Photo Album: Santa Cruz Province on Atlantic
Note: Click an image to enlarge, tap "ESC" key to return.
Links for previous posts are on the left. Expand the month tags to see posts for that month.
After the last few days of long days and long distances driving down the Atlantic coasts of Argentina, we had the first late morning start, after a restful night at Comodore Rivadavia.
Soon after we left the city, we were on the RN3 again going south, and saw these luring hill tops, with 4x4 tracks going straight up, the sort of challenges right up my ally, if back home in Australia. Luring, but no, not with this little Chevy Spark !!
We hugged along the coast line, and soon crossed the border into Santa Cruz Province, the southern most province before the southern border with Chile and on this side of the Megellan Strait. The southern most Province of Argentina is actually on the big Island of Tierra del Fuego, but one has to go through Chile to get there.
The sea is much more accessible, and we can get to see the beautiful rugged coast line just by stopping the car at various view points.
A couple of hours of driving later on , we had lunch at Caleta Olivia then followed RN3, which left the coast for about 300 Km before rejoining it down south at Puerto San Julian. Our next destination was to be the Bosques Petrificados de Jaramillo National Park, a petrified forest.
It was a good 4 hours drive from Caleta Olivia, along RN3 south, then a 50Km rocky and corrugated gravel road into a moonscape, and out again.
The rangers were very pleasant, but reminded us that they are closing at 5 pm, which left us 45 minutes to roam the place. And we did promptly. There were no gates anyway !!
These petrified trees are mineralised, there are no organic matters left in them. In fact they are rocks, if polished, some of them would be of gem quality. That's why, the Petrified Forest National Park in the US has tight regulations against tourist collecting them.
Here is a snippet about how these Petrified Trees are formed. And here are some photos from our visit to a much larger in scale, the
Petrified Forest National Park (USA).
After retracing the 50Km moonscape tracks back out onto RN3, we stopped at the YPF petrol station at Tres Cerros. It was quite a busy service station, with many trucks and long distance buses stopping by, but we were tired, the next town is just too far away.
The lady manager at the service station was quite keen to ask us to change some USD for her, not a huge sum, just a $50 or so, I was reluctant not knowing how trustworthy they were, but she was keen and friendly. So I just accepted the good exchange rate for $40 for a 1:7.5, it could have been 1:7.8 if I were to give her $100, but I am not in this game of money exchange, so that was that.
And the sunset was glorious.
After a reasonably quiet night of sleep, the morning was quite noisy with many passing traffics coming in for breakfast.
Along the way, since we left Buenos Aires, we had seen quite a few of these shrines with some regularity. They would normally appear by the roadside, underneath a tree etc. Not really quite understood what they are for, except to think that there must be some religiosity to it.
With help of an Latin America expert and a good friend, I now know they are called Gauchito Gil, remembering a popular folk saint of Latin America called Antonio Mamerto Gil Núñez, a Robin Hood figure during in the mid-1800s. Peope would offer up cigarettes, drinks, foods and flowers, to ask for protections, or peace of mind in times of turmoil etc.
Here is a Wikipedia description of the folk story behind these shrines.
We left Tres Cerros just before 10, and got to Puerto San Julian in just over an hour. After a short excursion into Puerto San Julian, we decided there was not much to be seen, and we left and back onto RN3 continuing south.
Soon we were driving along the boundary of Parque Nacional Monte Leon.
Again, we were running short of time, and did not go into it, as it seems that it is not quite ready for traffic yet, and there were very scant information. However, here are a couple pictures along RN3 peeping. There should be a fair bit of wild lives, especially birds in the right season.
By the time we arrived Rio Gallego town, it was late afternoon, we are only about 100 Km or so before the border crossing with Chile. Not knowing what else was ahead in the way of accommodation, we found a hotel and stayed for the night.
Tomorrow, we would know the "difficulties" of taking our car to cross the border, with the paperworks organised. It was an absolute unknown, and there was only one way to find out.
We did just over 500Km over 8 hours today, not a long day relatively speaking, and we are still 100Km from the border.
By the time we arrived Rio Gallego town, it was late afternoon, we are only about 100 Km or so before the border crossing with Chile. Not knowing what else was ahead in the way of accommodation, we found a hotel and stayed for the night.
Tomorrow, we would know the "difficulties" of taking our car to cross the border, with the paperworks organised. It was an absolute unknown, and there was only one way to find out.
We did just over 500Km over 8 hours today, not a long day relatively speaking, and we are still 100Km from the border.
No comments:
Post a Comment