Day 20 - Argentina 2025: Puerto Santa Cruz to Comodoro Rivadavia

Another long day of driving, but with the prospect of a stop at Puerto San Julián 150 km away (where I made it with barely any fumes left in the tank). Turns out I should have spent the night here, rather in Santa Cruz, because this town is at least making a valiant effort to become interesting. For example, as I got to the shore I found that I had come in close contact with three important personages of history. In 1520 Ferdinand Magellan and Juán Sebastián Elcano stopped here, at the first place they reached in the New World, to celebrate their first mass and prepare them for their voyage of exploration (Magellan died in The Philippines, but Elcano made it back to Spain with one of the five original vessels, thus completing the first circumnavigation of the world). A replica of Elcano's vessel, Nao Victoria, has been built by the shore, and is now a living history museum. Magellan is famous for discovering the Strait of Magellan on his crossing from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Sixty years later, in 1578, the English Francis Drake also stopped at the bay where Port San Julián is located. He also found a unique passage to avoid Cape Horn, the Drake Passage, thus enabling the Brits to pirate their way across the "Spanish Lake" or Pacific Ocean. Finally, in 1834, HMS Beagle damaged its keel in Punta Quilla (in Puerto Santa Cruz), and after repairs were made moved up the coast into Puerto San Julián. I think that is a pretty distinguished resume for a little unknown port along the coast of Patagonia.

Puerto San Julián also has a couple of cool small museums, who are not heavily visited, so the curators are delighted to take the time out of their busy schedules to walk with you and tell you all about the estancia that has been moved from somewhere out in the middle of nowhere to the center of town, and is now labeled Museo del Campo. Argentina received many immigrants after both World Wars (and every time before and since that someone has to start anew), and many of them moved to Patagonia to manage vast sheep estancias. It was not an easy life, but through ups and downs wool and mutton have been mainstays of the Patagonian economy.  Another cool spot if the Museo Rosa Novak, which started as an art museum but with the donations of the community has become an eclectic history museum. Unfortunately the young man who took it upon himself to be my guide talked and talked and talked, so I could not quietly enjoy the old artifacts. An interesting piece of historic trivia is that the French aviator (and author) Antoine de Saint-Exupéry spent four years in Argentina, flying a monoplane, to explore optimal routes for the aerial mail service.

Finally, the municipality has put some effort on creating a 35 km coastal drive that takes you to charming (and extremely desolate) viewpoints and beaches that in the spring and fall might be an interesting tourist attraction. I was puzzled by a thick (2 to 5 m) sheet of rounded small gravel (maybe 1 to 2 cm in diameter) that blankets broad expanses of the shore and extends deeply into the feeding fluvial valleys. I thought it could be a debris flow deposit, but the pieces are too rounded and the sorting is too good. Maybe debris flows later winnowed by the action of the waves?

I was just coming out of the 35 km of dirt road, and joining the highway when it started to rain. No big deal, except that the guanacos decided to congregate on the highway because of the light rain, which made it hard going. Eventually I figured out that guanacos were taking advantage of the water ponded in potholes to enjoy a nice drink of water. In this sandy landscapes there are precious few puddles for the guanacos, so this odd rain gave them the chance to store supplies for a few weeks to come (allow me to remind you that these are camelids, well adapted to life in desert regions).