ARGENTINA 1 Through the Pampas

For a week now we have been traveling through Argentina, always heading south on the RN 3. We have gotten used to staying overnight at the Camping Municipales, which are everywhere. There is always electricity, toilets, often drinking water, and usually hot showers. Often everything is very simple and sometimes really dirty, but then we can always retreat to the Dubs. Every Camping Municipales has plenty of barbecue spots and picnic areas, which are used diligently by the locals, especially on weekends. We are almost always approached, asked about our home and travel plans, and provided with more or less good tips for the area. We understand quite a lot by now, but the answers still require the use of hands, feet, and Google Translator and usually cause amusement.

Before we head into the solitude of the Pampas, we make a detour to San Antonio de Areco, the most beautiful gaucho town in Argentina. We are actually greeted with a nice and even touristic little town, where we spend a nice evening in the trendiest village pub.

In the next few days we drive through the Pampas, finding a place by the sea or a river in the evenings.

Of course we have prepared ourselves and read a lot about the Pampas - lonely, rough, wild, fascinating animal world, gauchos, romance... and it's almost like that. Honestly, we didn't imagine the Pampas to be so endless, so lonely and so monotonous. The roads are straight as an arrow all the way to the heat-buzzing horizon. Nothing but knee-high dry bushes on the right and left, sometimes green, sometimes gray, sometimes ochre. Once we drove along huge sunflower fields for a few minutes, once there was an olive farm. Our navigation system shows 100 km straight ahead, then there is a huge empty roundabout, then several hundred km straight ahead again. Every few hours there is a gas station with a café, toilets, showers, and wifi. A kind of oasis for the long-haul truck drivers and for us. We take turns driving frequently because it is so monotonous and hot that our eyes quickly become heavy. Every now and then we see herds of cattle, sheep that blend into the gray landscape, guanacos that like to leisurely cross the road and force us to brake suddenly, rheas and a kind of smaller running bird that travel at breakneck speed and can also fly a few meters in case of emergency. Every few kilometers there is a red shrine on the roadside, sometimes several directly together, and many red flags catch the eye immediately. There, the Argentinians worship their folk saint 'Gauchito Gil,' not recognized by the church, beloved by the people. He was a vagabond, deserter and thief and was eventually executed. He informed his executioner that his son was sick, but would survive if Gil got a proper grave (which was not intended for thieves). The son was indeed ill, the executioner provided a grave, and the son recovered. That's how quickly you can become a saint here.

We cross the border into Patagonia, but here too we are initially faced with nothing but Pampas with heat, dust, and endless roads. The visit to the famous Peninsula Valdes is rather disappointing. The endless roads here are not even paved, so we have to drive over a hundred kilometers on gravel roads to catch a glimpse of a few sea lions from a distance and visit a small penguin colony with a few dozen cruise tourists on shore excursions. We spend the night at a legal wild campsite by the sea and enjoy the coolness from the fresh sea breeze.