The cold must end!

Because we don’t want to take the same way up like wie took down, we decide to pass Chile on the way north. The tricky GPS directs us through all kind of roads - the shortest way is the Ruta 40 with all its gravel„desvio“s (detours). We almost can’t believe it, while we’re gravelin, it starts to drizzle and suddenly there is SNOW. Because of the road being more bad gravel than good one, we arrive late at night one town before Los Antiguos. Too cold to sleep in the car, but there was just a two bedded room: Better than sleeping an freezing degrees.

On the following day we see the results of the dirt-track. If you’d check the cars papers under „color“ you wouldn’t believe its green. A mixture of grey mud and ice is covering the whole vehicle. In Los Antiguos, at the Lago Buenos Aires (at the border to Chile), I’m getting another opinion on the loss of oil and the dirt off the car.

We’re sleeping at a hostal just at the end of the town. Two travelers, David, an American traveling with his Dutch fiancee in a stock Landcruiser, giving us helpful tips. He’s a traveler for many years now. His traveling speed is „accurate“ compared to ours. This means he travels slow with with focus on any detail. We take as much information as possible. but have to admit „you can’t do everything in that short amount of time. So we’re going on as usual, keeping the tips in mind. One of his tips was to take it easy on the pass from Chile Chico, it would be a panoramic drive. True, after some corners we’re passing a little hill: You’re getting a view over Lago Buenos Aires with mountains topped with snow in the background. That all combined with a sun shiny day. I Like! What’s not to be „liked“ is the cold and wet of south Chile at this time of the year. We really tried hard but got to the same conclusion as before „You can’t do EVERYTHING“

So let’s go north, taking the most direct way possible! Maybe run some aeons on the way. Since I’m traveling with more spare fluids and other spares, we’re running out of space in the car. We need a solution! A Box on the top would be nice! A Box on the side for storing the oil and landys every-day-gearbox-check-tools even nicer. Nobody could help, neither South Chile nor Argentina. Sometime I’m dropping lines like: They don’t have boxes, they don’t have markets for construction, no 4x4-shop, they just have „Assado“ on their mind! Well they’re god at it!“ After we checked every possible shopping location on the way up north, we finally gave up in Mendoza. Here we focus on the essencial things on the easter sunday. In Argentina that means: A day of barbecue in the middle of local barbecue maniacs. The next day the weather is bad, it’s raining - it would go on raining. Instead of visiting a wine yard we’re heading north towards the warmth. Like in a snap after a fulfilled mix of asphalt-detour-gravel-road, we’re reaching Iguazu. Just on the last day we drove 1000km! On the campsite of Costa Ramon we relax and enjoy the riverside view of the Rio Uruguay for a few days until my birthday steak. The last day of Iguazu we do the typical touristic program including waterfall watching ans driving with a speedboat into the falls. Super wet, super fun.

Now, after 11000km on the South American continent, we’re really looking forward to Brasil