A Whole Lot of Nothing – including gas! (Wednesday, December 26) - Photos Now Available - Estancia la Angostra to Lago Posadas

NOTE: due to slow internet speeds, I am posting this blog entry without photos for now.  Once I get faster internet, I will add the photos and indicate in the blog title that photos have been added so you enjoy them.

We knew today was going to be a long day so we got an early start; breakfast at 7:00am and on the road by 8:00am.  The first section of road after we left the ranch ran along side and then down in the old river bottom.  As there were a variety of water sources along the road, there was an abundance of wildlife to see.  Some of what we saw included ducks, geese, swans, ostrich, rabbits, fox, and many other animals. 

Once we left the river bottom, we again got back on Ruta 40; fortunately, this section was paved.  Many times on this trip we have used the phrase “a whole lot of nothing” to describe some of the area.  This morning’s ride was definitely one of those times.  We drove about 2.5 hours and I counted 3 homes – that is a lot of nothingness!  Before coming to Patagonia, I knew there was a lot of different terrains here from mountains, to lake, to glaciers and deserts.  What I didn’t know is how much “nothing” there is.  There were rolling hills, plateaus, and valleys where the land has been fenced for sheep or cattle grazing but we seldom even saw animals.  The most common animal we see, often on or near the road, is the guanaco.  We saw hundreds of them this morning alone.

Our next stop was Bajo Caracoles; this was supposed to be a gas stop but no gas was available.  The owner said maybe tonight or maybe tomorrow – not sure.  During our previous gas stop, we had purchased some extra fuel for the bikes so we put that into the bikes and continued on our way.

Our next stop was the Cueva De Las Manos which is a World Cultural Heritage site that has a tremendous display of old rock paintings.  I had seen other rock paintings but this collection was amazing for 3 reasons.  First, is the quality of paintings – many of the others I have seen have been very faint and hard to see - that is not the case with these.  The second reason is the quantity – there are many different paintings as you can see in the photos below.  The third reason is because you can get so close to the paintings – a walkway has been built along side the paintings that allows easy viewing of them.  Many of the paintings are of hands.  What makes these painting unique is that they are in the negative format.  What that means is typical with other paintings, they would put the paint on the hand and then press it against the rock leaving the paint where the hand was.  Here, the hand is placed on the rock first, the paint was put into the artist's mouth and then blown around the hand on the rock leaving only paint around the outside of the hand.  A very early form of spray painting is how one might describe it.

After viewing the paintings it was back to Bajo Caracoles for a quick meal.  The group of cars and motorcycles looking for gas had grown.  There were many conversations about other places that people could maybe get gas, options to be considered, etc.  We had enough gas to get to our next stop, Lago Posadas, so we went on our way planning to get gas there.

Evidence the group from Expedition 65 had been here also

Arriving in Lago Posadas, we stopped at the gas station there to fill up and were quickly informed “no gas”.  Wilfredo has many different contacts along our route so he started sending message and making calls.  One of the contacts said he has a little fuel to spare that we can get tomorrow morning.  Wilfredo is also working on other options as well.  Such is life when doing adventure riding in some parts of the world.  For now, all we can do is get to our evening accommodations and wait until morning and see what happens for fueling options.  According to Wilfredo, this can be a common problem in this part of Argentina.

The initial plan for this evening was to camp but instead we ended up staying at a resort right along lake with great views of the lake and surrounding mountains.

That is all for today; we will see what adventures tomorrow brings.