Day 5 Puerto Madryn to Esquel, Patagonia

Another long day today, around 700 kms but the roads were smooth and The Mighty One is flying at the moment. First stop was at the newly refurbished Autodromo de Valle y Mar where we did a lap consistency test which is anorak for driving round slowly. The circuit has recently been upgraded to FIA standards but as far as I could see it was just a scruffy version of Pembrey, that's Welsh as well.
After that we did a regularity section on dirt roads where they deliberately mixed up the GPS waypoints to try and catch us out but we are way too sharp for that. We did however miss the bloke by a tree who we were supposed to drive around the other side of (??) which was irritating beyond belief. The competitive element of this rally is more like a treasure hunt than a proper rally.
Moving on, we stopped at a Welsh tea house for one of our halts where we could have tea with a variety of cakes and scones. I mentioned the Welsh influence before and just to clarify, Patagonia was originally settled by around 4000 people of Welsh descent between 1886 and 1911, they were probably stitched up by the Argentines as the attractions were somewhat oversold. Along the coastal area it is very barren and flat and they only get about 150mm annual rainfall.
Moving inland, as we did today, the landscape improves immeasurably as we made a steady climb westwards into the foothills of the Andes under a cloudless sky. A series of gentle valleys gave way to some impressive cliffs and rock formations and then a mountain area which is stunningly beautiful, like a scene out of Cold Mountain, sadly without Nicole Kidman. The area was home to dinosaurs in prehistoric times, famously a titanosaur sauropod called Argentinosaurus which weighed 60-80 tons, more than all the cars on our rally! I imagine I am losing you now so I will sign off, but just a quick mention about the hotel we are staying in, it's terrible. The bath tub is 3 feet square and wouldn't look out of place in a farmyard and the toilet flushes all over the floor! Esquel is a one horse town with tumbleweed blowing down the street, for every 10 people who arrive only 9 leave the next morning...
PS Managed to get the photos working, thanks to Kate at Brompton Lakes!

Day 4 rest day, Puerto Madryn

We are staying in a big new hotel overlooking the Golfo Nuevo, a huge bay about 60 kms diameter which is a nature reserve and home to all sorts of wildlife including whales, dolphins, seals and penguins. Puerto Madryn itself was founded by Welsh settlers in the late 1800's, many of the street names and places around have welsh names which is bait weird.. It is now a beach resort and popular for watersports, especially diving.
This morning was a beautiful sunny spring morning with almost no wind and we went on a whale watching tour which was quite interesting. We went out in a large RIB and soon found ourselves alongside a Right Whale, about 16 metres long and weighing in at around 40 tons. That's about the size of a large bus, it's calf was alongside and was about the size of a long wheelbase Sprinter van. It isn't possible to imagine the scale of these mammals unless you get close up but these things, I promise you, are huge. Later, another whale which was white came over to check us out, almost close enough to touch.
We had also planned to see some penguins but the trip was too long, a shame as my daughter Charlotte fancied one as a pet for home.
This afternoon we serviced the car, nothing much to do thank goodness, all seems well in that department. Out to a fish restaurant tonight, penguin and chips maybe?

Day 3 Bahia Blanca to Puerto Madryn

When we checked the results last night we were disappointed to see we have dropped even further down the order, this is mainly because we made a bit of a monkeys breakfast of the navigation and have accumulated something like 22 minutes of penalties, despite my wise observations and sensible suggestions. The combination of maps, road-book and GPS is quite tricky and one really has to concentrate not to make make mistakes, perhaps there lies the problem. Hey ho, there's a long way to go yet and we are starting to get the hang of the technical stuff, however we have concluded that just going flat out is more fun.

Today has been a longish, fairly boring day, 747 kms, mainly on long flat straight tarmac roads across barren and bleak scrubland. The further south we go the less populated and more remote it gets. More and more frequently the road goes into dusty tracks which are quite wide and smooth. We are expecting the terrain to become more challenging soon as we start to head west towards Chile.  We are a long way south now, down on the Atlantic coast in Patagonia, tomorrow is a rest day with the possibility to go on a trip to see whales and penguins! Stay tuned.

Day 2 Balcarce to Bahia Blanca

Last night we were all invited for dinner at the Fangio Museum in Balcarce, an amazing evening in fantastic surroundings. The museum is a beautiful piece of modern architecture and home to a fantastic collection of cars, many connected to the great man himself but also including several Formula 1 cars from through the ages.
Today we have driven about 520 kms through some rather flat but wonderful countryside, very lush and well kept. The roads are generally very good, straight as an arrow mostly but all the verges are well maintained and no rubbish anywhere. We have been heading south since Buenos Aires and we can feel it getting colder, it is spring time and quite fresh.
Car going well and the crew in good spirits.
Apologies for not including photos on the posts at the moment, technical problems.

Day 1 Buenos Aires to Balcarce

We left Buenos Aires this morning to noisy send off, the locals seemed happy to see us leave. The traffic was predictably bad leaving the city but once we got going the roads were fine.
As we were leaving the city we got a phone call from the hotel to say we had left our passports and money in the room safe. Oops! Luckily one of the organizers was still there and he kindly brought them on for us. Best to get all the cock ups out of the way early on.
The landscape has been very flat today, miles and miles of fields as far as the eye can see, mostly with cattle grazing. Its easy to see why Argeninian beef is so prolific as they have so many cattle and so much space.
We had been worried about the navigation side of things as it is quite complicated for two St Peters thickies, however we seem to be getting the hang of things. We did our first regularity stage and finished within 5 seconds over 26 kms which was pure luck as we forgot to set the trip at the start. I famously once said you would have to shoot me before I did regularity but it turned out to be good fun.
We were lucky enough to do a few laps of the Fangio Circuit at Balcarce this afternoon which was good. From staying in probably the best hotel in Agentina for the last few days we are now in one of the worst, Peter is busy killing insects as I type away on my iPad.
Tonight we go for dinner at the Fangio Museum just over the road, should be interesting for a load of old car buffs.

Buenos Aires

We arrived in Buenos Aires on Monday and have enjoyed a couple of days acclimatising, looking around the city and getting into the swing of things in Argentina. The city is an amazingly colourful and vibrant place with some really slick neighbourhoods and some equally downtrodden areas. Our hotel is fantastic, designed by Philippe Starck, 5 star with all the bells and whistles. It's in the Porto Modero area which has been extensively redeveloped and looks very much like the smart end of Liverpool.
Things got off to a bit of an inauspicious start when we went to pick "The Mighty One" up from the docks, all the cars were lined up in a shed and ours was the only one which wouldn't start. We managed to blag a tow 10 miles back to the hotel from the organiser Bart Rietbergen, which didn't go down well, especially as our tow rope turned out to be about 4 feet long! Anyway, Marvo the mechanic, aka me, ably assisted by Pedro, no 2 mechanic, fixed it.
A great night out was had last night sampling the best of Argentinian beef steak which the waiter insisted on cutting with a spoon to show how tender it was. We finished off the evening with the compulsory Tango show in a lovely old French style society cafe.
Tonight we headed off to the Dutch Embassy for a rally briefing and then a cocktail party, where we spent most of the evening talking to some spooks from the American Embassy.
The rally starts early tomorrow morning from a park near the hotel where Juan Manuel Fangio's
statue is, just in case you don't know, he was a five time world champion racing driver and
an icon here in Argentina.

We're off!

We fly out to Buenos Aires on Sunday 17th October 2010 and with luck our motor car will be waiting for us there.  If not this is going to be a very short blog. The rally starts on Thursday 21st which gives us some time to acclimatise in BA before we set off.  Stay tuned for further adventures... 
Parp parp!
Roy and Peter