Day 14 - Argentina 2025: Los malditos 73 kilómetros

Today is a big driving day: 650 km from Perito Moreno to El Calafate. I started at 7 am, a bit late because I thought I could squeeze a detour to the Cueva de las Manos, 100 km down the way. This is a magic prehistoric site, where the Native Americans painted numerous images of guanacos, and then proceeded to obliterate them with stencils of their hands, not unlike the ones found in Southern France. But there are hundreds of hands one on top of each other! Was this the work of a single hunter who every day "put his hand over the guanaco" to propitiate a successful hunt, or was it an annual ritual by the whole tribe to ask for a good hunting season? This is harsh country, so any help from the Great Spirit would certainly be welcomed.

Mind you, there are plenty of herds of guanacos milling around, but unlike their cousins the llamas they are very much wild skitterish animals that have not allowed themselves to be tamed. One has to be careful driving, because a running guanaco crashing against a fast moving car would lead to a tragic accident. To top it all, the wind is howling, and one has to be very careful while driving.

And driving I did. Miles and miles of it, driving to lonely magnificent landscapes, that in turn reminded me of the Basin and Ranges, Northern Mexico, and Mongolia (but unlike these places, where you see signs of humanity every 50 km or so, here you are alone and feel like the only person on Earth). It is a spectacular landscape, however, so being the last human being would not be that bad at all ... until you meet los malditos 73 kilómetros of route 40! Mind you, this is Argentina's backbone highway, but for jarring 73 km it turns into the dirt road from hell. Covered by coarse gravel, it goes on and on until you feel your teeth are coming out of their sockets. Of course there are no road signs of any type, so you don't know where it starts, or if this torture will continue for 300 km to El Calafate, so it is like being caught in The Twilight Zone, with no hope of getting out. And then, for no good reason whatsoever, after 73 km it is replaced by a magnificent highway that would make any motorist's heart sing.

Finally I made it to El Calafate. I am quite tired, but my lodgings for the next four nights are nice and very welcoming. I even have a bathtub!