Argentina
November 6-29, 2009
November 24: Driving Back To Buenos Aires: Driving Back To Buenos Aires
Only 1100km to Buenos Aires... a long day of driving. The highlights of the trip were finally seeing a zorro (a fox) and seeing 2 tarantulas cross the street... we doubted it the first time, but the second time we were stopped for a pee break with Sam and Rubby confirmed it with photographic evidence. We also saw what at first looked like tumbleweeds caught in the trees but turned out to be elaborate birds' nests for parrot-like birds.
Although we seemed to be heading away from the ominous rain clouds, it turned out that all of Argentina was under cloud cover with heavy rains forcing mass evacuations in the North. We were slowed down considerably by torrential downpours which caused the roads to collect water which are great for hydroplaning - not driving. When the rain turned into a complete white-out, we parked at the side of the road with some other cars to wait it out. All day we watched fields of cows all lined up along fences and turned away from the rain, dolefully watching us drive by.
The clouds in the distance look very menacing.
It's 9:16am. To get to Christine's go straight for 1083km! We're making good time... ;-)
Sam and Christopher are in good spirits and entertaining themselves.
Crossing a large dam with the water to the left of us.
The view of the river on the other side of the dam.
It's tough when you're little and can't see out the window that well!
A little fender bender.
Keep going straight! There's no getting lost here!
Samantha's artwork.
It looks like a huge salt bed in the distance.
There are lots of "salinas" in the area.
An odd combination of livestock farm and hydro towers and lines.
The weather is looking worse ahead with high winds contributing to dust clouds.
Rain and fog aren't helping visibility either!
We got curious as to what those big clumps in the trees were...
...Bird condos. :)
Interesting berry bushes at our "pit stop".
So that's what we've been seeing crossing the road! Ok, no more stopping to pee along the road!
Rubby takes a photo with his foot for scale.
We were able to spot this sucker while driving at 140kph... that's how big it was!
At
times the rain was just beating down and we felt bad for all the cows we saw along the way.
In lots of fields they would all be bunched together facing away from the wind.
Don't they look pitiful?!
Mooooo....
Zorro!
The fox quickly running off.
Time to pull over and wait out the rain.
We weren't the only ones who had pulled off because of poor visibility.
More dark clouds in the distance.
We're right under the dark cloud and behind us we can see the light.
In case there was any doubt that there were high winds...
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