Our overnight at the YPF fuel station in Las Heras passed without incident. Las Heras was a pretty dead beat town. The car park was large and not full of trucks. Several times a police car passed, which was reassuring. The wind dropped, but it rained during the night. Fortunately it stopped before morning and the tent was reasonably dry when we woke.
Today we have travelled east from Las Heras to Fitzroy on Ruta 43. At Fitzroy we turned due south and on to Ruta 3. All morning the relentless wind was catching us side on. When we turned south it was right on our nose.
We use German Reise Know-How maps. They are good maps but also practically indestructible. Waterproof and tear proof. Our Chile map is older, issued in 2020. Our Argentinian map was issued in 2023. Interestingly, our older Chile map shows both Ruta 43 and 3 as red roads. This denotes they are main, asphalted roads. The younger Argentinian map shows Ruta 43 as a yellow road. This denotes a minor road which could be asphalted or still under construction.
Heading south again.
Our Sat-nav showed Ruta 43 as being asphalted to, so we decided to take this route. We could have taken Ruta 40 south. This is much closer to the mountains. We don’t like retracing our steps over the same route, so we will come back north on this road.
This morning’s scenery was dull ( sorry Mel, no lovely photos). The monotony only broken by nodding donkeys pumping up oil, electric power lines and wind turbines. There is a railway line running parallel with the road, but I don’t think it’s seen a train for years.
The settlements along these roads are tiny. Only Pico Truncado was of any significant size, mainly due to its oil refinery.
Ruta 3 was even more dull and monotonous. No more nodding donkeys or oil installations. Miles of straight road and absolute nothingness. At least we have been able to cover a lot of ground.
There is nowhere one can pull off the road to wild camp. Because of the flat terrain it is impossible to shelter from the wind. Everywhere is fenced too. Occasionally there is a locked gate to an estate. There are scattered sheep. I wonder how on earth they round them up as they are spread over thousands of acres. Dennis thinks maybe they use helicopters, as they do in Australia.
Today we have seen some wild life. Guanaco, a fox, a small unidentifiable rodent that ran across the road and many lesser, or Darwin’s rhea. These flightless birds can run fast. We were chasing one along the road beside us for some distance, at 30 miles an hour.
For the first time, we have reached the east coast of South America. We have seen the sea in the distance, although we are only on the outskirts of the town, Puerto San Julian.
Puerto San Julian
Tonight we are camped at another YPF fuel station. This time we are surrounded by trucks.
It seems quiet enough, though, as they are parked up for the night. At the moment the wind isn’t dropping. We are supposedly sheltered as there are walls all around us, but when we first put up the Caranex, I thought the wind was going to demolish it. Dennis has it firmly pegged down, but it’s flapping badly. Sleep won’t be easy.
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I wonder what Rhea taste like? Perhaps you should look out for recent roadkill? Only joking of course, but if times get hard maybe?
Haven’t seen any squashed rhea, but several guanaco. Still have plenty of food in fridge. Got to eat it all up. We have to cross back into Chile in a couple of days and they confiscate any fruit, veg, eggs, meat, fish or honey. Don’t think we’ll have to result to roadkill any time soon 🙂