Off to Mendoza – 4/26/2013
Apr 28th, 2013 by rallyadmin
Now that we have the car, we have to get it reorganized for the trip home. Before we left Australia, we’d consolidated the gear and thrown own out some stuff that we’d been carrying and didn’t need. Most of the discards were junk that had accumulated but some had been extra bags that we’d had brought additional gear or spares in.
We’d really just taken what we kept and thrown it in the back. Now we had to get some semblance of order so that we could find things when we needed them without having to take the car apart every time. Plus, when we were leaving Oz, we’d bought a lockable metal box to put gear in that we wanted secured for the shipping. Now, everything had to come out.
It’s still another damp, cold, overcast morning. We leave the Hilton parking area and drive a short ways to an open area in the warehouse district next to the hotel. We park and start entertaining the passersby with the pile of debris, err, possessions, that we take out of the car.
The first order of business, though is the roof rack. It’s old, very old, and served us well but we’d put a lot of weight on it in Russia and Oz and the rear cross-support had bent and we needed to fix it or get a new rack.
When last saw the car in Oz, we devised a scheme for repairing the rack. John had brought some Thule gutter mounted square bar racks that would do a better job of supporting the gear cage. He’d also fabbed some metal pieces that we had designed to clamp the cage to the crossbars. The clamps would also straighten the rear crossbar of the cage which had gotten seriously bent.
We take the rack off, lay it down and try to push the rear cross-bar back into position and, of course, it cracks. Fortunately, we have enough of parts to hold it all together and the fix works out just as we had designed. The rack goes back on the roof and then the tire and jerry cans go up and and everything is lashed down. Success.
Now the rest of the debris, err, gear. We had to take part of the rear seat out of the car in order to get the metal box, which is nearly as wide as the car’s interior, into the back and the plan is to leave the rear seat. Put some of the tools and other repair/emergency goodies on the floor under the fold down back of the back seat. Reorganize the metal box. Put it back in the car.
We had already shed almost everything we could discard. The only thing left to do was consolidate our gear into our remaining bags, load them into the car, dispose of the seat and an extra suitcase that John had brought and go. We may actually get this trip started.
As we start to drive away, looking for somewhere to dump the seat and suitcase, we meet a truck hauling trash compactors. John stops and carries the seat to the driver to ask if he wants it. “Are you kidding? Of course. It’s practically brand new.” He’s so happy to take it that he puts it in the cab with him. He must have a Cherokee at home.
Then John brings him the suitcase and explains that it’s still a good suitcase. It just has a broken roller wheel. Another treasure that goes into the cab. This day is starting out pretty good for the truck driver. Not bad for us either.
Organization done, we start out for Los Andes and the trip to Mendoza, Argentina. First, though, we have to get out of Santiago, again. We plug Los Andes, a town where John had been on a Global Village build, into the GPS and it calculates a route that looks like a plate of spaghetti that had been dropped on the floor.
It’s probably not the fault of the GPS or the map database. I suspect that as advanced as Chile is, urban planning isn’t one of there strong points. Following the route that GPS has calculated has us entering the autopista for a km and then dropping to side streets to weave about the seemingly random one-way streets only to enter a different autopista for another km before repeating the whole process. But, against all odds, we finally leave Santiago and head north up Ruta 5.
At Los Andes, we turn east and start climbing into the Andes proper. In just a few km, the elevation starts to rise and the road to Mendoza starts to follow a narrow canyon into the mountains. Every few km, we see these huge pipes bringing water down from the high mountains to small hydro-electric plants on the river. The plants aren’t working because there’s no water. The southern summer has just ended and the winter rains and snows haven’t started yet.
Or so we thought. Just before we come to the town of Guardia Vieja, we see a long line of 18 wheelers pulled off to the side of the road and down the old road through the canyon. We think at first that this is a border holdup for the trucks ala the Bulgaria/Turkey frontier. We should be so lucky. We go up a bit farther, round a corner and auto traffic is stopped, too.
Uh-oh. We stop and ask what the problem is. The road to Argentina is closed above Portillo because of ice and snow. “How long has it been closed?” The people were talking to have been here 4 hours and they’re at the end of the line. “. Do you know when it will reopen? No, maybe manana (tomorrow), maybe today.” Nobody knows anything. But we notice that the truck cabs are empty and there are no drivers about. If there was any chance of the road opening any time in the near future, the drivers would be with their trucks.
We think about it and then decide to turn around and head for La Serena on the coast. It’s really disappointing but it looks like no Argentina for this trip. First the dock strike blows the week that we needed to go to Ushuaia. Now we can’t even get to Mendoza. Damn. Damn. Damn. Back down the road, out of the Andes and onto the coastal plain.
The road north is mostly autopista with occasional stretches of 2 lane road. The autopista might as well be I-5 in California with few towns, no traffic and less charm. We just cruise along. The boredom doesn’t help the disappointment of failing to get to Mendoza.
The area we pass through is actually quite arid and there’s a mild prevailing wind off the ocean. There’s not much vegetation which is quite considering how close we are to ocean. Farther south toward Patagonia, the coastal plain gets quite a lot of rain and the vegetation is lush. Here, the Andes mountains blocks the moisture from coming ashore and the area is a genuine desert replete with rocks, sand and cactus.
About halfway to La Serena, we start seeing windmill farms. We hadn’t seen any in the south. Here, however, there are clusters of 30, 40 even 50 large industrial scale windmills. There may not be rain but there’s plenty of wind.
As we get closer to La Serena, we stop on the autpista for fuel. The sky is clear but it’s cold and cold. Another hour and it’s dark, as usual, when we pull into La Serena. We start looking for a hotel without much luck. We ask the GPS for help and it wiggles out a route to the beachfront and an entire row of cabana hotels. Cabana hotels are one and 2 bedroom efficiency apartments with kitchens.
We stop in the first one we see which is directly across the street from the beach. They have a very nice 2 bedroom one on the street side over looking the beach for $75. And there’s a good restaurant within walking distance. We take it.
Park the car. Bags into the room. A quick wash and out to the restaurant. The meal is good. We have a very good Chilean dark beer and then a nice white (for a change) wine. Back to the cabana.
It’s great to be actually moving in the Cherokee which seems to be driving much quieter now that we’re fixed the roof rack. But the disappointment about Argentina stills rings. Tomorrow will be better.
Obi-wan