January 2017........So back to our travels before Christmas, it does seem like a long time ago and alot has happened

The roads had continued as we travelled down Ruta 3, mostly on the Atlantic coast, very much as before very pleasant but not very exciting, by the way, we are now well over 3000km from Buenos Aries.
We have passed through so many places of great beauty. We have found that sometimes we have become quite casual about some of them but we never forget how privileged we are to see them.

However not everything is beautiful.  We passed through some major towns that were not so nice, one such was a place called Olivia Caleta, a sizeable town which once, not very long ago, the centre of the Southern oil industry. It was not only the main hub for distribution within Argentina but also the main terminal for export. The country was for a long time a net exporter of oil but times changed. With the world oil slump Olivia Caleta was hit hard, and the impact is plain to see. The surrounding countryside is littered with hundreds of the ‘nodding donkeys’ of the oil fields, but so many are not nodding anymore.

Clearly here oil was once king but the king is now been deposed. Unrepaired roads link up once well to do districts where no one lives now and the blue collar streets full of dust abandoned cars and all the detritus of an impoverished neighbourhood. It is pretty grim. Interestingly some friends of ours stopped at a bank there close to the beach where a colony of sea lions were happily settled, so close to the town.

Rio Desado was our next stop. A kind of marine town and a sort of resort which had also seen better times.

All the way from China to be scrapped

Up on blocks fate unknown

This is an interesting place where there is a mix of a fishing fleet, some ship repair yards and a couple of ships that had been run up onto the bank for scrapping.

Disused Railway station now a museum

There is an old railway station with a museum but as it was all in Spanish it was hard to fully appreciate it.

On the down side, there was a municipal camp which was probably the product of a bright idea about 15 years ago but which now is unpleasantly neglected and run down. We stayed one night, but just one. Outside the camp is a kind of promenade unfortunately someone else in the municipality had a bright idea to put a raw sewage outfall into the estuary. Fishing is encouraged there, and the smell wafts over the campsite. Nice!

We had a good look around the town including accidentally drifting into the naval base which bothered the guards a bit. Prompt 3 point turn called for!

Wild Horses on the Pampas

Some of the countryside around this town is lovely so we drove out and had a nice lunch in the hills overlooking the estuary and the drove on about 150 km on gravel roads, but not before going through a police check where the cop approached Ping’s window to ask a few questions and then politely asked to see her driving licence. She asked me for mine which I produced. He said ‘no I want to see yours!’  He pushed mine away. She said, why do you want to see my licence. His tone started to change a bit. He said I need the licence of the driver. She offered mine he refused and got a bit crosser. He said if you drive the car then you must have the licence and at that very moment, he spotted that I was in fact driving and that the steering wheel is on the wrong side. He immediately laughed slapped his forehead and put two fingers to his temple, as if to end it all. We enjoyed the moment very much and then he let us drive on, causing much mirth among his colleagues.

Long lonely gravel drive

On our long gravel drive we saw just two other vehicles, both lorries. One left the road after a short while, which left us stuck behind the other that was carrying a huge ‘Portakabin’ office thing. After a while we stopped for a short break. Unfortunately when we drove on we found that the road was blocked by the lorry who was now delivering this building at some remote location. This really was in the middle of nowhere.

We went to visit a petrified forest which was very interesting. It was made more interesting as the place was explained to us by a Park ranger who was very knowledgeable, spoke very good English.

A tree made of stone

The forest was really a load of squillion year old trees and logs that were perfectly preserved in stone. It was interesting, windy and cold in equal measure. 

These stones had every appearance of wood until you touch them

That afternoon we had a further adventure. It is important to remember that one of the great features  of this kind of travel that I find so rewarding are the extraordinary people you meet along the way. Even if sometimes the circumstances, are not quite so perfect.

We drove to one of those great filling stations and we set about parking for the night. A van pulled in next to us towing a caravan. The caravan was completely homemade but very well done. 

I complimented the owners on their handy work. When we got talking we learned, that the caravan was really well kitted out for, Father, Mother , Mothers sister, two teenage children and a dog! The father had been a freelance worker in construction industry. He had a terrible accident as a result of which he had sustained some awful injuries, fractured leg, fractured pelvis, broken ribs and a spinal injury. Frustrated by his long recovery in hospital in a far distant city they were taking him the thousands of kms home to Trelew where the family could look after him in time for Christmas. Actually looking at him busying himself with essential repairs and other domestic stuff you might think he did not need much looking after but his wife assured us that he was still very much injured and in terrible pain. I gathered that he is a really good guitarist and his skills were also needed in their church. All in all a really remarkable family who we will remember very well and glad to have met them.

Lovely family amazing self built caravan extraordinary man

Our tale does not end there. The next morning I decided to fill our reserve diesel tank as we had been told that there would be no fuel stop for over 500kms.

This tank is a very slow filler so I had made a system using a funnel and a box to stand on so that the pump did not keep cutting out as I pumped the fuel. So, I am standing on a box  with a funnel in a high wind  ( remember the winds?) I had put in just quarter of the tanks capacity when it started to flow back and diesel started blowing out of the filler!  This in turn  got picked up by the wind which was so powerful that it had the effect of massive aerosol so diesel fuel was being sprayed at high pressure over me , over the station forecourt, the attendant and the very nice British couple who had just pulled in beside us. There was fuel all down the side of our van  and the floor of the forecourt was like a skating rink. I was embarrassed and apologising to the attendant who did not seem to mind a bit.

Ping who was apparently oblivious to much of this drama. noticed that the British couple were of Chinese appearance. So she asked the driver, something like where are you from? He had a slightly panicked expression called his companion saying come here someone wants to talk Chinese!!! 
She comes up and a conversation in Chinese takes place while I try to wipe up some of the diesel. 

Jennifer and Kinh

It turns out that these folk, who have since become really quite good friends and companions, are of Vietnamese origin. We then went and spent the entire morning having coffee together, followed by lunch in the car park!

Noodles followed by chips made by Kinh

This and the fact that they are such nice people. Since then we have travelled together for a while   and enjoyed each others company very much.

We have now visited Monte Leon National Park where we saw a large colony of Magallanic penguins which was very interesting although it seems that this particular place the penguins are predated heavily from the sea by sea lions  from the air by seabirds. Pumas and foxes polish off a lot of juveniles and chicks. The area is littered with dead penguins. 

Did you see what happened to Brian?

Penguins take turns in incubating their chicks and those not on duty go and join the communal bath in the sea.

I saw a large brown Skua come down low and circle the beach. On a second pass round it dropped down and took a bathing penguin from the bathing crowd. Just like that! The other birds were scared at first and then carried on as normal as the skuar flew off with their friend.  I thought I heard one of them say. he got brian! but then passing the soap round they just carried on bathing

Nesting right under the viewing platform

In the same park, there was much information about the horrible seal hunting in  earlier years. The sea lions have colonies that have existed for ever. They continue despite human presence. Right up until the 1970s sea lions were hunted in large quantities for the oil and grease that can be had from them. Standing on the beach here is a huge boiler which was used for boiling up the seals as soon as they are hauled out of the sea. They were hunted almost to extinction.