Ruta 40

We set out from El Chalten heading northwards on Argentinas famed Ruta 40. This road is Argentinas equivalent to Route 66 in the US, Death Road. The road runs from North to South through the Patagonian Steppe.

A combination of a poor road surface, lack of any human surroundings and no lighting mean that no bus companies will undertake this part of our journey overnight. Leaving us with the best option of a 9am-9pm bus journey up to the small town of Perito Moreno (not to be confused with the glacier of the same name).

Due to the non existence of buses at night on Ruta 40, most passengers on route to Bariloche are obliged to spend the night in a motel before continuing with another eight hour journey early the following morning. We however not fully appreciating this logic decided to break from the tourist tradition and go against this...

... Bad idea! Our plan was to break up the 20 hours of gravel road by spending a full day in the town of Perito Moreno. After all the glacier of the same name was truly stunning. On arrival to Perito Moreno we started to appreciate that this was a mistake, and the town provided no significant greatness to reflect that of it's more famous glacial namesake. Local entertainment involves sitting by the side of the road and watching the sporadic vehicles pass by. There is no other form of entertainment in town.

After disembarking the bus it was clear that an immediate exit strategy was needed. We tried to buy our way back onto the bus the following morning however it was unfortunately completely full. "... and the day after?", "No Bus". The bus was running on alternate days, and with the next one full that meant a three day stay in one of the more uninteresting towns in South America. By this stage it's getting dark and a quick trip to the 'tourist information' at the other end of town, and one poor Spanish conversation later we managed to ascertain that there is another company that runs the journey north... every four days.

Fortunately the next day happened to be one of those fourth days. Unfortunately the ticket office was closed until the following morning. Back to the Hotel (Motel) Belgrano and an anxious nights sleep hoping praying and dreaming that we could get out of there the next day.

An early morning start followed to be at the bus station early in an attempt to procure two tickets to take us 500km north and away from here. A short one hour wait for the office to open (an hour later than scheduled) provided us with two tickets and some welcome relief at not having to wait around for two days!

With our bus not until 4pm that afternoon we had several hours to kill. A chance to confirm that the town offers very little in the daytime as per the previous evening. It was becoming very apparent that the place existed only as a destination to provide long distance bus drivers a place to sleep.
The bus eventually arrived and for the first time we were really looking forward to a long bumpy bus ride!