Neuquen – January 26th, 2015
Jan 27th, 2015 by rallyadmin
We’re following Ruta 40 north, the same route that we took on our southbound leg 2 weeks ago. The good news is the road is much prettier (forested and winding) that the bulk of yesterday’s route. The bad news is that it’s very slow with vacationer traffic. The traffic is moving much slower than we are but we leap frog it when we can and trundle along with it when we can’t pass it.
We go through Bariloche again, get fuel and fight with the traffic. The road north is the same as the road south of the city, slow and congested. We follow the road north for a bit more than a hundred miles and then turn northeast to Neuquen.
The traffic thins as we leave the Ruta 40 area and we start a series of wooded canyons. The road is really is a great change from Ruta 40. It continues through these forested canyons following a clear blue river. Occasionally, high above the canyon there are strangely sculpted rock towers that are as stunning as they are strange.
He canyons give way to a huge lake and high grasslands that go on as far as we can see. It’s very pretty if a bit on the dull side. The large lake is in fact not a lake at all but the first of a series of over a dozen power producing reservoirs. We follow this for more that 200 kms to Villa El Chocon.
We should have stayed on Ruta 40 and headed to Zapala which is the straight route to Medoza, our last major destination in Argentina before we turn for Santiago. The reason we turned, however, is to come to Villa El Chocon to see the museum that houses a fossil of Giganotosuarus Carolinii. The fossil is nearly twice the size of the much more famous Tyrannosaurus Rex and was discovered here (actually 18 km away) in 1993. It’s currently housed in the Museo Municipal Ernesto Bachmann.
We stop at the museum. It’s a very small museum almost exclusively devoted to the Giganotosaurus but the displays are as good as anywhere. There is a room that houses a recreation of the fossil in place in the rock with the overburden removed. Another display has a recreation of a femur being excavated.
The main room, of course, has the usual full-sized standing model. It really is very big and very well done. It stands next to another model of a similar tyrannosaur type dinosaur. In the next room are two more models of other species that have been found in the area.
This area is a hotbed of recent dinosaur discoveries. Not far from here are the only known remains of a titanosaurus and in Plaza Huincil, there is a recreation of the Argentinosaurus Huinculensis, a monster that was over 40 meters long, 18 meters high, weighing in at over 100 tons. If you want to see fossils, come here.
We drive to Neuquen and start looking for a place to spend the night. There are plenty of hotels but the ones we find are all full. At last, a small, clean but well worn hotel has a room and it has secure parking. It could be a lot worse.
The bad news is there is no internet (it’s “broken”). This is the second night without a reliable connection. Hopefully, we’ll get connected in Mendoza.
Dinner. Some football on the telly (Uruguay vs Brazil). Bed.
Obi-wan
One Response to “Neuquen – January 26th, 2015”
Big freakin dinosaur bones? Yeah, i’d go see that. What sound do dinosaurs make in spansih?