Ruta 40

We had a great night sleeping at the bus station and woke up to a beautiful sunrise.

I dumped the gray water and headed off to fill up gas and water and dump the cassette but the line at the gas station was long so we continued on. Forty five minutes later we passed another gas station that had a long line and then pulled in a gas station twenty minutes later but they could not use credit card, so we continued onward. I pulled into a small town square to fill up fresh water and used the water bandit because the pipe thread size was nonstandard.

We continued on for another ninety minutes and found a gas station where I filled up and dumped the cassette. We tried to find some lunch but it was 230 and everything was closed for siesta. We stopped and Christine made ramen for the kids and we continued on. The scenery had been vineyards leaving Cafayate. The valley was bordered by mountains on both the east and west leaving the area pretty dry similar to the eastern sierras of California. We saw snow on the peaks to the east and glaciers on the range to the west.

We did not have a target in mind. In fact we were headed toward the Chilean Argentinian border which was still two days away. This area of Argentina is like driving across Texas when doing a cross country trip. It will take 20 hours to get to something better. Christine found a campsite for the night and our spot had a small wading pool and the kids had fun playing.

It remained hot at 91 F and apparently the heat wave continues in South America. We contacted a couple travelers ahead of us on a possible route to Ushuaia and they gave us different paths. The road forward is unclear.