Fray Bentos to San José de Jáchal
Fray Bentos to San José de Jáchal
When you see the usual posts on Instagram, YT or Pinterest, you think Argentina consists of the Andes and Patagonia. Together with the Hyggies, I made my way to the mountains
When you arrive in Gualeguaychu, the town after the border, you are in the flatlands. Meadows, fields, swamps and the like. That was OK for me, as I would soon be traveling around the Andes.
I left a lot of money in a Carrefour to replenish my supplies. My fridge was full, I had got a bottle of gin (small fortune), but the vegetables were in a pretty poor state. 🙄
The journey to Gualeguay took 2 hours, with temperatures of over 30 Celsius and a stinging sun. The roads were good, but the landscape was monotonous. The first day in Argentina ended on the banks of the Rio Gualeguay. Another great city park where you can park wherever you want on the grass.
The next morning we went into the city and the Centro, which really was a kind of centre compared to what we had seen before. Shops, banks, a small park
We bought Claro SIMs for tourists, 5,000 pesos for 2 GB as an initial top-up. Afterwards, the nice saleswoman explained that we could have 25 GB for 14`5000 peso per month. We had to, because the Claro UY SIMs do roam, but PrePaid SIMs are limited to 3 GB for 450 Uros . All the other interesting offers are only valid if you have a CDI.
Then we headed north in the sweltering heat. 230 endless kilometers without a change. Petrol stations, crossroads, but no rest area or restaurant. Only Paraná is a real city with car traffic and shops. But at 33 Celsius nobody really wanted to walk around. 100 kilometers further north, we wanted to spend the weekend in the shade at a campsite on the Rio Paraná. A few shops were open along the RP1. At the beginning there were adverts for hotels, campsites and golf courses everywhere. It wasn't until Santa Rosa de Calchines that I had the feeling I was no longer in a holiday region.
Punta Arena Camping in Cayastá is huge, has lots of trees providing shade and was pretty empty. The team was extremely helpful and we got a pretty cool tour around to pick the pitch. Perfect for spending a weekend doing laundry, chilling out and doing nothing.
Or, following a creative idea from Vera, we also activated StarLink. Successfully! Read more about later
After this uneventful weekend, we traveled on to Laguna Mar Chiquita. Temperatures up to 37 Celsius, roads and tracks through a rural region. There wasn't much to see and a coffee break or lunch in a cantina was out of the question, there wasn't much and from 13:00 onwards all places were closed.
Laguna Mar Chiquita is the largest lake in Argentina and the second largest lake in South America after Lake Titicaca. Although streams flow into the lake, there is no outlet. The water is therefore very salty and contains a high proportion of minerals. Flamingos and other birds frolic here.
We were rewarded with a pitch at Playa Grande. While the beaches had previously been sandy, this salt lake was more like the shores of the North Sea. The picture was characterized by musty, stinking mud, dying trees and pools. But you are compensated by countless flamingos, which on this day allowed us to get within a few metres of them. You can also see flocks of other birds cavorting on the shore.
If someone had told me that I would literally sink my drone here, I would have laughed at them. There are countless flamingos close to the shore, apparently 3 of the 6 species can be found here, and I flew the drone across the lake against the wind so as not to disturb them. This worked well, but at some point the first flamingos flew up and turned anti-clockwise. I swivelled with them, but suddenly I was no longer at a safe distance, but right in the middle of them. The last thing I saw on the display was the wing of a flamingo. The rescue attempts in the mud failed, I even lost my shoes as I sank knee-deep in the mud. R.I.P drone.
I learnt 2 more things that evening. The DJI Mini 4 Pro was not on the market in South America in Nov 2024 and a Mini 3 costs more than twice as much as in Europe.
Oh yes, what really annoys me is that I don't have the good pictures and videos! Got some pictures from Hyggies as a consolation. Thanks Vera & Stefan
As well as flamingos, there's also the Museo Gran Hotel Viena, which pops up on Insta & Co from time to time. Just one sentence about the Museo Gran Hotel Viena, it was closed and the pictures speak for themselves. Form your own opinion as to whether you need to see it. Miramar is quite nice if you need to shop and refuel.
I copied the sentence because it was another 4 hours overland until we arrived at Lago Salinas Grandes near Cordoba. This time it was only 27 degrees. At this point we had travelled over 1,000 km. We were standing in the bushes, less than 100 meters from the Salina, and our place was called Salinas Grandes Paseo y Actividades in Lucio V. Mansilla. Apart from walking around the salt lake, there isn't really much else to do. I didn't even find a small shop or a rubbish bin. Outside the village, in the bush, there was a rubbish dump and from the look of it, a fire was lit here from time to time.
You could hear a few cars in the distance, but otherwise there were only mosquitoes, wind, heat and endless peace and quiet. The salt lake isn't really photogenic, but it was good just to spend the day in the shade.
But apart from the big cities, Rosario, Santa Fe and Cordoba, there is nothing really interesting on the route to the RN40. And then a bus wreck in the middle of nowhere is a highlight in itself
There is a separate article about the next stop, Parque Provincial Ischigualasto, because I took so many Parque Provincial Ischigualasto.
I've managed so far with my modest Spanish. Supermarket, petrol station and little things like that are fine. A conversation, not really!
We continued on the RN150 to San José de Jáchal. The first really amazing thing was the Rio Huaco, because it had water.
All the other Rios and Arroyos since the Rio Paraná had been dry. It got even better after the pass on the RP 456: the land turned green because there was a large reservoir. I arrived in Jáchal at 13:00 and apart from the 2 petrol stations, the small town was already taking a siesta.
I actually wanted to head south on the RN40. But I didn't fancy spending the next few days between lorries. The Hyggies had another good one and so I took the RN150 into the mountains
In the end, it was over 1,500 kilometers until we arrived in Jachal. At temperatures well above 30 degrees in November. The funny thing is that we only refueled and didn't even get onto the RN40.
The Stage

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Post Info
Date | Nov 2024 |
Status | Done / Visited |
Last updated | 01 December 2024 |
Page read | 237 |