First, there’s the question of who does the driving on the long legs of the trip. My husband loves driving, so it’s always just him. Out of the 9,760 km on this trip, I only drove 25 km, when we had lunch at a beer brewery and my husband had drunk some beer, so I drove to the hotel. (LOL)
My husband usually comes up with the route first. Then we decide on which towns to stay in, assuming we drive for an average of 450 km per day. We gather all the information months in advance by watching YouTube videos about people traveling by motorbike, and from the internet and guidebooks for details about the roads, hotels, gas stations, tourist spots, traffic rules, and insurance. Other countries have different traffic rules from those in Brazil. For example, in Argentina, you have to have two warning triangles in your car. You also have to drive with your headlights on even during the day, and so on.
You can exchange US dollars anywhere, so we bring some as a backup. When you go on a road trip, you come across toll booths at the borders, so you have to have some cash ready. We get some Argentine pesos and Chilean pesos in São Paulo, but the exchange rates aren’t good there, so we also look up beforehand other places where we can exchange money. Be careful, because some hotels only accept cash. As well as bringing our usual credit cards, we brought a Wise debit card for the first time on this trip. It came in handy because we could use it anywhere.
I’m often asked about clothes and laundry. Seeing as we go by car, we don’t have to worry too much about how much luggage we take, but we try to minimize it as much as we can. For footwear, three pairs are enough: waterproof boots, flip-flops, and shoes. (LOL)
Once a week, I ask them at the hotel to do our laundry. We also bring detergent and hand-wash our socks and underwear every day at the hotel. I bring folding hangers to dry them at the hotel. Since there’s air conditioning and heating, they dry off quite quickly.
Even for road trips, you do have to prepare all sorts of things before you go.
From São Paulo to the Argentine border town of São Borja was 1,300 km. We got to Argentina on the fourth day, then drove through the towns of San Lorenzo, Santa Rosa, and Neuquén, before finally arriving in San Carlos de Bariloche on the seventh day. This city is located in the province of Río Negro, Argentina, and is fondly called “Bariloche.” Set against the backdrop of the Andes Mountains is the beautiful Nahuel Huapi Lake. Bariloche was founded by Swiss and German immigrants in the early 20th century, so it has a European kind of atmosphere. It is also called the “Switzerland of South America” and is famous for delicious Argentine beef, chocolate, wine, beer, and so on. You can ski there in winter. In the 1970s and 1980s, it was a popular destination for honeymooners. Even today, it has a lot of tourists.
The hotel that we stayed at was on the shore of Nahuel Huapi Lake, so the view from the garden at the back was wonderful. The lake water was cold and crystal clear.
From Bariloche, we drove to Puerto Montt in Chile, which is 1,000 km south of the capital, Santiago.
(To be continued in the next post.)
