Where Are We? How Did We Get Here? Does This Town Even Exist?

Today was one of those days where - because this is essentially a driving trip - we drove all day

 

But the last couple days were noteworthy ...

After several spectacular days of travel in amazing regions of the world ... today we drove all day long, like 8 1/2 hours, through the middle of nowhere.   

In fact at one point, we found ourselves in a place that according to the maps, didn't exist. 

More on that later.

The last couple days we were in El Calafate, another area in Patagonia prized for glaciers and Andes Mountain scenery.  We were blessed with more good weather, almost warm, and made the best of it.

The glacier shown in these scenes is the other end of the glacier we saw on the boat excursion.   Like 80 miles away, in other words, 80 miles of solid ice.  Absolutely amazing.  

This entire gigantic block of ice, mostly in Chile, is the largest accumulation of fresh clean water in the world.  

The town of El Calafate is up against the mountains on the Argentina side.  We saw the sun go down (pictured at the top above) as we readied ourselves for the next day - which was (is?) today - where we would drive on dirt roads for a hundred miles across some pretty lonely parts of the planet. 

The eastern slopes of the Andes run all the way to the Atlantic, and this is some serious wide open space.  We drove today for over 750 kilometers, which at today's exchange rate is around 500 miles. 

A lot of the time it was boring, but sometimes you could see some good views.

It's on Ruta (Route) 40, the Argentinian equivalent to the old Route 66 in the U.S.

Took all day.  And we had a very surreal experience about halfway through.  

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We were following the maps (no internet or Google maps out here, we're talkin paper) and we got to a place that we found very confusing. 

The maps said we should be someplace else.  And the roads did not go here, and there was no town and the signs did not align with the maps at all. Where are we?  What is going on?

We started to go the wrong way, on a road that was not properly marked (it seems like none of the roads here are properly marked).  We stopped and let our intuition come into play.  How did we get here, and where are we supposed to be?  

I think we should go ... that way!

We finally got back into a town that was not marked on the map.  It was a pretty fair sized town for these parts, and we stopped to ask a lady where is Ruta 40, and where are we?   And she said - and I'm not making this up - "I don't know." 

Wait, you live here and you don't know where this is?  Hunh?  How are visitors supposed to figure this out?  Is this a puzzle?  Have we entered the Twilight Zone?

What is the deal?  This went on for some time, and we finally found our way back to where we should be, and we consulted every map we had and still couldn't discern the location.  

Okay well, it is what it is - just keep driving and pretend this didn't happen.   So we drove and drove, mostly in the right direction, and made our way to our current stop, on a huge lake that strides the border between Chile and Argentina. 

Tomorrow promises to be a good day.  Man, this place is so cool.