After the awesome days at el Chalten we decide to move a bit back north. Patagonia in winter is great but unfortunately in low (if not death) season and a lot of services are not available anymore. Our plan was to hit north on the Ruta 40 which winds trough the Andes up all the way to Bariloche. Unfortunately, the last company to cut down this service did it last week… :( everybody tells us to go back to Rio Gallego and from there to Bariloche… no way! So we look for alternatives and find a small company that runs a minibus across the country and not in a v shape down to the bottom of Patagonia and then up again… not bad, saves 8hours and 700 Km… Only thing they run the service 3 times a week… in summer :/ well we’re lucky, in winter it’s once a week and right now.
Beside the driver realizing that he forgot his license after 40 min and having to go back to get it, all goes smoothly… we get on the Atlantic coast by 10 right when Federer is playing at Roland Garros. We watch the game and 2 hours later are off to Saramiento, well almost. On the way we have a stop from 18 to 20.30 in Caleta Olivia where we plan to have dinner… Game: try to find an open restaurant before 8…
Finally at 00.30 we get to Saramiento… well not the paradise but we find an “hotel” (that’s what they claim to be) and fall asleep.
We stopped here to visit a petrified forest nearby. So after looking for an hour to find a coffee we hire a taxi to take us there. On the way we see a local kind of ostrich and once we get there we are really positively surprised, the town kind of turned us down but the landscape here is great. Weird colors, mountains made of sand and ashes, really slippery silt, a fox and petrified stems make it for a great little trip. The highlight are the petrified stems (buried in marine sediments 65mio years ago when the region was a flourishing lagoon full of dinosaurs) and now getting to the surface thanks to the action of water and wind erosion.
We spend the afternoon in a “cafe” writing blog entries and at 00.30 we’ll take of ti El Bolson near Bariloche.