7th February 2015 – Chos Malal to Malargue

This mornings drive through the Patagonian desert is full of surprises at every turn, and there are certainly lots of turns, as the road winds its way up to 1,800 meters.The angles of the rock strata suggest that the formations have been created with enormous forces many years ago.  They are stunning particularly contrasting to the snow capped mountains in the distance. We drive from one crater to another as we are now in volcano territory.  We wound our way down to a river and an oasis of poplars for our morning tea stop.  As we leave the river we drive out of Patagonia and into Cuyo Region.  Volcano Domuyo is to the west of us and it stands at 4,709 meters as we drive past a lake in the centre of the crater we are driving around.Our drive today is around 330 kilometers to Malargue. This morning we drove on about 50 kilometers of very corrugated, dusty dirt road driving past volcano cones and dramatic rock formations in a National Park. The dirt road finished at a steep sided very deep gorge with the fast flowing Grande River at the bottom. The gorge and the surrounding area is volcanic basalt and the black rock shimmers in the bright sunlight. Once we got back on the sealed road it was incredibly pot holed and at times we had to drive off the road to avoid the deep holes. We were able to go faster on the dirt road than on this potholed sealed road. I suspect we’ll see more of these potholed roads in Bolivia. This bad sealed road gave way to a gravel road alongside the roadworks where they are building the new road, a bit late for us though. We did however manage to find a pleasant lunch stop beside a river off this road.This area has oil & gas fields and Malargue is Argentina’s most popular ski destination.Argentinian facts/fiction:  Apparently the Argentinians get subsidized by the government for the gas they use and their electricity is produced by gas powered turbines.  Argentinians don’t use garbage bins, they put their rubbish bags into metal or wooden structures built up off the ground, presumably to keep the dogs out of their rubbish.  Each house & business has one of these structures right out the front.