Puerto San Julian

After our beautiful remote night in the desert with our friends, it was time to keep pushing south. Back to the Ruta 3 and the mindless driving into nothingness once again. If we wanted to stay on schedule, we needed to keep stacking up the kilometres and so the plan was to make it back to the coast that very same night. Fortunately, as you get further south in Argentina, the Ruta 3 naturally drifts closer to the sea again, meaning coastal stops become less of a detour and more just part of the route.

As always, protection from the wind was the priority and we decided to meet up with the others at Playa La Mina. It looked like the first genuinely nice coastal stop in a while and, more importantly, the beach sat beneath huge cliffs which offered some shelter. Down here the wind generally blows from the land towards the sea, gathering speed across the vast empty pampas before launching itself violently into the Atlantic.

After several days of wild camping with no facilities whatsoever, we were also badly in need of water. Although we all had the same destination in mind, we didn’t actually travel together. Horst preferred charging down dirt roads at alarming speeds while we adopted the more cautious “please don’t break the van again” approach, which meant we lagged behind somewhat.

We eventually rolled into the first petrol station after nervously dipping into our reserve fuel tank to make the detour to the petrified forest. To our surprise, the others were still there. What they’d gained in speed, they’d lost thanks to an agonisingly slow hose while filling their enormous onboard water tank.

While we waited for our own tanks to fill, we found ourselves surrounded by at least ten screaming cats gathered around the tap area. Naturally, because we are apparently incapable of ignoring stray animals, we immediately started handing out food. Clearly this wasn’t their first successful ambush either because the moment we appeared, even more cats emerged from the bushes.

With fuel, water and stray cats all successfully dealt with, we continued towards the coast. Along the drive we entertained ourselves by pointing out increasingly unremarkable “points of interest” to one another. A slightly larger bush than usual. A dead guanaco. A rare section of road that contained something resembling a curve. This is essentially how you survive the pampa. The route is in fact so boring that the Argentinian government purposefully added slight, unnecessary bends into the road every 40km or so just to try and keep drivers awake.

At the beach we parked up on the stones, mostly sheltered from the cold breeze rolling in off the sea. I decided the time had come to correct the disappointment of the scones we’d had in Gaiman. There was only one solution: proper cheesy scones.

We weren’t alone on the beach for long. Later that evening one of those tiny Chevrolet camper vans rolled in. We immediately knew it was a camper because it had an enormous water tank strapped to the roof. The occupants turned out to be an Argentinian girl and a Swiss guy. I did not envy their setup down here. Those little campers are about ninety percent bed inside and cooking generally involves opening the rear tailgate and pulling a tiny kitchen drawer out into the freezing wind.

Meanwhile, we sat inside Ruby with the heating on happily eating patacón burgers. Ruby may not be the ideal Patagonia vehicle, but at least she allowed us to remain indoors.

The next morning we helped the couple diagnose an electrical issue. Their cigarette lighter socket had stopped working and since they used it to power a small electric heating element for hot water, they were rather keen to fix it. Unsurprisingly, the socket had blown its fuse. After quite a bit of hunting we found the culprit and got everything working again. They were delighted to at least be able to charge their phones, even if hot water was now off the menu. Soon afterwards they continued south.

Horst and Christine also left not long after and, as usual, we were the last people to depart. We were all generally following the same route south anyway and would probably continue bumping into each other repeatedly all the way to Ushuaia, so there wasn’t much need to convoy together. If nothing else, we’d definitely all see each other again for Christmas before long.

Rather than heading back to the main road immediately, we continued following the coastline along a surprisingly good dirt track.

On the way we stopped to explore a small shipwreck on the beach and wandered through the ruins of an abandoned meat processing factory nearby. The place used to produce canned and refrigerated meat products for export to England, with ships returning carrying coal to power the factory itself. It was strange walking through the rusting remains while the buildings creaked and groaned in the wind. Even stranger was seeing huge old machines proudly stamped with “Made in England” across their corroded metal shells.

We also met yet another overlanding couple there — this time Argentinians travelling in a van with their cat sprawled proudly across the dashboard. Naturally we noticed the cat before we noticed them. Like everyone else we met down here, they too were heading to Ushuaia for Christmas.

Eventually we continued onwards to Puerto San Julián where we headed for a campsite that had somewhat confusing reviews on iOverlander. Nobody seemed entirely sure whether it was free or not. Apparently during the low season it didn’t charge, though nobody could agree exactly when the low season officially ended.

Luckily for us, we arrived just before they planned to reopen properly on Monday, meaning we had two completely free nights. The facilities weren’t all operational yet and workers were busy repainting tables and chairs around the site, but we had electricity and water and honestly that was all we cared about. The Argentinian and Swiss couple from the beach turned up there too and we spent a far more sociable evening sheltered from the wind.

After two relaxed days catching up on laundry and enjoying actual facilities, it was finally time to move on again. We drove out feeling rather smug on the very last free day before the campsite started charging.

Before continuing south, we stopped briefly to visit the replica of the Victoria. This ship is a reconstruction of the Nao Victoria, one of the five ships from Magellan’s expedition between 1519 and 1522 — and famously the only one to successfully complete the first circumnavigation of the globe.

From Puerto San Julián we planned to stop overnight in Monte León National Park. It’s a fantastic place to see more penguins and was also a very logical stopping point distance-wise. The others were heading there too but unlike us, they didn’t have pets.

As always: national park + cats = problem.

We weren’t entirely sure how strict they’d be, but decided to try our luck anyway. Unfortunately, we arrived at exactly the wrong possible moment. As we pulled through the gate, a lady was walking back into reception from another building. She looked up just in time to see us drive in and naturally, because timing is everything, Aimee chose that exact second to abandon her driving position on the sofa and stroll dramatically across the dashboard in full view.

This left us in an awkward position. Had she definitely seen the cat? Maybe not. We’ve entered plenty of places where pets technically aren’t allowed and simply kept the girls inside the whole time. Realistically, if the cats never leave the van, it’s hard to imagine what damage they’re supposedly going to do. Half the time the rules seem aimed mainly at dogs anyway.

Still, we decided to head inside and see how things played out. After a few standard questions came the dreaded one:

“Do you have pets?”

At that point we didn’t really want to lie, especially in case this was some sort of test after she’d already spotted Aimee. So we admitted it. The second we said yes, we both already knew the answer. We half-heartedly explained that the cats would remain inside the van the entire time, but a few moments later we were back in Ruby and driving away.

Oh well.

Thankfully Patagonia is full of backup options. We retraced our steps slightly towards the Santa Cruz River where there was a lovely looking wild camping spot tucked along the riverbank. The plan now was simple: spend the night there and in the morning try visiting a different Magellanic penguin colony at Santa Cruz instead.