They said there are parts that you need a good car for; however, other companies were more than happy to give us their cheapest model and send us on our merry way. Which option do you think we went with??
You got it! The cheapest car possible. A Volkswagon Gol. No airbags, no frills, just right. And on a chilly morning in mid-April we hopped in and off we went! We were recommended by the car company to go for 9 or 10 days, but who has the money for that?! We decided to go with just a week and go really heavy on the daily driving.
The only map we had was in the Lonely Planet guidebook and a few words of advice from the hostel owners. Our first stop was a 10 minute stroll through El Bolson, the hippie haven of Argentina and an artisan locale. The town is really nice, but we had no time to waste so we vowed to return to it on our way back. The entire trip is 2.000 km each way, so we wanted to get as far as possible in the first day.
This is where the real adventures began... about 3 hours into the trip, I began to doze off. Did I mention the car was a stick shift and I don't know how to drive one? So Byron was just happily weaving down the highway when he felt something go wrong. We got a flat, and for no apparent reason. Needless to say, Byron wasn't thrilled to be changing a tire so soon into the trip, and I was worried that this meant bad news for the rest of the week. However, when we got to the next town (in a few more hours) we found the “gomeria” (tire store) and were able to get a used tire for $150 pesos. We kept the receipt, and were determined to get this money back since the tire was obviously bad when they gave us the car.
It was about 8pm when we finally got the the small town we were heading towards for our first camping experience. The town is a little scary because there is a huge military base there and soldiers all over the place. As it turned out, there was no campground, and the only hotel was about $70US a night, so we decided we'd try to make it to the next town, which is much bigger and was sure to have somewhere to sleep for cheap. We were both hungry and a little cranky, but we gassed up the car and headed out of the creepy tiny town.
Route 40 goes directly down the western side of Argentina, along the Andes. Although it is a very popular journey, large swaths of it remain unpaved. So at about 10 pm we realized that we had been driving on rocks for just a little too long. The biggest hint was when we popped tire #2 on a boulder in the road. The entire part was 120 km, and we only managed to go 20 in the first hour! It was very late, completely dark around us, and the only other cars on the road were huge semi trucks leaving us in the dust, literally. I begged Byron to go back, since we had no more spare tires and the road ahead was ominous. So we drove the same treacherous hour back to the town, hoping not to be blown off the “road” by Patagonian winds. We parked the car on an inconspicuous street, pulled out our sleeping bags and slept all night long covered from head to toe so no one would be the wiser. We didn't wake up until 9am!!!! because it stays dark there for so long!
That was day one.
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