Road Trip!

One of the first blog posts I wrote when I came to Argentina recounted my first time driving in Argentina, which it would turn out, would not be my last. Apparently after that riveting experience of driving everyone home from the bars, I wanted more… six hours more.

In reality, the idea of a road trip stemmed from my desire to visit Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon), a national park with geographic features not unlike those of Utah in Arches National Park, which also happens to be one of my favorite places in the world. The only issue was getting there, which after intense digging around on the internet (I have become a pro at this) I determined it was a very remote park, and thus difficult to get to without a private vehicle. My solution? Rent a private vehicle. Argentine traffic laws (or lack thereof) aside, I was going to this national park to camp and see the landscape, and I was bringing five of my friends too.

Luckily I was completely able to rent a car in Argentina, regardless of my lack of an Argentine license and only being 21, but rather unluckily, that car was a Renault Kangoo (see picture at right), which, while sufficient, is a French made car. ‘Nough said.

We managed to pack all six of us into the Kangoo AND managed to get onto the highway and start heading north. I had decent directions (I’d bought a map anyway) plus Lorri Cole and Yona Yurwit, who were more than capable of not only asking for directions need be, but also understanding the response. Spanish champs those two for sure!

You'd be surprised how much we fit into this little French car.

It was a very pretty drive.

It wasn’t long however, until we were made aware of our first snag. In typical Argentine fashion, we were told the drive would take about four hours, that is, until we made our first stop two hours into the drive to pick up groceries and were told it would be another four hours for a grand total of six. This wouldn’t have been such a concern if it wasn’t for the fact that the sun was setting fast, and I was specifically warned not to drive at night by my host brother. He also warned me I may have to bribe the province border security personnel, or cops, which led to utter terror every time we had to stop at checkpoints (they were looking for fruit from other provinces and luckily none of them required bribing). While this never happened fortunately, darkness was becoming a problem and while the sunset was beautiful over the wide plains of the wild landscape that is Argentina and we all were thoroughly enjoying our sing along of American Pie, I was soon white knuckling it down the road. Only once did I about jump out of my skin when a stray dog crossed the road in front of me (the main reason driving at night is inadvisable) and fortunately we were able to find the entrance to “Valle de la Luna.” Even more fortunate though, was someone was there to show us a camping space and bring a grill around for us to use. Before long, the tents were set up, sleeping bags unrolled, and a fire raging in the grill for our ponchos (hot dogs) to cook.

"Yona get out of here I'm trying to grill the food"

Ryan and I even had the chance to Tango for a bit (this was before we were dating and he was mightily embarrassed by Yona’s insistence on a demonstration). Content, we all went to sleep, only to wake up in the morning to a lovely, cold drizzle of rain that had turned everything to mud overnight. Perfect. My friends were far from entertained at that weather, especially since it was pretty chilly and they were expecting desert conditions. I offered to make hot water in the rain for coffee/tea since I had brought warmer, rain-repellant gear but Ryan adamantly stood outside with me for support (this was when I started catching on). Then came the even worse news that we couldn’t enter the park due to impassable, muddy roads. Completely bummed, we packed up our soppy gear and piled into the mud-covered Kangoo to start the drive back home.

The (awkward) shrine.

Fortunately though, we did have the chance to stop at a local shrine, a local legend that, quite frankly, cracked us up. The shrine was named “The Defuncta Correa” but we pleasantly renamed it “The Lady of Perpetual Boob” because, as the story goes, this woman fled Mendoza as her family was facing political persecution with her infant son. She headed straight into desert country (smart choice of course) where she died of dehydration. Amazingly though, her young son survived by nursing from her breast… even though she was dead. Lovely. The spot has since become a shrine for all travelers passing through the area, especially truck drivers, and her shrine is covered in license

Wat.

plates and paraphernalia from all over the globe. In all reality it was kind of a cool, weird, cultural thing to experience, and made the trip at least a little more worthwhile. Us girls even gave our own little tribute, much to the amusement of my friend Steve taking the picture.

Our tribute to the Defuncta Correa and breasts everywhere.

 Needless to say, I was bummed when we got home with no pictures or stories from the national park I was so excited to see, but, seeing that I was so bummed, Ryan promised we’d go back. And so we did!

Same story, but this time just the two of us set out for the six hour drive once again. It was a few weeks after the first attempt, with only sunny skies in the forecast and an even more ambitious weekend plan. We decided to see Talampaya National Park too (sort of like Canyonlands) which was not too far away. Ryan and I were also prepping for our Aconcagua trek (coming next) and wanted to perfect our system as a team (like how to operate my stove, pitch the tent together, cook, etc.). By this time we had decided to date, thanks in large part to the last Valle of the Moon experience.

Driving stick like a boss

This time, luck was on our side, and the sky stayed bright and blue the whole trip. Valle of the Moon ended up being a car tour since the scenery is so delicate, which is not ideal for Ryan and my active mentality, but we took the opportunity for me to teach him stick (cus what’s not a better time than on a dirt road in another country with tourists all around you?). He did great and we did admire some pretty spectacular rock formations:

The painted valley

The submarine (and yes, it's kinda yellow)

The Sphinx

The famous one.

We also saw fossils!

And weird ass birds with mohawks!

Our favorite part by far though was Talampaya…

Ancient petroglyphs!

Here we did a mountain biking tour of the main canyon, then hiked into some slot canyons that Ryan and I enjoyed exploring. I took quite some bantering from the bachelor group of older men who went on the tour with us, but it was all in good fun. They even shouted my name to hear it echo a clear five times down the canyon at one location. How flattering. Ryan and I really enjoyed this part of the trip, and afterwards, even decided to be adventurous and take a different route home, which also meant we drove our tour guide back to his hometown a good thirty minutes away from the park. Love Argentina.

Ryan actually drove a good portion of the way home this time, feeling very confident of his new manual skills. We drove for hours and only passed one or two cars. The sun slowly set over the Andes, sending rays scattering down the sides of the mountains as the shadows grew longer. It was during this drive that we talked about our love of travel, and how much we want to see right in our backyards in the United States. This led us to dream of a road trip around the United States, and what kinds of things we could see in all the different states. That road trip is now being planned, and I’ll keep you all posted on the adventures that that trip will undoubtedly lead us to.

For now, stay tuned for the next installment of my blog a sneak preview of which can be seen below:

-Lisa en Argentina

P.S. This is what happens to bananas when you leave only a portion of them in the sun. Who knew?