Driving 1,600km across Argentina
East to West: Buenos Aires to San Martin De Los Andes
Nov 2022
After stocking up on cash and groceries, we left Buenos Aires, headed west across Argentina. We had one last very important stop on our way out of the city. After days of searching around Montevideo and Buenos Aires for gas for our hob, help finally came in the form of a random man Justin found on an overlanding Facebook group dedicated to helping fellow travellers find camping gas, cheers Zuckerberg! We pulled up at a promising YPF gas distribution centre, managed to speak some broken Spanish to a guy on the other side of some railings, and a few minutes and the equivalent of £50 later we were the proud owners of a 10kg butane bottle, hallelujah! We were one step closer to cooking in our van, although we were still missing two vital components: the correct regulator and a long enough gas pipe. We decided to worry about that later, this was a big enough win for today.
Diesel in Argentina is very cheap (45p/litre). But due to rampant inflation, this means you have to hand over about 70 notes at the pump to pay for a tank. We have an 80-litre diesel tank that we can get at least 500 miles out of. We also have a 25L diesel tank that we will be filling up with cheap diesel before we cross the border! We have now upgraded to the premium diesel, which is still only about 60p/litre, out of the fear our diesel particulate filter may not be the biggest fan of the cheap stuff. Most of the major roads in Argentina are tolled, but they are about 50p each. People drive quite aggressively and we spend most of our time looking in our mirrors saying to ourselves “Go round, mate”. The roads here also give the Romans a run for their money. They are incredibly long and straight. Most of the highways are lovely smooth paved roads but we did have one stretch of about 100km that was more pothole than tarmac.
Our target was San Martin de los Andes, an Andean town at the top of the ‘Lakes District’. This is a stunning area of breathtaking scenery, hikes, interesting roads, and wildlife. Without really knowing how far we would drive; we scouted out some potential campsites along the route and set off towards Santa Rosa along the Ruta 5. We had a very hot and sweaty drive to the town of Bragado. We had ended up driving through the hottest part of the day, with the sun streaming into the cab, and even with both windows down and our attire looking like we were nearing the end of a game of strip poker, it was still boiling. We arrived at a free, municipal campsite with a lovely view of the lake, just in time for a colourful sunset. The heat was unrelenting, and apparently never dropped below 22 degrees overnight. After struggling to adapt our mosquito nets to fit over our van doors, we settled for cooking and eating with barely any clothes on, covered in wet flannels and gel cool packs. In the morning we opened our side door to a view of flamingos skimming over the glistening water, pretty magical.
We set off early to beat the heat and after another sweaty drive, arrived in Uriburu at an apparently free, ‘proper’ campsite. There was no one around, and despite WhatsApping a number on a sign on the fence that translated to ‘short chubby phone’, we never saw anyone that worked there. There were signs that someone was taking care of it – the grass was immaculately cut, the showers and toilets clean, working and with hot water! Before anyone could come and tell us we couldn’t stay there, we grabbed our towels and went and had a hot shower. The town was deserted, and we saw more stray dogs than people wandering around the streets. We ended up with the whole place to ourselves, apart from one bloke that arrived in his caravan at 10pm and started a barbecue.
There is nothing in the middle of Argentina. After a few hundred miles, Pedro was absolutely caked in dust and dead flies, and our conservative approach to water consumption means the closest thing to a wash he’s had is Em taking a damp sponge to his windscreen every night. We have seen some cool wildlife on our drives – we’re no experts but these are our official identifications: llamas, Crested Caracaras, some jackal thing, some badger thing, emus, a Pampas Cat, a massive toad, and a tiny deer. One day, the only glimpse of civilisation we had was a weird building that was half a shop and half a restaurant. You hear that no one speaks English, but you imagine that means it’s not as easy to communicate as when you go to Tenerife for your holidays. But really, no one speaks English. We sat down next to some truck drivers who were sharing a beer and ordered what they were having (some massive sandwiches) to avoid having to try and understand too much Spanish in the middle of nowhere with no Google translate to help. The chef managed to explain to us that his horse had just won a race by proudly pointing at a framed photo behind us. Luckily we got our sandwiches to go because they were disgusting and we would have felt bad spitting them out in front of him. Justin attempted to fly the drone through the van in some arty production we’d imagined. But it was very windy and instead he recorded his own face as he crashed into the side of Pedro.
We arrived in the province of Neuquen and everyone was suddenly wearing berets. Really big berets. That night, we found a lovely wild camp spot by the Limay river, which was also unbearingly boiling so we slept with the doors open with our new pet horse that some bloke tied to a tree next to our van and Justin was terrified of. The next day, we enjoyed a very scenic drive from Neuquen to San Martin de los Andes through the mountains, with Lanin volcano in the background. The road was winding through spectacular scenery and finally we had something interesting to look at!