Puerto San Julian, Provincia de
Santa Cruz, Republica Argentina
20 february 2001
Hello to Caravana from the laggards who are just now heading N from Patagonia... but hey, we have an excuse, we are older and lazier than the other group and it takes us longer to savor the experiences we are rewarded with every day. Day before yesterday we sat for the better part of two days in front of Perrito Moreno glacier just waiting for another piece to break off. Today, we are in Puerto San Julian near a wonderful beach called La Mina that we visited on our way S where there are fossils of every kind of sea creature stacked in layers up the wall of a million year old cliff.
Right now the van is rocking due to 50 mph wind gusts hitting from the back. The winds always come from the W here and are more or less constant. While I was in the phone company trying to send this message and three pictures (failed), a man there told me that 80 kph (about 50 mph) winds are common for 10 months of the year (March and April are exceptions) and he also mentioned that in Gobernador Gregores some 200 km from here that last week there were 200 kph winds that actually hurled small rocks through the air. Lombardy poplars and other drought and wind resistant trees have to be planted as wind breaks wherever people try to live. You can easily identify the location of the estancias or large ranches in the campo or countryside by the green borders of trees that shelter almost every building of the estancia -- especially the main house.
I am sending with this message three pictures of some places we have visited in the last few days. We have seen ice bergs floating in lakes, ice calving off 150 foot front walls of glaciers and have seen many animals along the roads into the various national parks we visited. I got some excellent footage of an Andean Condor (Vultur gryphus) with its ten foot wings spread sailing over the face of the Perrito Moreno Glacier two days back.
In the next few days as we come to places with internet access ($6 an hour -- remember this is Argentina where a coke in a restaurant is $2 and a 2 liter coke in the super market is nearly $2.50!), I will try to send more pictures as I have time to make the pages. I hope you are able to receive these pictures since the places we have visited almost defy description with words -- perhaps you will be able to appreciate the grandeur from a photo.
Here are some more of the 'Things we have learned' while traveling.
Les & them, Kai & Valeria and Will & Larry
General observations: Uruguay has the best roads, very nice people and old cars dating back 80 or more years that still ply the roads. It is like going back in time when you see a Model T coming toward you on a modern four lane highway. Gas is $1 a liter like Argentina, the people are very law conscious, and there is good food not too highly priced.
Tires: Les had Yokohoma tires all around and has replaced all of them after 17,000 miles due to tread separation. Tyler has had I believe 7 flats. We and Kai and Valeria and Jeanne have Michelin Agilis tires and although Jeanne's tires look as though they had been driven across hot glass (many small cuts in them), ours, which Will rotates every 5,000 miles, are holding up very well after 17,000 miles on this trip. Three of our six tires have been to Alaska and back so I vote Michelin.
Parts, oil, etc: Finding parts is difficult. Having them sent is problematic but possible. People will go out of their way to help you everywhere -- even more so as a tourist than if you were a native of the place. The other day when we looked for brake shoes for the rear of which there are none, the fellow in Punta Arenas immediately picked up the phone and called a guy named Muller who arrived 5 minutes later bringing with him two sets of brake linings. Here rather than replace the shoes each time, they just drill the old shoes and put on new linings. We will use them sometime in the next couple thousand kilometers. He gave us two sets along with the rivets and the price was $0. They are German made for old combis and are dated 1974 so Will thinks they may be asbestos linings and that is why they were free.
Roads: Roads in Argentina, at least to the W and S of Buenos Aires where we have traveled, are in general good and free of tolls. Ripio however is a word you will grow to hate. From Buenos Aires S to Tierra del Fuego, there are perhaps half a dozen paved roads that go E-W across the country. All the other ones are ripio which is rock from baseball size to basketball size that was either washed into Patagonia or left by the glaciers since it is all rounded -- well, almost all. It makes for an excellent road base and if they bother to put gravel on top and maintain it constanly as they do in Chile, then it makes for a good gravel road that can be driven at 45-50 mph. If however, they do as they often do in Argentina and put the base down and drive away, then the road is one which will shake your vehicle to death and can only be driven at 25-30 mph. Argentinians and Chileans with newer vehicles think nothing of driving 45 mph and passing us as we trudge along at 25 but sometimes we see them later where they have rolled their vehicle and all the windows are broken out. You see very few vehicles here that are the age of ours -- we think they simply drive them to death. If they have older vehicles, they garage them and care for them.
Wind: The wind you will also grow to hate. Where it is hot in Buenos Aires, there is none. Where you don't need it everywhere else, it is nearly constant and reduces your speed to 50 mph if heading into it and your mileage to 17 mpg (ours usually is 20 mpg). If you have it as a tail wind, it pushes you along at 70 mph effortlessly. We got on the road one day and took the Vanagon out of gear and let the wind push 5,000 pounds of loaded vehicle on a flat road and we reached 13 mph and were accelerating. Yet, there is not ONE wind generator to be seen in this huge area where the wind blows all the time. In the national parks that are miles and miles from power lines and at the borders which are sometimes isolated, there are always diesel generators humming in the background.
Computers: My computer is an AMS Tech Travel Pro and even though it has been subjected to much abuse because of the horrible roads, it still functions. It is good that it works on 110-220 V as many places here use 220 V. We prepare everything and transfer it to floppies and than take the floppy to the internet cafÈs which are everwhere and cost anything from $1 to $6 and hour to use and then copy photos and messages from the disk. Many times the connections are slow especially in the evening and sometimes the connections are fast and still you can not send pictures as happened at the telephone company today.
Camera batteries: I have a Sony Digital Video camera with Info-Lithium batteries and I have two chargers -- one that operates from the cigarette lighter and the other one which is hidden away that charges using our 110V inverter. The reason I recommend two is that once your charger is stolen or ceases to function, you are DOA. You may be able to find a replacement battery but you will seldom find a charger except in very large cities. I have four batteries: 1-8 hour, 1-3 hour and 2-1 hour. I use the 3 hr the most as it is the right size and weight. I use the 1 hour batteries when the others are charging or to take with me when I am temporarily away from the car without my camera bag. The 8 hr one is a bit heavy and clunky but a wonderful battery when we are stopped in a place without running the van for three or more days when there is no way to quickly charge up. I have never been without a charged battery for 7 months.
Propane: Have a hose made in the states that adapts to the fitting on your Manchester tank on one end and that has the left hand threaded fitting on the other end that will fit the normal propane tank that we use on gas grills in the states. Normally, the Manchester fitting is one that is mounted onto a left handed thread fitting that you will have on both ends. What I'm saying is that you will have a 3-4' high pressure gas hose with two identical left hand threaded fittings -- one on either end.
Then, on one of those fittings will be screwed on another fitting to adapt the hose to your large Manchester fitting. For us we purchase a 15 kg tank of propane ($18 here in Argentina) and then after the hose is connected to the top of the tank and to our van tank, we upend the large tank and open both valves and the liquid propane goes in under its own pressure. When it escapes from the bleeder valve as a white liquid, we close both valves, right the large tank and slowly and with leather gloves, bleed the liquid propane from the line. A 15 kg tank fills three 10 L Westy tanks and a smaller tank that Les has as a backup. His backup tank is an excellent idea because when you are out of propane, you can use your hose to transfer the contents into the Westy tank and have two more days to look for propane. We also have a third backup which is a kerosene back packer's stove and we have used it several times.
Our Manchester 80% fitting on our $250 brand new tank (purchased last June) failed sometime back so we had a simple screw valve that fits into the large propane tanks that are normally found on farms installed in its place and it works better than the complicated 80% valve ever did. It accepts the left handed threaded connection common on gas grill tanks.
Dust and dirt: There is dust and dirt aplenty that will invade all crevices of anything and everything stored in your van. That is bad for cameras, film, computers, etc. Buy the largest size ZipLock bags you can and double bag everything that might be sensitive. All our extra car parts are stored in plastic bags in the roof rack which we cut the bottom out of to give more space and then had double metal gull-wing doors mounted on top with locks on them so as to prevent theft.
Problems we have had: We have replaced the clutch master cylinder, replaced plastic bleed screw for the rear heater, repaired fuel tank vent connection, fixed two small antifreeze leaks, replaced exhaust support bolt, replaced aux. battery switch, replaced sliding door handle with one we found in Paraguay -- German made and cheaper than in the US, had a front end alignment that everyone but us needed, replaced throttle cable, switched computers when we got one wet fording an arm of a lake, and we have replaced the Optima Deep Cycle battery with a DEKA German one we found in Punta Arenas.
We began to have problems with the battery in Brasil when we stayed at one site for three days running the fans all night long and using the battery for the computer (via the inverter), and for the lights. Ever after that, it refused to take a full charge. We tried everything but to no avail. Here in Argentina, we talked to bettery people in two cities and they all said the same thing. When you discharge an Optima completely, they sometimes fail to take a charge afterwards. Now before any of you quick fingered individuals get your flame throwers ready, don't. I am only reporting to you my experiences and what people say here. They used to carry Optimas but they no longer stock them . I am preparing a letter outlining our experiences with the battery and if I hear from Optima, I will post the results.
That's all I have time for right now.
Chau, Larry
