By Charlotte Turner

‘Patagonia’s most present characteristic is its endless expanse of nothingness, both an attraction and a lesson in boredom for the overland traveller’, I read as the plane veered its course towards El Calafate.

Having found a direct flight out of Ushuaia for the same price as a 2-day bus/ weather-dependent ferry/bus/overnight stop in ‘wind-pummelled service town’/bus option, I had, happily, forfeited the first leg of the Ruta 40 that starts in Río Gallegos.

Instead, watching the ill-defined gravel road snake its path through the wide, brown Patagonian plains proved no better introduction to the utter sense of isolation that both the route and its setting inspire.

And anyways, I’m told that this is where it starts to get exciting. From here the road runs parallel to the Andean cordillera (range), crossing some of Argentina’s most inaccessible parts and passing by some of its archaeological and geographical gems.

Photo By: Kate Stanworth

None of these sparkle more brilliantly than the glaciers around El Calafate. This lake-side town is text-book ‘tourist’ – overpriced, overcrowded and tacky – it’s the nearby Perito Moreno and Los Glaciares national parks that pull the crowds.

By day the streets clear as visitors are either day-tripping to the parks or cramming themselves into the main street’s put upon supermarket, frantically stocking up on biscuits for the long journey out of town.

Obviously, you don’t come all this way not to go on a glacier safari. Taking a boat up close to the 60m-high wall of Perito Moreno or overlooking the snout of Upsala glacier – South America’s largest – it is hard to find the best camera angle or the right word to do the hunks of ice justice. Time to wheel out the big-gun adjectives – magnificent, awe-inspiring, breath-taking – that sort of thing.

Photo By: Kate Stanworth

A three-hour side-step by bus takes you towards the jaggedy, granite peaks of the Fitz Roy Range and into the hills and meadows of El Chaltén. I found myself happy as a pig in clover in this magical little place – climbing mountains, camping in the wild, swimming in glacial lakes – this is the kind of setting where even the grubbiest of souls can get a good spring clean.

A week later I arrive back in El Calafate. My R40 adventure was about to begin.

There are three ways to tackle the road: hire a car (requires patience and cash, lots of – this is a very long drive and this option is frighteningly expensive); go on an organised four-day road trip (Overland Patagonia offer the trip from Nov – Mar for $950, food not included); or take the cheapest option and buy a bus ticket for $220 with El Chaltén Travel bus company – quite literally the only one that dares to go where others think it’s best not.

Divided into two 12-hour journeys, the first runs to Perito Moreno (town), where everyone, very cosily, stays at the same hostel that is booked and paid for when you by the ticket. Then you take another bus that heads toward the blessedly (trust me, it will seem this way when you get there) tarred and oh so sealed highways around El Bolsón, and then Bariloche.

Photo By: Kate Stanworth

Two hours into the first journey, I’d seen three Australian water pumps, two cars, a whole lot of steppe (shrub like plant that covers the ground) and the emergence of a battle of the wills on board the bus. Rude Dutch man opens roof window, it is hot and he needs to cool off. Nice French lady is being rained on by dust pouring in from outside, she shuts the window. Round One…

… Round Seven. I cast my mind back to a friend in Buenos Aires who laughed out loud in my face when I told him of my plans to take this part of the Ruta 40. With an irritating self-righteousness he had informed me that ‘they don’t have any buses that can manage that road, you have to go round it via Comodoro Rivadavia and Puerto Madryn on the Atlantic coast’. Ha! Look who has the last laugh now friend, I say to myself, seven-hour bottom ache just setting in and finding it hard to manipulate my lips into a smile, let alone shut them, after having inhaled so much dust.

Just in time before the rocking in chair/tugging at hair stage of boredom took hold, we make a stop at a rickety wooden estancia (farm), one of the very first I’d seen in over eight hours of travel. We all feast on home-baked (no shops round here) pie, go to the loo and scan the barren, dusty land looking for life. Nope, none there.

In fact, the only signs I spotted were the elderly couple who run the cafe, an ominous cow’s skull presiding over the doorway and a couple of pet monsters, sorry guanaco’s (deer-like creature native to these parts) – one of which attacked me and sent me running back to the dreaded bus.

Later that night, we arrived in the pretty, lake-side oasis of Los Antiguos – world-famous for its annual cherry festival. With a sense of timing that so often accompanied me on my travels, I had arrived a day late: cherry town one day, cherry-pip town the next. But, thankfully, by the time I left town I had easily managed to devour my fair share of the glorious red fruit.

Trips to see the rock art at the ‘Cuevas de Las Manos’ (Hand Caves) can be arranged from here or from Perito Moreno (town) which is just a half hour away and back on the R40. Dating back to 7370BC, these polychrome rock paintings cover recesses in the near vertical walls with thousands of imprints of human hands. One of them has six fingers! See if you can spot it.

Photo By: Kate Stanworth

Heading back to the hostel in Perito Moreno that evening, I catch sight of a big painted wall on the main street. The picture is of a man waving his fist triumphantly in the air under the words ‘Perito Moreno is radical!’ It doesn’t take me long to realise that this is political propaganda, not a message from the local tourist board. Luckily, the bus north leaves early.

The second leg of the journey was much like the first – lots of steppe and few cars. Interestingly, I saw a dead armadillo on the side of the road.

Good reading intentions were soon set aside. My ‘Complete History of Latin America’ and my friend’s copy of Cervantes in Spanish quickly found their rightful places wedged between the seats with the biscuit crumbs. It was time to surrender to the onboard entertainment programme, this was no time to be fussy. A quasi-religious teen-snowboarding movie and two Vin Diesel films coloured/ruined the journey, but nicely passed the time.

That evening we pulled up in the town of El Bolsón – fruity, beery and lovely. After a couple of weeks spent drinking raspberry juice and working on a chacra (farm), it was time take the last leg of the R40 to Mendoza via Bariloche. Here, the road is like any other and several bus companies do the job.

Leaving in the late afternoon we traveled far enough north to see the sun set over Chile’s perfect conical volcanoes. If there is one thing you remember about Patagonia, it’s the sky. Endless streaks of amber and red soon disappeared into the twilight, revealing yet another night’s sky dripping with stars.

Nearing Mendoza the next morning, I woke to a syrupy-sweet coffee and the awesome spectacle of mighty Aconcagua – the tallest peak in the Western Hemisphere – looming in the distance.

For El Chaltén bus timetables www.thetravellersguru.com
For Ruta 40 Travel Packages www.overlandpatagonia.com