Leaving Esquel the boys needed to decide whether to go further South or making up some lost time ( due to Lipstick’s delay in getting shipped from Honduras to Columbia ) and having a look at themaps they decided to cross Patagonia and drive straight to Puerto Madryn on the Atlantic side of Argentina.
They found themselves in a very harsh and unpopulated country site on tarred but narrow roads with very little traffic to conquer..
Los Altares is a rural commune in Paso de Indios Department, Chubut Province in southern Argentina.[As of 2001, it had 123 inhabitants.Mario Oviedo is the municipality’s leader, with the title Presidente Junta Vecinal.
The rural commune of Los Altares is located in Los Altares Valley, near the center of Chubut Province in a semi-arid region 230 kilometres from Trelew and 323 kilometres from Esquel along National Route 25.
Los Altares takes its name from the surrounding rock formations. There are 80 kilometres of rock walls up to 70 metres tall in the nearby valley, giving the appearance of altars.
This terrain is typical of the Patagonian Steppe in central Argentina.
The country site was very repetitive for hundreds of kilometres with very little vegetation but lots and lots of rocks but fortunately the little traffic along the road allowed some high speed driving and so the boys arrived well before sunset in the coastal town of Puerto Madryn
Puerto Madryn is an Argentine city on the atlantic coast of northern Patagonia. Its sandy beaches and restaurant-lined promenade face Golfo Nuevo bay, where southern right whales breed from May to December.
The town was founded on 28 July 1865, when 150 Welsh immigrants arriving aboard the clipper Mimosa named the natural port PorthMadryn in honour of Sir Love Jones-Parry, whose estate in Wales was named “Madryn”.
Conditions were difficult and the settlers had to dig irrigation ditches for their first crops…
This evening the boys had their first taste of a truly big Argentinian Steak and a few big tastes of Malbec Wine – Viva Argentina –