A trip to the end of the road - photos to follow

On this journey my priority has been to my diary rather than putting postings on this blog. And even that has become quite difficult to keep up to date. So, inevitably I have missed out describing some key parts of my journey. So, I will try to do some filling in now.
My visit to El Condor Estancia was just for three days but I am so glad it went .... even though it cost me more to get there than to be there. I had been told about it by Harry Hastings a friend of my goddaughter Alice. He told me I just had to go and he was so right. The trouble was it was at the end of a very long valley with no public transport going anywhere near. Taxi would have cost the earth and so I hired a car.

I set off with a photocopy of a bit of a map from the car rental people. They told me to go to Tres Lagos (proper tarmac road) and fill up at the petrol station. Then it was unpaved road from there. “just be careful there are a few rivers you need to go through but the car should be OK” It was a fiat uno ... I wondered what kind of rivers they were talking about but it was their car not mine, so I took their word for it. So feeling a bit nervous of the city traffic I find my way out of town. They had said there was nothing particular I had to remember except to keep my headlights on while on the main road. I decided to do it all the time.
Driving to Tres Lagos was fine. It took about one and a half hours. There were very few cars or lorries on the road despite it being the main trunk route north. Passed the edge of Lago Argentino which was a milky turquoise colour as it is fed by the glaciers and then passed the turning to El Chalten where I had been just the previous day or two. When I got to the petrol station I was greeted warmly by the pump attendant ... who thought I was Italian from the way I was speaking Spanish and was a bit surprised I was travelling alone. Que Valiante! He pointed me onto the right track ... literally and off I went ..... very stoney road but soon I got the hang ...much like driving in Kenya or Malawi but much better graded road.

So on and on I went ... no other car in sight. I had seen at the beginning a small sign saying El condor 116 km.... blimey.... all the way juddering along. But slowly I was managing about 50 km an hour mostly managing to judge where to drive and occasionally hearing a tremendous thud as a large stone hit the bottom of the car. The road went straight through the middle of the wide, wide brown valley. It must have been about 10 miles wide and I wouldn’t really have been surprised if I had seen a dinosaur grazing in the distance. it felt elemental ... particularly when you could see in the distance an great black plug standing out in the middle. The sides were escarpments of streaked brown and white layers and at the top there was a dusting a snow. So on I went for mile after mile... past a large sluggish brown lake and eventually came to a turning. In all that time I had passed one car and seen one lone guanaco. So the junction showed El Condor to the left ... 86km. Off I set again this time winding my way along the side of a river eventually coming to a gate ... the first estancia which had a sign requesting you shut the gate behind you ... El Condor still 26 km to go.... I go through several more estancias.... and come across my rivers . They were actually mountain streams nastily disguised as bumps in the road – I practically flew over the first one! After the shock I got to be able to see when another one was sneaking up on me. After 3 hours (yes 3 hours) of this road I arrived at about 6.30pm at El condor ... literally at the end of the road. You could not go any further and it was beside another azure lake nestled beneath an escarpment and a valley leading up to snow clad mountains (I realised we must be right by the Chilean Border as there is a Gendarmaria station just before El Condor).

So there I was ... pretty shattered ....and no one comes out to greet me. I see a family sitting playing cards in the first building and kind of gesticulate to them . They come out and after some awkwardness they realise I am also a guest and welcome me in and show me what must be my room as it is the only empty one. They offer me tea and start chatting..... delightful people Alberto, Marion, Sophia, Juan and Sante..... Alberto is a shareholder in the ceilos patogonicos group which owns El Condor .
I took the opportunity to have a bath (! yes first one for I don’t know how long.) and then I heard people coming back from a ride - quite cold by the looks of their faces and clothing. I gathered that dinner wasn’t until 9.30 so I sat and read my book and then I found myself in conversation with an English couple in their late 40s/early 50s who were on a 9 week honeymoon. Eventually a happy supper with theArgentine family, a very interesting photographer called Celine and the honeymooners.
The couple running the place Gwen (Dutch) and Nico (Argentine) appeared and discussed what I and the others wanted to do. Agreed that we would all go on a ride the next day to la Laguna de Corazon. So a good night’s sleep ... the electricity went off at 11.30.
A gentle start and then we went to the stables around 10 and set off with Carlos the gaucho in the lead ....spurs and all. His smart dog constantly moving up and down the line checking we were all there. Bringing up the rear was Katya an enthusiastic girl from near Buenos Aires who had just joined them for a month or two. We wound our way up through open meadow and then through lenga wood and occasionally into areas where the wood had been burned to make more meadow for cows. This is something that the current owners of the estancia (cielos patagonicos) are taking action to restore. They have not managed to eliminate the cattle which are now very wild but have been able to fence them into a peninsular at the far end of the estancia. They occasionally go and kill one for meat. It was a magic day and not demanding at all in terms of the riding. The horses were sluggish but sure footed and so we plodded up and down happily. The two young boys from the Argentine family 8 and 12 yrs old on possibly the biggest horses..... but still very confident riders. Tired and happy we had a wonderfully jolly meal and went to bed.

The next day was just me for the day as the others were all leaving. I went on a ride with Juliet and Katya up to the condor cliff. Katya was very chatty ad explained about her studies, how she was fed up with private education and was going to a state university. Then on to politics and how unpopular the president was.... pretending to take from the poor and give to the rich but seemed to have fingers in a lot of pies where the money did not actually go to the poor. Her mother runs a 1000 head dairy farm and will soon have to give up .... taxes so high not worth doing it. I heard the same about the beef. The managers of the beef estancias are refusing to produce enough beef preferring to kill it rather than send it to market... so now they are importing beef from Brazil!!!

The two girls were charming and when we got to the top the condors did their thing --- at least 10 of them circled directly around us.... just superb!. With the blue lake and white mountains behind and the craggy rocks and woods below us. So after lunch we had a steep descent going below the cliff we had just climbed up. By the time we got back two other argentine families had arrived and got themselves ensconced. They were not as forthcoming as the others but at supper did their best to include me where possible. I was outnumbered.

The return journey was just as magical... starting at 7.30 in the morning. This time a rather misty morning with a bit of drizzle but this made the colours all the more lovely. Saw guanaco, hares and rhea as I bumped along ... oh and about 4 cars – two of which were police vans!

I was just a magical time and I would return like a shot for a longer stay.
Photos will follow but take an age to upload so will wait until I have better internet connection with time.