Hello again!
We are pleased to report back that we have finished our first week on the road and we have loved every minute of it! It’s going to be hard to capture everything we have done into one blog post. I think I will go day by day to and share the highlights and interesting things from each day.
So finally, on January 3rd we were able to obtain our truck! This process was so long and painful that I might write a whole blog just about this experience to help anyone else in the future. Anyway, at 5 pm on the 3rd we were able to drive our truck out of the warehouse storage facility and say goodbye to our broker, Daniel. We were free! We now had total freedom to go anywhere we wanted, but this freedom also came with some new responsibilities. We now had to worry about the truck’s health and safety as well as our own. Our first goal for the truck were to obtain all our necessary components, gas, food, water and propane. After leaving the warehouse we found the nearest gas station and also came across our first new car predicament: what do they call petrol here? Pulling up to the gas pump we saw three varieties: super, gasoil and extra-max. The attendant took a look at our car and asked, “gasoil?” We really didn’t want to make a huge mistake on our first day and accidently fill up on diesel when we needed petrol, so we took a minute to think. I responded, “Necesitamos petrol, no diesel, cual son petrol?” It was immediate that he did not understand was petrol was, but the name diesel did ring a bell. He told us that gasoil and diesel are the same thing and that if we did not want diesel, we needed nafta, which is their word for petrol. We had passed our first test without making a catastrophic mistake and using the wrong fuel. We now had one of our necessary components.
After the gas station we drove our truck to the downtown district of Puerto Madero, which is the newest and fanciest financial district in Buenos Aires. On iOverlander, our app to find camping sites, there were many “campgrounds” in this area. Many of the campgrounds are just areas where you are allowed to park and spend the night. The area we chose for our first night was a parking spot on a decently busy road near a park. We felt perfectly safe there because it was well lit and there were plenty of people around. Also, from this spot we could walk to dinner and walk to a grocery store to get our food supplies. We also unpacked our camper and our clothes which we had been carrying in our backpacking backpacks for the last month. We were so happy to have everything back in its place! We didn’t sleep very well that first night since there were people and cars making noise all night, but we were so happy to sleep in our home!
The next day we woke up early to leave Buenos Aires. Nikki took the first driving shift, since I get anxious driving in traffic and Nikki gets stressed with the navigation. (We are such a good pair 🙂 ). It turned out to be a very easy trip out of town, we just got on the highway and drove straight south. Our first destination was Las Flores, a small town that iOverlander said had a good place to fill up our propane. We had heard that filling propane cylinders is one of the hardest things to do for overlanders because every country had a different connection for filling and many places only sell cylinders and wont refill empty ones. We arrived at Las Flores and found the shop, but it seemed to be closed. It was 3 pm on a Wednesday and we realized that everything was closed for siesta. Sure enough, after reading in our camper for 2 hours, the store opened back up and we were able to fill both of our cylinders. Depending on our use, we believe we can make these two cylinders last 2-3 months before needing a refill. Since it was getting late, we decided to stay in town at a campground next to a large lagoon. Unlike our first night, this campsite was an established campground with toilets, showers and a place for us to fill our water tank, we now had all the necessary things we needed for our trip to start! There was even a boy scouts group spending the night there! We enjoyed a nice walk around the lake where we saw a variety of birds, including an owl, and wild capybara! These rodents of unusual size were so calm you could walk right past them and they wouldn’t even turn their heads to you. We slept very well that night and we just couldn’t believe our road trip had started.
The next two days consisted mainly of driving. On average we drove between 6 and 9 hours a day. On this area of the east coast, there isn’t much to see and we just wanted to get down south as fast as we could to get to the beautiful scenery and hiking. Our third night we stayed in Monte Hermoso on a stunning beach! We camped with two other vans on a sand parking lot that directly overlooked the beach. We had a great dinner of spiced rice lettuce wraps with a sweet chili sauce on the beach. Unfortunately, in the morning we found we had a ticket on our windshield. Apparently, the city has been enforcing a newish rule that camping is only allowed in designated campsites. The frustrating part was that the other two Argentinian vehicles had been there for multiple nights and did not receive the same ticket. The ticket looked like a warning since it didn’t have any fine amount on it, but we went to the police station anyway to make sure. Sure enough, the lady at the police station very nicely told us to use the paid camping grounds in the future but we didn’t have to pay anything.
On the fourth night, we stayed in a small beach town called Playas Doradas. A little hesitant from our warning the previous night, we chose to camp in a paid campground; another shower wouldn’t hurt either. This campground was fine but nothing spectacular, just a lot of campers jammed in a walled in complex. It was nice to have a second hot shower though!
On our fifth day with the truck we had arrived at our first destination of the trip, Valdez Peninsula. This peninsula is a UNESCO world heritage site for its colonies of sea lions and penguins and it a breeding ground for the endangered right whale and orcas regularly hunt here. Unfortunately, we were not in the right season to see the whales or orcas, but we were very excited to see penguins in the wild for the first time! Penguins have always been my favorite animal, so I was ecstatic to see them! The drive into the peninsula turned out to be longer than we thought on the map and it took us about 2 hours to drive from the entrance of the park to the first viewpoint, but once we got there it was worth it to see the penguins! We saw a colony of Magellan penguins and were amazed at how unafraid they were of us. The penguins were literally at your feet as we walked along the walkway. We actually had to watch our steps to not kick one of them! I absolutely loved seeing these penguins so close! They are very dopey looking animals, but I think they are so funny and cute!
After leaving the Valdez Peninsula, we kept on driving south to our campsite just outside of the town of Puerto Madryn. This campsite was funny because it felt like we were part of a group of vagabonds living on the outskirts of town. There were probably 20-30 other groups all crammed into a small road between sand dunes. Many of the other groups were in campers or tents but some looked to be living there indefinitely. People had set out fire pits and yards in front of campers that looked stuck in the sand. We parked our car among some sand dunes along the beach and went to converse with our new neighbors. Our new plan at every non-designated campsite is to talk to as many people as we can to ask about the viability and safety of camping there. At this campsite people were more than willing to chat with us! They were interested in our camper and our trip and soon enough we were invited to sit down and enjoy some mate with them!
The next morning we left for another long drive to another penguin colony, only this colony is home to 9,000 breeding pairs of penguins! As we were approaching the town nearest to the colony, we noticed a small animal crossing the road. I told Nikki to slow down and watch out but as we drew closer, we realized it was a small kitten!! We immediately pulled over on the road and contemplated what to do. We were still about 10 km outside of the nearest town and the landscape around us was a barren desert. We got out of the car and walked back to where we saw the kitten. We could hear him meowing and found him hiding under a small bush. As soon as we got there, he came out of the bush and laid down at our feet. He was so small and skinny; he must have been around 6-8 weeks old. Nikki and I were stunned to see such a baby out here all alone. We didn’t know what to do about it. We had always promised each other that if we found a stay kitten on the side of the road in the US, we would adapt it, but we had not discussed this situation in South America. Our first instinct was to get the kitten some water and food and wait and see if we saw other kittens or the mom. We gave the kitten a bowl of water and he drank for a solid 3 minutes straight. We could tell he was thirsty. The whole time with the kitten, he would not stop meowing. We didn’t know if he was calling out to us to his mom. We waited on the side of the road with the kitten for 30 minutes but we didn’t see any other signs of life around. We then decided we could not leave this kitten here. He followed us anywhere we went, all he wanted was some love. He purred and cuddled with us when we petted and picked him up. Our plan was to take him into town and see if there was a veterinarian or someone in town to take care of him.
On the way into town he snuggled with Nikki but kept on meowing. We both really wanted to keep him, since we knew we would give him the care he needed, but we also knew adopting this cat would dramatically change our trip and we didn’t want that. Painfully we decided the kitten needed to stay with someone here. Arriving in the town, we asked the tourist information about a vet in town and she laughed at the idea of such a small town having a vet, but she was sad to see this little kitten without a home. Not knowing what else to do, we took the kitten to the police station and explained our situation. With the amount of stay animals living around town, I am sure the policewomen working there thought we were crazy for bringing in a stray kitten, but we didn’t care, we just wanted to kitten to live. The policewomen very kindly took the kitten and said she would post a message on the town WhatsApp group to see if anyone could take him. We left the police station happy about our decision but also very sad for this little kitten and hoping someone will take care of him. After shedding a couple of tears and thinking about of beloved animals back home. We continued onto the penguin colony.
This penguin colony was even better than the first one we saw! The shear number of penguins was amazing and this time we were able to see chicks! The little penguins were so round and fluffy but we decided that penguins are one of the few animals where the adults are cuter than the babies. The babies are so fat and scraggly and the way they sit makes them look like Homer Simpson sitting on the couch with his beer belly hanging out! It was really fun seeing them though! We also saw hundreds of penguins in the water. When penguins surface they jump out of the water slightly to take a breath before diving in again. They looked like a group of small dolphins.
While viewing the penguins, we walked to the end of the walkway and happened upon some of our friends from our Spanish school! We knew they were roughly on the same schedule we were and we had planned to meet up at some point, but this meeting was completely random! We had even seen a Swiss overlanding van in the parking lot and had commented on it but it did not cross our minds that is was Nicole’s brother’s van. We sat and chatted with Nicole, her brother, Philippe and his girlfriend Barbara. We had not seen any of them for about 3 weeks so we caught up on everyone’s travel experiences. We also decided to camp together that night, so we left the penguin colony together and found a campsite about 10 minute away. This whole evening felt surreal. We found a campsite right on the beach on this amazing bay. We had a stunning view of the full bay and of the town across it. If we looked closely, we could even see sea lions playing and swimming in the water. There was also no one else around us, just our two overlanding vehicles and the stunning scenery. We both made camp and soon enough we made a small living room between our cars. We put down our camping carpet along with our two chairs and camping table. Similarly, they brought out their chairs and table. The whole scene was unreal. I know Nikki and I are not the heavy Instagram users but this scene looked too perfect to just happen naturally. So here we are with our #vanlife, #allnatural, #glamping, #blessed, #wokeuplikethis, #nofilter picture #megusta. You won’t get many of these from us so enjoy it.
In reality that evening felt like a dream because of where we were camping and that we were having beer and dinner with 3 Swiss people that we randomly met at Spanish School and then randomly came across at a penguin colony. We enjoyed our evening together and talked until it was too dark to see. We will both remember that night for a long time and we are so excited that we will have many more of those nights to come.
The next morning we all packed up and decided to travel together for the time being seeing as that we both have roughly the same route in mind. Today we are off to another beach camping site and I will let you all know how our next week goes in the next blog. Thank you all so much for reading!
Nikki and Colter
Nikki and Colter's South American Travel Blog 