The long journey north begins

Hills along the road to Bosque Petrificados National Monument, Argentina.

After mud and a puma in Parque Nacional Pali Aike in Chile, it was time for my last border crossing, and the beginning of the long road north to Buenos Aires, Argentina. I would be spending a lot of time on Ruta 3. I did not want to think about my adventure coming to an end, but that was the case, I was ready, and I had a few weeks to get within striking distance of the port of Zarate, which is about 100 km northwest of Buenos Aires. There were still a few interesting places which I wanted to visit, and some different species I wanted to see, and hopefully photograph, so I hoped it would be an enjoyable and productive trip north. 

I got off the ripio leading from Pali Aike, and headed to the Paso Integracion Austral at Monte Aymond, a different kind of border crossing. This is an integrated border crossing, there are not separate facilities if you will. If you are heading north, you do not stop until you are into Argentina, where you wait in one line, immigration, and get two stamps, exit and entrance. Then I waited in another line, Chilean Aduana (customs) where I turned in my vehicle permit for Chile, before I waited in a third line for Argentinian Aduana, where they issued me a permit to drive my van in Argentina. And if you are going south, you do not stop on the Argentinian side, you head into Chile where they take care of exit and entrance formalities. Interesting, and pretty efficient, as this was by far the busiest border crossing I had to deal with, especially compared to places like Rio Bellavista in Tierra del Fuego. I took care of business, still only took an hour or so, and headed into Rio Gallegos on my way, the never-ending search for cash, before continuing on Ruta 3 north. I was heading for Parque Nacional Monte Leon, another one of Doug Tompkins' projects. This is supposed to be a special place, the largest park along Argentina's Atlantic coast. Most recently, the land of Monte Leon was a sheep farm, and in the late 1800s, the land supported more than 40,000 sheep. Eventually, the land was purchased in 2001 with funds provided by The Patagonia Land Trust, Doug Tompkins, and donated to the National Parks Administration of Argentina. And in 2004, Monte Leon became a national park. The park now encompasses 68,169 ha and 40 km of coastline. The park currently supports a large colony of South American sea lions, as well as a huge colony of Magellanic penguins, and guanaco, puma, other species of birds, pretty diverse place. The park does not seem to have many hiking trails, but there is a campground, a beach, and even a coffee shop. I was excited to see this park, it was on my list.

It was another long day of driving, but I got to the park administration, the old estancia, and found everything closed. It was almost 6:00 pm, but I still thought someone would be around. I registered, and was about to leave, when a ranger showed up, and informed me that the park was closed, that the recent rains had caused some real problems with the road down to the beach, and after getting stuck, I was cool with chilling for the night. I headed back down Ruta 3 to the gate and actual entrance to the park, where another overlander was already parked. They were Germans, and had a huge camper, almost military-style truck. I would spend the night wild camping by the gate, and hope the park opened in the morning. It was late anyway, time for bed.

Got up early the next day, and took a walk down the road after climbing the gate, I wanted to see how bad the road was, I did not want to get stuck again. Well, after three trucks drove into the park, two were rangers, and the rangers returned, they told us (by this time I had met the Germans, plus a couple of other Germans on motorcycles who I had run into earlier in Punta Arenas, Chile), that the park would not open that day, and maybe not the next day either. By this time, it was after noon, and I really could not wait around two, or maybe even three days to see if the park opened. I was totally disappointed, and a bit annoyed, as I had walked 8 km or so down the road, and outside of the first puddle, the road did not seem that bad at all. This was a park I really wanted to see, to explore, and now, closed, I was not happy. But, what could I do, my disappointment with Argentina continued, and I left Monte Leon, and headed back north on Ruta 3.

I decided I would head to the Bosques Petrificados National Monument, even though folks on iOverlander had said the road was pretty bad. I got to the turn off, and headed down the road; it was pretty bad, and even terrible at some points. There is no camping in the park, or monument, so I drove to the sign, entrance to the National Monument, and wild camped along the road. It was actually pretty neat, a quiet, desolate landscape, with colorful rocks, a few cavy, and not much else. Another overlander camped off the road about 500 m away, guess waiting for the park to open the next day as was I. I slept well, it was really quiet out there, even with the wind. My van rocks with the wind, back-and-forth, had gotten used to it by now.  

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