Pehoe Camping
We didn’t stay up to see the new year in. However, we were woken at about 2am by our neighbours slamming car doors. Very inconsiderate of them, we thought. They had arrived late in the evening and had asked if they could park next to us and put up their tent in our wooden shelter. Each campsite has a shelter for small tents. Obviously, we weren’t using ours. The campsite was seriously oversubscribed with people parking everywhere, so we agreed to them using our shelter.
On the road by 10.30, we drove through the Park getting a different perspective of the peaks. We followed the Paine river with its glacial water and some scenic waterfalls. It is a bit of an anticlimax after the splendours of yesterday.
Again the weather has changed. It is overcast and dull. In fact later in the afternoon it rains while we are driving and then just after we put up the tent. Fortunately, not enough to cause the tent to leak, but there are dark clouds hovering.
Crossing the Border again.
We leave the park more quickly than we had anticipated and are back on Route 40. We reach Cerro Castillo and another border crossing. The Chile Immigration and Customs office is small. The immigration desks are unmanned so we go straight to customs and get our Temporary Import Permit for Poki cancelled.
The customs agent asked why we didn’t go to immigration first. We told him there was no one at the desk. He advised us we needed to ring the bell to summon someone. We went back to do this, only to be asked by the immigration agent, why we didn’t have a TIP. We advised it had already been cancelled as we had gone to customs first. He was very disapproving, but within minutes we were on our way through no man’s land, to the Argentinian border.
The Argentinian office was even smaller and pretty basic. The young lady immigration agent asked for our car papers. I gave her the UK registration document. No she said, she wanted the car papers. We told her this document was for the car. She insisted she wanted something else and took our passports and went to find a gentleman who spoke English. We had not experienced a problem like this before.
The gentleman was the customs agent. He advised she wanted our car rental papers. We explained it was our own vehicle and the paper we had given her was the correct one. We think she must have been new to the job. Argentina does not stamp passports, so once she had entered us in the system and returned our passports, we went to the customs agent for him to issue another TIP.
We continue along a brand new concrete road. Soon we find a spot to stop for some lunch. Good old cheese and tomato sandwiches. A bit further on we come across a small petrol station with a sign saying it’s a WiFi zone, so we stop and catch up with WhatsApp messages. The signal isn’t strong enough for emails. We’re feeling bad not having spoken to our children over Christmas or New Year, but the lack of WiFi has been a problem.
We turn off route 40 onto Route 7, a yellow road on the map and gravel. It is a considerable short cut, but is 67 kms of gravel. In some places deep and rough.
Cabanas Camping El Calafate
Locating the campsite in El Calafate there is a sign on the gate saying it is full. We enter anyway, but the reception office is closed. Another camper comes and tries to assist us. He calls the camp owner, but there is no reply. He says there is space and suggests we set up and come back to reception later.
I go to the ladies and when I’m on my way back, meet Dennis and the campsite owner walking back to reception. The owner isn’t looking very happy about us setting up without checking in first, but cheers up when we pay him.
Perito Merino Glacier
We catch up with correspondence, have dinner and by 21.30 there are still several empty spaces in the campsite. Tomorrow we’ll drive to Perito Moreno Glacier. It’s about 80 kilometres from El Calafate and is one of the world’s most famous glaciers. It covers an area of 250 square kilometres and spans 5 kilometers in width. Its impressive size and beauty earned it a place on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1981. It is one of the few glaciers in the world that is currently maintaining equilibrium, with the rate of ice accumulation being slightly more than the rate of melting.
Total distance traveled since beginning our journey
81,755 miles or 131,571 k’s.
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