Patagonia Road Trip

[ajoknoblauch]

When driving on Ruta 3 near Piedra Buena (Santa Cruz), don't miss the detour to Parque Nacional Monte León. One of Argentina's best parks, and very few visitors.

 

[rrptownley]

Thanks for all the great info. Can I ask what car rental agency you used?

Guido Guidi

 

[Morin]

Hi,
Sounds like an amazing trip! can you tell me how much was the car rental?

Many Thanks!

 

[GMXam]

Thanks for all the great info. Can I ask what car rental agency you used?

We used streetrentacar in belgrano

 

[GMXam]

Hi,
Sounds like an amazing trip! can you tell me how much was the car rental?

Many Thanks!

We reserved a price a month in advance and paid cash during the non-peak time, just before December so our rates may not be the same you get quoted. Our month's rate was 14,000 pesos from end of October to end of November.

 

[GMXam]

When driving on Ruta 3 near Piedra Buena (Santa Cruz), don't miss the detour to Parque Nacional Monte León. One of Argentina's best parks, and very few visitors.

We didn't miss that one, and there were very few visitors. One van full of people and us in mid-November

 

[ajoknoblauch]

We didn't miss that one, and there were very few visitors. One van full of people and us in mid-November

Too bad you didn't see the park before the collapse of La Olla, which was really spectacular (though its remains are still interesting),

 

[GMXam]

San Martín de los Andes to Bariloche:

Although we drove through snow and rain, it was an amazing view nevertheless. We took the routes 234, 231, and 237 into Bariloche. If you are interested in capturing the views on camera, these routes are the way to go, mountains and lakes to take in much of the way. We stopped in Villa La Angostura for lunch, but because it was rainy, we decided to push through to Bariloche.

Along the way, you see plenty of Gomerias…we had to stop at one later during our weeklong stay in Bariloche to repair a tire on a Saturday afternoon (this one in Dina Huapi every place we checked in Bariloche was closed)…50 pesos to remove a nail and patch a slow leak.

The goods on Bariloche:
It’s Bariloche. Everything seems good. The lake is beautiful. The mountains are beautiful. If you are an outdoorsy person, you’ll love it as there are so many hikes you can do (day and extended, mountain climbing, etc.) within a drive from this city. At the lake, you can swim (although it was still pretty chilly in October/November to do this), kayak, scuba dive (wha!?!), fish, camp, picnic, lay on the beach, and all sorts of water activities if you can find the gear/equipment to do it. For the outdoor lover that is less active, there are plenty of vistas to drive to and just chill.

Restaurants…you are still in Argentina, the land of hard to find spices, but we found some gems. Mexican: Dias de Zapata, spicy salsa, good mole, just can’t get used to dipping bread in my salsa . El Boliche de Alberto: our go-to parilla. For drinks, Cervecería Bachmann or Cervecería Manush. Llao Llao Cafe Patagonia: tip-we went for lunch twice around 3pm, no trouble parking, no trouble finding a table, food was awesome (thanks for the recommendation, Lucha!), heard from others that if you don’t have a reservation during peak times you will not get a table. Thankfully, our hours are really off with everyone else’s. If we go back, I’d like to finally find Aashi Almace y Cocina Natural; it has great reviews but we just couldn’t find it.

Mamushka…this is the best chocolate we found in Bariloche. Love this place. Why is Rapa Nui here in BA and not Mamushka?

Our apartment…this place was amazing (thanks, Jez!). It was beautiful, comfortable, great views, fully stocked, and in an awesome location. It was a place you had to really debate with yourself to leave each morning and see the rest of Bariloche. Loved it (link here).

Activities/Sights we checked out: Centro Civico, Circuito Chico (one from our group fished in Lago Perito Moreno while the rest of us hiked), Bosque de Arrayanes, Cerro Llla Llao (this was an awesome place to eat a picnic lunch if you can plan your hike through Circuito Chico that way…great views from the top and lots of room to sit and enjoy the view for quite some time), Cerro Campanario, Circuito Grande, Cerro Catedral, and just walking around the downtown area.

What we missed but wished we hadn’t: Colonia Suiza, Bariloche in the fall and winter (what am I saying, I hate the freezing temps!).

You really can’t go wrong with checking out all what Bariloche has to offer (skip the fondue, though). What we wished we would have skipped: La Marmite, Morphy's and Friends...thumbs down.

 

[GMXam]

Bariloche to El Chaltén/El Calafate:

We drove Ruta 40 most of the way. It led us through El Bolsón and Esquel.

Lucha, I wish we could have stayed in El Bolsón and Esquel. Both seemed pretty cool places to get to know over a few days to a week. We drove through both towns and loved the look of the towns. We passed several fruit stands, houses selling fruit products (jellies, jams, pastries, etc.). The houses were so cute, everything green with added floral color. We saw some people outside having picnics in their yards, or just sunning themselves on blankets. I love that whole side of Argentina. I'm in love with the westside where the grass is greener (or really, where there is grass)... and living on the eastside .

After you leave the lakes/mountains area, you’ll see a lot of desolate land until you get within 60km Gobernador Gregores.

Our overnight stop was in Perito Moreno, the town.

Important note: you have to find the hotels via Google maps for Perito Moreno "the town" and then call them to make a reservation. They don’t have web reservations options in this town as of our last stay. As small as this town is, you’d be surprised to know these hotels fill up. This town is the midpoint between Bariloche and El Calafate/El Chaltén so many who road trip will be in this town or Los Antiguos (about 60km west of Perito Moreno the town). Much of what you’ll find on the internet will point you to hotels/b&bs/hostels in El Calafate which is why I added “the town” above. You’ll need to verify the physical location of any you find on the internet.

We decided at the last minute to see Cueva de las Manos…we totally recommend it. Just be prepared for rough rocky road and breaks-testing hills that, if you haven’t tested your brakes, can land you in a ravine or dried creek bed. Keep your camera handy if you want pictures of the guanacos (llamas) and the rheas (ostrich-like birds), or even the scenery after you pass the first hill. It was pretty amazing, the drive and the sight.

On the way to El Chaltén on Ruta 40, there is a triangle in that area where at the fork you choose between Ruta 40 and Ruta 25 (straight shot we should have taken to Gobernador Gregores, our gas stop); Ruta 40 was purely ripio (rocky road) yet both rental GPS and Google Maps told us to take it and then Ruta 29 to our gas stop. Always, in Argentina, use (http://www.vialidad.gov.ar/) to plan your route, unless you have one of those fancy GPS devices that you can update the roads status info and you trust it. We did not and found ourselves off track by 2 hours due to ripio roads. Ripio sucks unless you are driving in the Dakar Rally.

One more thing, if anyone knows what it is…please post here…at bottom left corner of the triangle made up of Ruta 40, Ruta 25 and Ruta 29, there was a steam cloud coming out of the ground (I’m assuming it was a steam cloud) from the middle of what appeared to be a dried up lake bed. Some of the clouds that billowed over the road we drove through. It seemed like a pretty interesting geological area. It was located around here on google maps -48.787214,-70.677170.

From Ruta 23, you have some amazing views of the lake and Glaciar Viedma right before your get to El Chaltén. Be prepared for no internet service until after midnight and before 7am. The bandwidth for the whole town is pretty small and doesn’t clear up until most people sleep. The hikes we took were beautiful: Lago de los Tres, Laguna Capri, Mirador de los Condores. No words.

Our three great finds: Que Rika Cafe (go-to coffee/hot cocoa and merienda), La Tapera (dinner twice here…delicious), and Almazen (great healthy-like hiking snacks)

We stayed at Santa Monica Aparts in El Calafate - really cute cabins, for two nights. Our only activity here was the Perito Moreno Glaciar. The Big Ice tour was awesome. My recommendation, get the proper socks for your hiking boots if you rent them for this adventure (i.e. thick hiking socks AND the silk liner socks). You will be walking with crampons for an extended period at angles your feet will not be used to walking normally which will create pressure points on skin not accustomed to them.

The whole experience was awesome. Pricey, but definitely worth the go if you are in hiking shape and like adventure/risky activities. If you’re not or you don't, do the short glacier walk adventure. Otherwise, you’ll be miserable and so will the rest of the people in your group. From what I hear, you see much of the same things, just in different ways and for an extended amount of time hiking on the Big Ice tour.

 

[GMXam]

El Calafate to Puerto Madryn - Bahia Blanca - Buenos Aires

We drove south to Rio Gallegos and northbound on Ruta 3 and stayed overnight in Puerto San Julián. We stayed at the Hotel Municipal Costanera. Dinner in their restaurant was pretty good…they have Paella, the soupy kind with a variety of seafood in it, delicious. It’s right at the bay next to Plazoleta Heroes de Malvinas and a plane installation.

From there, we headed up the coastline towards Comodoro Rivadavia, our next gas/lunch spot. Just before you get there, you pass a smaller beach community, Rada Tilly, that looked pretty interesting. Pretty beaches and cute beach houses could be seen from the road. There also seemed to be several gated communities in this area south of Comodoro Rivadavia.

By late afternoon, we arrived in Puerto Madryn. For a beach town right on the gulf, there did not seem to be a lot of good offerings of seafood. Much of what we had was not much different than what we’ve had in BA. That was a little disappointing. What they did have were amazing white sand beaches and views of the whales just off the pebble beaches of El Doradillo (video here). I took that video steps from the water. The whales were a swim away from the shore. It was really cool to see them. Hearing them was extraordinary!

Our go-to sit-down pizza place in Puerto Madryn: IL Nono. Sadly, no other recommendations for restaurants here.

Our next stop, Bahia Blanca. This city was very much a mini BA, in my opinion; but then, we were only there for an afternoon and overnight, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. Funny restaurant shocker: we went to a sushi restaurant, which had a similar selection to what we’ve seen in BA, except with a little more creativity. After giving our order of food, we asked if they had sake. The gal taking our order did not know what sake was nor if they had it. We took that as a “no”. Not a big deal as we only know of 2 restaurants that serve sake, one that’s not a sushi bar (Fukuro!).

What’s a road trip without a little excitement? On our drive back to BA, and after our first gas stop, our car started to act up. It began to loose power right when I was passing a large truck, and then conveniently shut itself off. It did this several more times along the way, but after the second occurrence I figured out how to keep it from stalling out. We were on the edge of our seat just trying to get back to BA. Apparently, 7000km was the limit for that car.