closed… closed… and closed.

The past few days have been a blur… lots of driving and not much else. We have absolutely confirmed that we are here in the wrong season.

From Las Grutas, we decided to follow the coast around to Balneario El Condor – home of the largest parrot colony in the world. Except, they had already migrated for winter. We saw one or two stragglers, but that was about the only living thing in town.  The entire city was shuttered and the sand dunes had already started reclaiming the roads.  I imagine the first order of business in the spring is to bulldoze the town out of the dunes.

From there, we went north to Viedma – we heard it was nice and it was. We arrived at peak kayak hour and the river was full. But, at the municipal campsite, we arrived to find a crew destroying it with sledgehammers. Next door, Carmen de Patagones didn’t hold much appeal for us, so we turned north to Pedro Luro.  No more coast for us – time to set our sights on B.A.

We drove around in the dark until we found a nice place to boondock near the lake at Laguna La Salada – of course all the campsites were closed. It was actually the most peaceful sleep we’ve had in a while… and woke up with more flamingos.

The next day, we gave the coast one more try at Monte Hermosa… but… everything was closed.  Admitting defeat on beach towns, we cruised through the cow pastures and spent an uneventful night in Tres Arroyos. Then, we booked it to Tandil.  There, we finally found signs of life and an open campsite. We picked a grassy spot and started on some bus projects.

Fixing the pop-top latch required lots of trial and error, and I even had to remove the interior ceiling panel to make some adjustments. It’s still not perfect,  but we can now drive down the highway without duct tape holding it down.