Ruta 40 - Week 21

7th February

So, we finally left El Calafate and set off on the long bus journey along Ruta 40, famous in Argentina for being a 4600km long, largely unpaved road which goes all the whole length of Argentina, stretching from the border with Bolivia in the north, to Río Gallegos in the south. That's about the same distance as London to Nigeria!!

You see nothing for miles and hours and hours, but the scenery is like nothing else in the world (that we know of) and time goes mysteriously quickly. There is no desire to listen to music or read books much, the endless scrubland and hours of desert sort of sends you into a day dream! It's one of those places that makes you feel very small in a large world...


There were two 'villages' on the way between the middle 12 hours which had a population of 30 each and consisted of a cafe/shop and hostel/campsite. They were basically just facilities for the significant numbers of crazy cyclists that we saw battling their way through the desert winds! At the various stops we saw guanacos (llama-type creatures) and an armadillo!

The sunset was also pretty spectacular and the further north we got the more strange and interesting the rock formations.

We left El Calafate at 8am and 15 hours, 1100km and what seemed like about 100 food, fag and toilet stops later (sure we could have done the journey in about 8 hours in a car!!), we arrived in Los Antiguos, just at the Chile/Argentine border.

Stayed in a very nice hostel for the night and after cooking up our porridge for breakfast the next morning (has become a bit of a thing after the camping/trekking extravaganza, can't believe we both like porridge!!), we hopped in a mini-bus to cross the border into Chile and to get the boat to Puerto Ibanez in order to get up to Coyaique that night.

And it was at the port that we found out that the boat was full until 5.30 the next evening and we met lovely Californian couple Katie (must be great with a name like that!) and Bill. We really did not fancy a night and all the next day in Chile Chico (dismal little port) so Katie and Katie got on board the boat to speak to 'El Capitan'! What quite we thought we were going to achieve with our limited Spanish I don't know, but we managed to talk to someone who let us wait on the boat till everyone with tickets had got on and sold us more tickets at the end of the queue.

Three very cold and windswept hours later, we arrived at Puerto Ibanez and were herded straight onto a minibus. An hour and a half later all was well, safely arrived in Coyhaique.