To get to Bariloche from El Chaltén, I decided to take a bus along the legendary Ruta 40. The trip takes two days, with an overnight stop in a small village called Perito Moreno (not related to the glacier, and not close to it... confused me for a bit ;-)).
The first day covers a distance of about 600 km in 11 hours. After about one and a half hours, the bus stopped at a tiny gas station, announcing that this was gonna be the last stop with a toilet for about 8 hours.
Ruta 40 is being paved right now, so most of the way the bus still had to use the old gravel-and-dirt road, resulting in a pretty rough and noisy journey.
The landscape was the typical Patagonian steppe: mostly flat, low vegetation, trees only around streams (once every hundred kilometers or so). It is fascinating to watch, because there is nothing even remotely like it in crowded Germany. Due to the low vegetation it is possible to spot animals over quite large distances. I saw the typical inhabitants of Patagonia: guanacos, rhea, sheep, horses, rabbits. The highlight was a herd of rhea, consisting of a few adult ones and many many young ones running after them - a beautiful sight!
After a few hours of nothing but steppe, however, even a tiny village is a welcome diversion. If you're from a densely populated country, just try to get your head around this: there is nothing along the road for a few hundred kilometers at a time. Nothing! Amazing how vast this country is...
The first day covers a distance of about 600 km in 11 hours. After about one and a half hours, the bus stopped at a tiny gas station, announcing that this was gonna be the last stop with a toilet for about 8 hours.
Ruta 40 is being paved right now, so most of the way the bus still had to use the old gravel-and-dirt road, resulting in a pretty rough and noisy journey.
The landscape was the typical Patagonian steppe: mostly flat, low vegetation, trees only around streams (once every hundred kilometers or so). It is fascinating to watch, because there is nothing even remotely like it in crowded Germany. Due to the low vegetation it is possible to spot animals over quite large distances. I saw the typical inhabitants of Patagonia: guanacos, rhea, sheep, horses, rabbits. The highlight was a herd of rhea, consisting of a few adult ones and many many young ones running after them - a beautiful sight!
After a few hours of nothing but steppe, however, even a tiny village is a welcome diversion. If you're from a densely populated country, just try to get your head around this: there is nothing along the road for a few hundred kilometers at a time. Nothing! Amazing how vast this country is...
