29, Westy Went Northy

And there you were wondering if you’d heard the last from us, well no here we still are, still travelling but now Westy Goes Northy. We’ve got to get back from the end of the world to the coast of Chile, near Santiago which is somewhere around 3,500km north of Ushuaia and 3 weeks to do it. Our engine is running smoothly now that we’re not pumping sand through it and our spirits are high, despite the sadness that comes with an adventure approaching its end.

Pampa, oh pampa how we are getting bored of you. Prior to reaching Patagonia we heard about “the Patagonian wind”, over and over again and yet we suffered very little, that is right up until now where we suffer and suffer. Driving in a tall brick with worn out suspension against strong winds leaves Steve with sore arms, trying to not look like a drunk driver and stay in our lane. The cross winds are so strong that the steering wheel spends most of its time way off centre, and the headwinds enough to cost us a fuel economy loss of 20% over our first 1000kms heading home.

If you’re riding on two wheels, or four legs, they don’t discriminate in Patagonia. And why not wear a beret to complete the style?

Guanacos continue to entertain us, gently raising their heads still chewing as we approach and occasionally reminding us why there are signs warning about their crossing so frequently.

How does this sound, a 10 minute detour by car followed by a 15 minute walk to go and see a wild penguin colony? Yes, too good to miss is right. Forgetting karma, and back into our mindset of rules are made to be bent, broken and completely ignored we don’t worry about registering at the visitors centre and make our way straight to the car park. Later a ranger asks us if we signed in before visiting like we were supposed to… he wasn’t angry, he was disappointed.

Penguins are part of the food chain, especially for ferrets and pumas, so the first penguins we see are the unlucky ex-penguins. But then there they are, the real life living ones, thousands of them, and they are SO CUTE!!!

Steve may have gotten a little too close to this penguin, this photo was half a second before he snapped at the lens 3 inches from his face. Fair enough buddy, fair enough.

 

Does a penguin think, does it dream?

Last time we became propaneless was 2.5 months after a refill, this time it happened unexpectedly after just 1 month due to all the tea and coffee we’ve been making to ward away the cold. We ran out on the same night that we found the imbeciles that rotated our tyres removed the mud from our wheels with a metal bar, banging it against the rim creating dents that have now propagated into downright dangerous cracks that are leaking air. If only we’d bought a tyre changing machine with us…

Our propane hunt proves fruitless for days and days although one visit to a household with propane bottles littering the yard results in us leaving with handfuls of freshly baked local delicacy, fried donut rolls. Mmmmm warm food! But still no propane (sobbing).

It isn’t unusual for us to feel that timing couldn’t be better, so many times things have just lined up and we’re left with our mouths open. It starts to rain, the sun is setting and we make our way to a beach to sleep. As we arrive the rains stops and the most spectacular double rainbow we have ever seen suddenly shines above the ocean. The colours were so intense we literally had to squint, almost reaching for our sunglasses. It lasted until the sun set behind us. We returned to the van realising that rainbows were yet another thing that would never be quite the same again. “Oh look at that rainbow” someone might say, and sadly we will have to reply “It’s nice, but this one time, in Southern Argentina…”.

How about a 15 second detour to see a huge colony of sealions? (are they sealions?)

A victim of the salt flats, our rust ridden speedo cable gives out (the second to die on this trip) and our search for propane continues. Cold hot dogs aren’t so bad, even four nights in a row…

A petrified forest, whatever that means, is our next stop. 90 million years ago this area was swamp land ruled by dinosaurs and now it’s a dry and barren sandy landscape. Because of just the right conditions, logs from 5000 years ago were replaced with salts as they decomposed turning them into rocks that have now begun to surface as the sand erodes with the rain. Layers in the distant mountain tell of the time that this area was swamp, or jungle, and even volcanic ash as the Andes were formed west of here.

Our desperation for propane doesn’t make propane appear, so much for things working out at just the right time… But they have a drink here that they love, called “mate” (pronounced mat-aye) that is kind of like a green tea. As such, each petrol station sells hot water to keep their thermoses topped up and so we have managed to keep up our coffee consumption. One petrol station however told us their machine wasn’t working, quite rudely. Perhaps they knew we were after coffee and not mate… But Steve remembered seeing a kettle when he paid for the fuel in the staff room, shaking with coffee withdrawal he staggers over and is granted use of this life saving, water heating device. Winning!

We get desperate and use the soldering iron to attempt to heat the water, it fails miserably but then we finally get ourselves filled with the delicious fuel! We woke up disgustingly and without coffee at 7am to get there before their propane trucks left, but were asked to come back at 2pm. Then after 3 hours of waiting the truck returned and YAYYYYY.

After all this travelling we think it’s time for a holiday, and so a holiday we commence. We’ve reached the Argentinian Lakes District and it’s gorgeous. No more pampa, just mountains, lakes, greens and blues. Despite the time of year the days are warm, even hot but the mornings are freezing. We wake up at 8am and the thermometer reads 1 degree so we wait in bed until the sun rises over the hills and it gets to at least 4 degrees before we put the coffee on.

There are lakes, and then there are lakes. This is the latter, and we spend three nights camped beside the crystal water. This is as long as we’ve spent anywhere, but these were the most relaxing days so far. We got a few bits done in preparation for shipping, some cleaning and documenting. But mostly relaxing. Can you tell?

Reluctantly we moved onwards, past rivers and under monkey puzzle trees to then relax somewhere else. Isn’t this what we should have been doing from the onset? We even passed through some towns that were created by Welsh folk but the character wasn’t the same since the sun was shining. However, there were lots of sheep.

One last border, back into Chile makes our 18^th land border crossing of the trip.

And so now we’re driving up the same road we travelled down before, and it’s really weird! The inevitable end to this marathon holiday is looming but to make our trip feel young and sprightly again we detour over to meet up with Rolando, the friend we made when we broke down in Santiago. He’s just about to start his own travels and so he came out to camp with us. We also visited another soon to be overlander just wrapping up his bus conversion. See you in Canada weones! (Weon is a Chilean word that means pretty much everything, and it’s extra useful since we don’t speak very good Spanish still...)

Sometimes we have to work for a photo, we have to wait for the sun to get lower and walk around until the angle is just right. Then other times we turn around and a truck from the 50’s, beat to crap but all the more beautiful for it, is reversing into a river to fill water tanks for probably the thousandth time as the warm evening light reflects off the still water. Click.

T minus 4 days until shipping, time to squeeze in an Easter weekend beside a stream, swinging in a hammock, eating chocolate and making friends with Weon, the scruffy but loveable stray dog who came to hang out.

One night left, and we need to be up bright and early for the paperwork. Well, not bright since the sun won’t have even risen before we start our last few miles. The most convenient spot is a truck stop beside the road but how could we spend our last night somewhere so dire? So we set off towards the hills, past vineyards and posh houses until we find a tiny spot beside this steep road, a much more appropriate spot to while away our last evening.

And now suddenly, after much cleaning and packing, we’re driving to the port in convoy to stuff our vehicles into a container. Two beautiful vans and a magnificent motorbike all destined to return to Canada. It doesn’t go quite to plan and a one day process becomes two as this is still Latin America after all. So we have to come back tomorrow for the actual “Stuffing”, but at least they’re tucked up warm for the night.

But overall the process was going smoothly, and so we had a couple of beers to celebrate. And then some scotch, and then something else and there was some wine involved and oh god we have to be up in 4 hours. So in the AM the hungover crew reassembles in the fetching hat and vest uniform. And finally, drunkenly, we park the vehicles inside their home for 5 weeks. The container will make its way to Colombia first for no reason, crossing through the Panama canal. Then onto another ship and back through the canal again before arriving in Vancouver.

Done. Mission complete. Westy Rick made it, 39,200km with many of them ridiculously tough going. He’s been a true champion, the van has covered a total of 163,000km but the Subaru engine we installed now has 310,000km on the clock and spent the last 45,000km hauling around a much heavier vehicle than ever designed for. We even fed it sand and it didn’t seem to mind too much! We’re pretty proud.

We’re hanging out in Valparaiso, a port city covered in wall art and a short bus ride from Santiago from where we fly very soon. Our 4 flight, 26 hour journey back to Canada will be sad one but we can’t really complain. On to the next adventure!

But yeah, the driving is done, the adventure was a success. You might expect that at some level this comes as a relief for us, that we must be at least a little tired of living in a van but actually no. We didn't want it to end. We're so comfortable and used to this life that we don't actually miss warm showers or flushing toilets all that much. The comforts of a home don't compare to the freedom we've grown accustomed to and it will certainly be a shock to the system waking up to an alarm every morning. 

Oh and if you think we’re finally done bugging you with these, you’re wrong. We’re going to send out one more blog once we’ve found out what returning to normal life feels like, and once we’ve found out if we’re the same people as when we left all those months ago.

Westy Went Northy