Patagonia I

We have moved east to the Atlantic coast from the small town of  San Martin, traveling through Argentina’s petroleum producing area.  There were wells, pumps and storage facilities.

                                                                                                                            

  Our first view of the Atlantic on this trip was in the town of Caleta Olivie.  We stayed in a public park overlooking the ocean.  The park was well used by people of all ages.  They were skating, swinging and just hanging out.

 Patagonia is a vast area filled with nothingness broken by mesas and canyons.  There is VERY little habitation.  We were told there was a gas shortage so we stopped  at every service station to top off with fuel.  You would not want to be stranded in these empty spaces.

                                                                                                                               

The roads going south were bad at first but improved as we put the miles behind us.  There was hardly any traffic.  There were hundreds of sheep, wild horses, jack rabbits and Guanacos. The Guanaco is kin to the llama.  One ran along side us and was moving on at 40mph.  They spring over fences with ease.

                                                                                  

                                                                                                                                                      

                                                                                                                          

Pink flamingos added some color to the scene.   

We turned off the main road (HWY 3) to head west on Hwy 9.  This is a dirt-gravel road which turned out to be under construction.  This made it more interesting.    Our destination 150 miles away was Calafate  to see the glaciers and visit the National Park.  There were  animals but hardly any people.  A grey fox ran across the road.     

                                                                                                                      

We spent the night on a crest overlooking a huge wide valley.  The winds are very strong and cold.

 It’s hard to convey how desolate and lonely this place is.  But a few hardy souls try to make a living with sheep.  Some people might be uneasy to be so removed from everything.  That never occurred to us.  We just snuggle under an extra blanket and enjoy the peace of it all.

Calafate is a tourist town.  People come here to see the beautiful Lake Argentina with iceburgs floating and view one of the few glaciers in the world that’s still on the move.  We will visit it tomorrow.

                                                                                                                                             

There may be a change in our blog because we have had difficulty posting it in Argentina.  It seems that blogs are blocked by court order.  So we are e-mailing it to our son and he is posting it for us.  We need to treasure our freedoms.

Gerry & Bill