Happy New Year, everyone! Mark, Maya, and I wish you all a healthy, productive, inquisitive, comfortable, and adventurous 2025. Thank you for following Roaming About and appreciating that crazy lifestyle of ours.
I finally finished my Patagonia wildlife post, which contains lots of photos and videos. This footage hopefully gives you a better representation of our incredible encounters. Enjoy!
After “killing” a month of time in and around Uruguay in anticipation of less cold weather in the south, Mark and I deemed November 1st a good time to cross the border into Argentina again and head to Patagonia along the Atlantic Coast. It was still spring in the Southern Hemisphere, but the goal was to reach Ushuaia, the bottom of the continent, by December 21st, the start of the austral summer.
(As always, hover over or click on the photos in the galleries to read their captions.)
We had a rough start of this 2,500-mile (3,750km) southbound journey in Gualeguaychú with lack of sleep due to a motorcycle event with revving engines until 2am and youth partying behind our camper at 4am. We packed up and moved in the dark to settle at a fuel station by 5:15am.
This park was quiet!
This was followed by hours of driving and eventually settling in a nice and free municipal campground for a few days to work. After that commitment, the three of us started to cover miles along a boring Ruta 3, stopping at a few points of interest and stocking up on groceries before reaching a more remote and expensive Patagonia.
Eerie camp spot
One of the interesting sites we picked for a visit was Laguna de Epecuén, which draws tourists because of its eerie appearance. On November 6th, 1985 (exactly 39 years prior to our visit), an unusual weather pattern destroyed the dam and dike protecting the village of Villa Epecuén, flooding the area. This resort destination was never rebuilt and became a ghost town. Skeletal trees stand guard day and night, enhancing the barren scenario.
Most overlanders drive to Ushuaia via the Andes Mountains that straddle the Argentinian-Chilean border, which is a more scenic route than our choice near and along the Atlantic Coast. There are three reasons we picked this “faster” and “boring” side of the continent: we were already located in the east when starting the last stretch of our journey south, we hoped to spend most of the summer in the Andes on our drive back north, and this route offered wildlife encounters.
Flamingos on Epecuén Lake
Besides the random flamingoes, no interesting animals had crossed our path yet. That was about to change in Balneario El Condor, located at the northern edge of Patagonia. This, we learned after going through multiple agriculture checkpoints. We arrived in the province of Rio Negro on El Dia de la Tradicion (November 10th) and were greeted by cute children offering goodies and cheaper fuel!
Local treats for Dia de la Tradicion
El Condor might be located off the beaten track, but we really recommend a stop here if you have your own vehicle. This is where the biggest colony of burrowing parrots in the world is situated.
Miles of cliffs are inhabited by these pretty, squawking birds that are a delight to witness. Yes, they are loud! Luckily, they go to sleep at night, but the nights at this time of the year are short. They made sure we went to bed with them and woke up with the first sunrays!
