About last month... - Hello Patagonia!

It´s been a while since I sat in front of my computer to write a blog. Since we are on the road we did like 2.600 km in 1 month. We´ve visited Necochea, Claromecó, Monte Hermoso, Medanos, Rio Colorado, Las Grutas, Puerto Madryn, Peninsula Valdes, Trelew, Gaiman, Dolavon, Dique Florentino Ameghino, Camarones and Comodoro. We saw Guanacos (related to the llamas), Maras (Patagonian rabbit), Liebres (rabbits), Penguins Magallanes, Lobos marinos, elefantes marinos, nandus (Rhea / Strauß), Peludos (armadillo / Gürteltier) and many more…  Even we had to rescue a sheep from drowning in the ocean. We´ve crossed 3 Argentinian provinces, met the Patagonian strong sun and harsh wind, were surprised by the Patagonian coastline and enjoyed pure nature in a green oasis canyon in the middle of dessert landscape. We´ve slept in our rooftop tent, in our second “normal” tent, on the wooden boxes in our R4 and in houses they have borrowed us. We´ve met lot´s of people with whom we share some nice memories with and are very thankful for each of them, especially for those who helped us along the road. ❤ Rocky thinks he is Argentinian and behaves already likewise. 😉 The first few days we already noted that we need to get rid of some stuff that we do have with us. We´ve already began to sell our wooden table, left our “Tejo” an Argentinian beach game behind and have sent 2 packages to Bautis family in Mar del Plata. 😊 It also feels like I still have too many cloths. I´ll probably sell or give away some of it. The lighter packed the better …

So for those of you who are interested in more details, that´s what happened in the above mentioned places that we have visited so far:

Day 1:

Actually it was not planned to stay a night in Necochea, we wanted to stay our first night in Claromecó. We´ve already passed Necochea. 6 km after the city enterance, Simba suddenly had “fever” and ran hot. There was some steam coming out of the radiator. So we stopped and waited until it cooled down. Bauti took the thermostat out. It happens that a thermostat brakes.. that´s what happened 130 km from our origin. 😃 We decided to search for a new thermostat in the city and to stay the night on a campsite. A few people started talking to us , they´ve seen us in television or were attracted by the plotted car. Some of them just wanted to talk, and some of them even wanted to help us and gave us 500 $ (=8 €) for the gasoil. – impressing how people react to our story and want to support us chasing our dream….

137 km – temperature problems

Day 2:

We started our way to Claromecó. Since the thermostat broke on our first day driving with Simba, we were nervously looking at the temperature clock every 2 minutes. We´ve bought the new thermostat, still we haven´t put it in there. They´ve told us it´s not essential when you are moving in warm temperatures, and since this was approved by our mechanic of confidence – Don Luis –  we did so. 😊the way to Claromecó was smooth. Like it is in Argentina, the streets are straight and there´s not much in between two towns/cities. In Claromecó we stayed at a beautiful campsite “camping Dunamar” in the middle of a wood and 200 meters next to the beach. We´ve enjoyed the afternoon there, took out the Drone and started early in the morning around 7 with some homemade Medialunas and Torta Negras which we´ve bought from a woman who was working on the campsite.

139 km – temperature problems

Day 3-5:

We went to Sauce Grande – a little village next to Monte Hermoso – to meet up with Mechi, Fede and Pocho, who own a R4 as well! Same original color, same year 1984 and we did not believe it first – but the same cactus sticker as well! Both cars already had the cactus sticker on it when they were purchased… ?! Probably we will find out about it in future… at least I hope so! 😃 Mechi, Fede and Pocho have travelled around Argentina quite a bit and it was awesome to share some experiences with other R4 owners! They helped us to relax and to gain more confidence in Simba. We shared some really nice time and played “Tejo” on the beach, went to a beer festival which was taking place that weekend, thanked Robert – the owner of the house, who nobody saw so far, laughed a lot and exchanged some noises of our R4. Pocho and Rocky were best friends from the first moment on and enjoyed chasing the waves together. Or let´s say Pocho chased the waves and Rocky chased Pocho. 😃 How many fit in a R4? – at least 4 people and 2 medium-large dogs are no problem at all! We knew, Roberts house,  this was the place to leave the “Tejo” behind! Might somebody else enjoy it! Chicos – thanks for your hospitality and sharing this awesome time together. See you again in Bariloche!

Day 6:

The plan was to start early in the morning. It was the plan. We were sleeping too well and profound to get up really early. So at around 9 am we said good bye to the guys and started our way to Rio Colorado. We started with about 20°. About 100 km after it became hot and even hotter. We chose the way directly through Bahia Blanca, since it´s not recommended to take the road around – due to some thieves, who are said to stop and assault you, when you have to cross the train rails slowly. In the city center we refilled the tank and kept going. Temperature was still rising and got up to <30 °. From that moment on Simba was struggling. We noted hot water temperature. Constantly around 90°. Since the weather forecast showed that the temperature will rise up to 38° we´ve decided to make a stop in Medanos. A town with about 7.000 habitants in the middle of nowhere. We were sweating all over, Rocky with his tongue ´till the car floor and Simba with around 90° water temperature, when we stopped in the city centre, right next to a park to cool down in the shadows of the trees. We rested bout half an hour when we took a look at the forecast again. Even at 7 in the evening it was supposed to have <30°! That´s when we noted it would not make sense to make the 150 km to Rio Colorado that same day. Since there is no official camping in Medanos, we asked two girls who were passing by. We were lucky. They both were working in the city councel, so one of them knew the president of a club “caza y pesca” which offered us to stay at the clubs property for that night. 😊 yeah!

159 km – temperature problems

Day 7:

We got up really early that day and continued the rout 3 to Rio Colorado at 6 in the morning. I was feeling the warm morning sun in the back, looking at the horizon and was just amazed by the reality that there is NOTHING at the end of the horizon. No mountain, no nothing. Just fields. Since I´m from Austria, something that we are not used to. 😉 There is always something – even if it´s “just” a little hill. About 2,5 hours later, we entered already la Patagonia and arrived Rio Colorado at half past 8 in the morning. Since we´ve started that early in the morning Simba was totally fine and enjoying the ride as well. 20 degrees – his favourite temperature to go for a ride! El Cafecito – a little café in the city/town centre was offering us a really nice café cortado with fresh orange juice and 2 medialunas! We couldn´t withstand! Talking with a man in the café we were also able to sell our wooden table for 500 $ ! yeah! We are already 5 kilos lighter! 😊 We went to the supermarket and spent the rest of the day a bit outside, next to the river coast, where a farmer has recommended us to camp the night, since it was supposed to be for free. It was really nice there, Bauti tried some fishing, and we enjoyed to have time to wash some cloths! In the evening suddenly a really harsh wind came up. We were lying in our rooftop tent and heard the trash bins falling. After checking the forecast we searched for -with the tent “more or less” closed and only fixed with some ropes - another camping which we´ve seen already before where we finally stayed the night with almost no wind.

127 km – no problems

Day 8-10:

We started early in the morning our way to Las Grutas, a little town which is famous for its´ specially warm water temperature, compared with the rest of the Argentinian coast. We´ve stayed 3 nights at a campsite a few kilometers from the city center with a really nice secretary who gave us some indications where to go and what to do! So on our first day we went to piedra colorada – a beach with red stones around it. It might be really nice if you go there with high tide and no wind 😉 – we did it with low tide (lots of algaes) and tremendous wind so we could not even sit down to enjoy a mate. We left early and decided to get to know the beach next to the campsite instead. Nice beach which changes completely within low and high tide! When its low tide you may walk almost 500 meters into direction of the sea! If it´s high tide there is no beach at all. You may watch it from the cliffs! Really nice to see as well! 😊 After a lot of wind – Patagonia gave us another warm welcome 😉 – we went to bed really tired. Windy days just make you tired. Day two in Las Grutas: they have told us about the mussel and shell beach and amazing crystal clear water about 70 km from the city, which we decided to get to know! It was even better as we have imagined! Amazing beach with loooooots of mussels!!! It was windy so we didn´t jump in the crystal clear water – but we had such an amazing day on that beach! We were almost alone and we were so impressed of that amount of mussels that we enjoyed the afternoon there, before going to Punta Perdices – a little natural area reserve. Once again amazing lonely beaches – especially at this time of the year… At our third day in Las Grutas we did absolutely NOTHING. Was nice to enjoy and organize the car. We were getting ready to start early the next day our way  – about 280 km – to Puerto Madryn.

252 km – temperature problems

Day 11-13:

We started about 6 in the morning our way to Puerto Madryn. About 30 km before Sierra Grande – the only little village in between origin and destination Simba started to make some noise. We thought it might be a noise from the brakes. The noise was not steady. We kept going to Sierra Grande, which we arrived at 8.30 am in the morning. On a Saturday. Not so easy to get in touch with a mechanic on Saturday morning… but in the end Fabian was helping us to check the noise. In the end it was a half-axes, which are supposed to break in the R4, which was not working well due to some bad inclination of Simba, due to a weak suspension on the front left side. In the end we´ve spend 2 hours in Sierra Grande until we kept on going. – knowing that we might have to change the half-axes in Puerto Madryn before entering the Peninsula Valdes. Since it was already weekend we enjoyed 2 nights on the beach Paraná south of the city. Had some really nice time there. This place was awesome. Few people, and the once that we met really nice!! Puerto Madryn was treating us really well! We loved that beach and enjoyed even some quick bathes in the refreshing water! There would be worse places to turn 30 years old! 😉 It was awesome to listen to the nature at night, next to a fireplace and waking up with a beautiful sunrise above the water at 5.30 am. Those are the moments when you are starting to feel pure nature. Love it!

Right in the morning on my birthday we started to make our way to the mechanic. – after 5 stops due to lack of time of the mechanics – we called Rulo – a fisherman who offered us his help. We went to the garage where he was working as a chapista. One of the mechanics there offered us to change the semi-axes on the same day for less money compared to the others. Done!

On the way back to our overnight parking spot, a young couple started talking to us when we were waiting for a traffic light to turn green. Turned out Adrian and Aixa invited us to eat some dinner with them and to have a shower at their place! Awesome – since we haven´t took a shower in 3 days!!

257 km – mechanical stop in Sierra Grande – noise of the Semi-axes

Day 14-15:

Yeah – we are going to the Peninsula Valdes!! After thinking about it a lot (entrance fee, nature reserve with our dog…), we´ve decided to go. 120 $ for people from the city,  400 $ for Argentinians (Bauti) and 890$ for all others – that would be for me… 😉 On the first day we made 100 km asphalt road to Puerto Piramide – a little fisher village on the Peninsula. We stopped at the campsite, which at the moment was not operated – that means shower did not work, bathrooms were grouse, but it was free!

First time that we´ve set up the extra tent that we are carrying with us, so that we can leave in the morning without closing the rooftop tent. We started at 8 in the morning.. it was a hot day and little wind. We had to do 200 km of bad dirt road. At some points it was in really bad condition and we had to stop about 10 times due to high temperatures of Simba. On the way we already thought: is it really worth it? Driven by the chance that there is the possibility to see orcas catching their snack at caleta Valdes we closed our eyes and did it. In the end we saw no orcas that day. Nevertheless we had the opportunity to see seals, penguins Magallanes, guanacos, ñandús, peludos… All in all, looking back, we would not recommend visiting the Peninsula in december. You are able to see this fauna in many other places of Patagonia as well for free. The península probably makes sense during whale season!!

Day 16:

We used our last day in Puerto Madryn to organize the car and send a package with some clothes to Bautis family. Above that we were enjoying the campsite to wash some clothes and cook without much wind. Was a good stay after 2 tiring days at the Peninsula Valdes.

Day 17:

We stopped close to Trelew, where they found the biggest dinosaurio of history with about 45 meters longitude and 12 meters of height, and made a reconstruction of it. It´s crazy to think about that thousands/millions of years ago this dessert area was a jungle once. Looking at that immense creature makes you feel small. I love that places where you remember that you are just a small human being in the whole world, that nature is amazing and increadibly powerful! We took some pictures there, talked to two brasilians, who are travelling with a Vespa, exchanged some travel stories and kept on going. We did not know yet where we would stay the night. That´s why we went to Gaiman, a village which was founded by welsh pioneers and therefor still contains some characteristics of the welsh culture – welsh tee and arquitecture. We entered a train tunnel from 1870ies (which is really old for Argentinian history 😉 ) and finally decided to keep going to Dolavon to see the water mills next to the Chubut river. Once there, we decided to keep going to the canyon Dique Florentino Ameghino, even if it means to make a little detour of 200 km in total. But we were excited to spend some days in pure nature. 😊

189 km

Day 18-20:

Dique Florentino Ameghino… Amazing oasis in a canyon next to the river Chubut.

Best wild camping place ever! We´ve enjoyed this calm place with lovely weather, almost no wind, fresh river water, lots of stars and crazy frogs sound at night. Bauti caught a fish for dinner! Hmmm… and we had some nice camping company! No shower but fresh river water! All in all – highly recommended and just amazing!

Day 21-23:

Camarones and its pure nature. Wild camping 30 km from the little town right next to the nature reserve. Sleeping in the middle of beautiful landscape surrounded by Guanacos, Peludos, Ovejas, Lobos Marinos, Flamencos, Penguins Magallanes, Liebres, Maras… Just an amazing place to spend christmas! We enjoyed to share those days with westy_loquita: Sebastian, Elsa and Tango. They are already travelling for 3 years. Started in USA and are now on their way to Ushuaia. It was like I´ve dreamt so many times. Being somewhere in the middle of nowhere. 😊 Rocky and Tango enjoyed to have a dog-buddy around to play and even chase some sheeps. Bauti had to save a sheep from the sea. Poor one was in shock and its´ fur was crazily heavy –due to the salt water – why it could not get up anymore. We squeezed out the water as best as we could and let it dry in the strong morning sun. Half an hour later, when we went to check on it, we saw it running away, searching its´ flock colleagues! 😉

198 km

Day 24:

After saying goodbye to our camping colleagues from westy_locquita and the german couple, we already wanted to start our way to Comodoro, when we noted that we are missing the new police from our car insurance. It took us about 2 hours until Juan – our security guy – sent us the necessary papers per WhatsApp. At about 3 pm we were able to start our way to Comodoro to extend my visa. Once entering Comodoro a police man which stopped us recommended a camping close to the city. We made our way there, unfortunately it was still not operating. On the way back to the national rout Simba started to make another noise. We were tired of the long ride and tired of having another mechanical problem. We made it to the gas station “YPF Eureka” where we planned to stay the night. Both angry with each other and hardly talking. We tried to find out which part exactly started to make the noise on this stupid dirt road. We found out! – put some Wd40 oil on it and the noise stopped! Yeah! 😊 Since it was a really windy night we slept in the car on the wooden boxes. Third night in a row… BUT we slept quite profound and tight.

260 km  - looooot´s of wind

Day 25:

It was hot. Sun was already really strong, when we were sitting in the modern gas station to enjoy a coffee with 2 medialunas. I remember, I was sweating, enjoying the nice smell of the coffee and looking out of the window, when I saw this really nice, well-maintained white Renault 12, which was parked outside. The owner stopped at the gas station to fill up the tank. That was the moment when Bauti jumped up from his comfy well-pillowed lounge-chair. I looked at him. My face probably asked him a lot of questions at once and he said: “If somebody in this town knows a good mechanic for old cars, it might be the owner of this impeccable Renault 12!” And he left. I observed them with the amazing coffee in my hands. I saw them talking, but I could not tell if this man was in a good mood and trying to help or not. Both seemed quite serious from my perspective. They made some gestures, Bauti was pointing in my direction and starting walking back to me. He just said: “come on, let´s go to simba to meet Pedro there.” Once with Simba, the Renault 12 came closer. Turned out Pedro knows a mechanic which is crazy about old cars and is supposed to be a genious. If there is something that we have learned in the last days: It´s really hard to find a mechanic who loves to work with the old cars and on top of that is really good at that. 😉 We exchanged phone numbers and Pedro already called Chamy – the mechanic – that we will stop by once we have extended my visa at the migrations office. Already relieved – knowing that we will see a mechanic later on that day – we went to make the visa extension. It was not funny at all. The people who were working there seemed to couldn´t care less, working really slowly, and not polite at all. I was in there with about 15 other people, who seemed to be from Bolivia, Venezuela and Dominican Republic. In the end it took us about 4 hours to get the necessary paper, since we had to make the payment at a bank – which was pure chaos in there too – and had to wait until the boss came to the office around 1 pm to sign the papers… at least that was what they have told us. Anyhow. Once we have left migrations, we called Chamy, went to Pedros office to share a mate, where he generously offered us to stay at his house and later went to see Chamy.

Chamy was listening to Simbas motor sound and said: “Tiene sonido de ser retrasado y no a punto. No gastaron mucha nafta?” (“It sounds like it is delayed and not on point. Don´t you need a lot of petrol?”) He took out a pistol and started to put it on point. He was really nice and explained, how to do it ourselves in future. – to be sure we took a video of it as well… just to be sure.. 😉

Day 26-30:

Since Chamy went for vacations for a couple of days, we decided to wait for him to come back to make some more little details of Simba with Chamy, so that we are leaving further south with more confidence in our car… We did not know how much we would enjoy sleeping in a real bed after 3 nights on the wooden boxes in our R4. It´s quite squeezy in there. 😃 There is not much space to turn around during night and Bauti even puts his feet up the driving wheel 😃 it might look preeeeetty funny from outside, but it works! 😊 So after 3 nights in the car in a row we noted how much we´ve missed to lay straight and on a soft matrace until we were lying in a real bed in Pedros house… it was awesome! So those few days in Comodoro we made some organizations in the car, enjoyed a real bed and Netflix (binge watching Breaking Bad), sent another package with clothes to Bautis family, spent some time with amazing people (Pedro & Nadia), visited the garage to let Chamy do his job with Simba! At this point many, many thanks Chamy! So happy now! 😃  

For those who have read all of it: haha thanks for following us on our adventure!

The first month was so definitely worth all the difficult decision making we had to do before starting (quitting our jobs, apartment, leaving family and friends for a while behind…)! To all our friends and families back home: we miss you! -but at the same time we enjoy every single moment of this special journey!

That´s it that all for today! Happy new year and don´t forget to chase your dreams! 😉

The Simbali-Crew 😉