Photo Album: Heading to Patagonia
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After being assured by the owner/manager of Baires Car Rental that our car with the needed paper works for crossing borders would be ready, we went out to lunch and did more wandering around Santa Fe Av. It seems that Santa Fe av. is a nice shopping area, with plenty of shops, selling somewhat more upmarket consumer goods, fashions etc.
When we arrived back at the Baires Car Rental's office, yep, everything was ready, paperworks and car, and the Pesos we agreed to exchange for as well. So money changed hands, papers signed, and we were led to the next door car park to pick up our little white car, a Chevrolet Spark, manual with air-conditioning, with nearly 61,000 Km on the clock. Let's hope the car last the distance with the tough Patagonia dirt roads, and that the cross border paper worked. The tires were quite new, that's good.
Keys changed hand, car started, and we left.
After picking up our luggage at Liz and Nelson's place, and some shopping at a nearby supermarket, we left Buenos Aires late in the afternoon for La Plata, the Capital of the Province of Buenos Aires. Only a short 70-80 Km hop for the first night.
As we were entering La Plata, there were quite a few police standing on the freeway exit, randomly picking on cars, but we were among the unloved ones.
During the evening, we went out to the town square to wander around after dinner. It was a cool night.
As the square was quite quiet and the surrounding quite peaceful, our guard were lowered.
The City Hall was well illuminated.
But soon, not too far from our car, a lady passerby, warned us of showing the camera, in broken English. So it was time to go.
Early in the morning, before leaving, we took advantage of the good light, and took a few more pictures of the town square, Plaza Moreno, with a keen watch on potential criminals, just quick dashes in and out of the car.
So we left town, and drove towards Mar Del Palta, a seaside resort on the Atlantic coast, some 370 Km away, but a very straight forward drive on Hwy 2.
Just on the highway out of town, again on very busy freeway, we went through a police check point. After inspecting all our paperworks, they were muttering something in Spanish, which I was quite perplexed. Then a policeman put his hand on the car light switch, and turned on the lights. Oh, I forgot that little details, that front lights must be on 24 hours. Fortunately, he did not give me a fine. With a stern look, he waved us on.
There were a couple of more check points along the way, probably every 80 to 100 Km apart, I had never seen such tight securities in Australia, Northern America or Europe, but it seemed to be a standard feature, at least in Argentina.
Mar del Plata seems to be the equivalent of the Gold Coast of Australia, a beach side holiday town. Being in early February, I presumed many Argentinians were still in their holiday, at least the well-to-dos, betrayed by their brand name t-shirts, shorts and flip-flops.
Kids were everywhere, doing their holiday things.
But the beaches were so jam packed............I so look forward to Patagonia.
We had a short walk around along the high cliffs above the beaches, and headed out of town.
A near 700 Km day and a 13 hour day, so far !
Still a little jet-lagged and because of the long day yesterday, we had a late start soon after nine, trying to get as close to the Valdes Peninsula, where we could start getting close to the great nature, and the entrance to the Region of Patagonia.
We refueled at Bahia Blanca, continued on Rt 22, passed Algarrobo, and a few police check points later, finally broke the 1000 Km marker of this journey from Buenos Aires 3 days ago.
When crossing from Buenos Aires Province into La Pampa Province, there was a quarantine check point, aside from the regular police check point so far, signaling the boundary of a different bio-region where diseases of plants or animals are to be stopped from the populous northern regions.
We cut through the southeastern corner of La Pampa Province and crossed into Rio Negro Province, another quarantine check, another police check point.
The border of Patagonia was breached, 1100 Km from Buenos Aires. But Patagonia is vast, there were still another 2000+ Km before Magellan Strait, the southernmost point of this trip.
The remoteness of the region was starting to manifest itself. More open space, more SUVs, and more storm clouds came and gone.
Another 400 Km later, we stopped at Sierra Grande Village for the night. For the first time, I discovered Google Translate, and put it to good use. At Sierra Grande, the reception manager and I carried on a conversation, using my laptop, she was totally English blind, so am I, Spanish, despite my 3 month elementary course in Australia.
We were at the gate to the interesting Valdes Peninsula and its wild lives.
Little did we know until we tallied, it was a 10 hour day covering 750 Km.
We were looking forward to the exciting Valdes Peninsula with its abundance of seashore wild lives.
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