Up the Ruta 40 (from Tres Lagos to Bariloche)

Ahhhhh, Ruta 40. Like other infamous highways this one certainly deserves a mentionn although Route 40 is both everything and absolutely nothing at the same time. Confused? Let me try and explain…

This particular highway runs over 4,600 kilometres (that’s 2858.3 miles for my U.K. audience) down the eastern side of the Andes of Argentina. It starts in the north at a place called Abra Pampa (close to the Bolivian border) and runs through 11 provinces as far south as Rio Gallegos (the Patagonian capital of Santa Cruz). Even though its route takes in some extraordinary countryside it is also notoriously unpaved in some parts and sadly it is often ignored by travelers and even the locals who have abandoned it in places.
At one point of our trip we were considering hiring a car and experiencing the route from Bariloche to Rio Gallegos first hand, but when we were told we’d have to take carry 43 spare tyres, 9 spare windscreens and enough food and water for a week (in case we broke down and no-one passed for days) we decided to knock that idea on the head. Oh, we’re so sensible!

Righto, back to the trip... so there we were ´stuck´ in Tres Lagos. I say stuck in a loose term as on the morning that we planned to attack Ruta 40 poor Liz took a turn for the worse and spent most of the day curled up in her sleeping bag fighting frequent trips to the bathroom. Tres Lagos isn’t exactly a great place to be stuck either. The locals looked at us as if they’d never seen a tourist before and the place was so tiny that it only contained one little store and a bakery, which was actually someone’s house. Liz was feeling much better the next morning and was keen to push on. It was hard for me to tell her that while she was sleeping so peacefully through the night I had taken over her position in the bathroom! Blimey, it brings back bad memories writing about it. At one point we both wanted our Mum’s to be cooking homemade soup for us. We both felt so wretched. We think it may have been down to some of the water we drank out of a river, but it soon passed and we were on our way. Or so we thought…

…I have no idea how long we waited on the side of that road. I was 6 hours into the 24hr tummy bug and in the space of two hours we probably had three or four cars pass us. We were beginning to lose hope when we found we had competition for hitch-hiking and then out of nowhere a lovely couple in their fancy 4 wheel drive pulled up and announced that they would drive us all the way to Perito Moreno! We couldn’t believe our luck. They were so lovely too, offering us their home in Buenos Aires when we make it back there.

It was quite exciting to be on Ruta 40 again. Well, exciting for the first hour anyway. This particular stretch treated us to nothing but pampas on each side; a barren wasteland of desert. It was hot, extremely dusty and void of any wildlife apart from the odd, very entertaining mob of emus that panicked in every direction whenever we approached them!
The road itself was covered in potholes and was quite unforgiving on the steering. I felt for our driver. It must have been so tiring for him having to negotiate the dips and shingle on one hand and an unrelenting wife on the other. My word, that woman can talk! She was very sweet, but when you’re on the road from hell, trying to keep things down and in and making small talk in order to be polite, it was one very ´interesting´ experience.

When we were dropped off at a campsite in Perito Moreno, our friends were very upset that they couldn’t take us any further, but we were extremely grateful for getting this far and even more grateful that we had stopped moving!

After a bathroom free night we attempted to get back onto Ruta 40. We sat on the side of the road for about 4 hours. People stopped for us but no-one was going in the same direction. It appears no-one ever leaves this town. We gave up, Liz went back to bed and I went in search of email to report in!
Whilst I was waiting for the hamster to wake up and spin the wheel to start the hard drive of yet another notoriously slow computer, I experienced the strongest earthquake I’ve felt. At first I thought it was my tummy feeling queasy again, but then I heard the window rattle behind me and the room started shaking quite violently. There were a few children in the room that became quite frightened and others that were probably used to it, but there was one little boy that came racing over to me looking for assurance. In my best Spanish I said it would be alright and looked for the nearest doorway as I had no idea what we were in for. It lasted in dribs and drabs for about 30 seconds and I had completely forgotten about it by the time I got back to camp. That might have been due to another little drama I had accidentally got myself caught up in though. I had befriended another dog on the way home who I had been chatting to quite happily along the way. Unfortunately he stopped to check his pee-mail on one side of the road and hadn’t noticed that I had crossed to the other side. Well, the amount of stray dogs in this town probably equal the same no. of leering men which unfortunately can cause a few accidents. Yup, man too busy looking at me and shouting Linda (beautiful) and my four legged friend crossing the road at the same time – eeeek! I managed to warn the driver by shouting in my best English (yes, no time to think in a foreign language at a time like this) and with a squeal of brakes and ensuing burnt rubber my little canine friend was narrowly missed but in a state of shock. Clear of any other dangers I sat with him for a bit, gave him a bread roll and went on my weary way!

Feeling tired and drained of all energy, Liz and I decided that enough was enough with the hitch hiking (people just don’t use the Ruta 40 any more) and so sadly, we opted to buy a ticket for a tourist bus that would drive us up the Ruta 40 anyway!
Blimey, what a trip it was too. Being a last minute decision, the only spare seats were at the back of the bus. Now in my school days this was considered to be a pretty elite spot where all the coolcats sat. Sadly those days are over and so it was meant to be, that Liz and I were bounced around all over the place like...well.....all I can say is Liz did mention at one point that she wished she put a decent bra on in stead of wearing a bikini top!

It was a very entertaining trip though and although Liz still wasn´t feeling 100% we still managed to join in the singing and banter with the rest of the crew. Liz was even called up front to give us all a running commentary of a few of the sites along the way. But, no matter how hard we tried we were covered from head to toe in very fine dust. Sometimes it was hard to breathe as the air was just full of it. When we stumbled out of the bus for an empanada stop, I shook my hair only to disappear in a cloud of sand smoke, much to the amusement of our fellow travellers.

It’s great to say that I’ve experienced one of the world’s greatest highways and I am sure I will see more of it as I head back down the coast near the end of my trip. I hope other parts won´t be quite so arid and barren though!