Argentina’s Hidden Southern Coast
Drive across the dry Patagonian steppe in Argentina toward the eastern horizon and there are places along the coast of Chubut and Santa Cruz not to be missed.
The main highway, Ruta 3, which runs northsouth from Buenos Aires t o Tierra del Fuego, traverses a landscape of ground- hugging shrubs and grasses with a handful of cities, occasional roadside settlements, and infrequent truck stops. The Chubut province steppe is a natural history treasure that was once covered with subtropical forests and inhabited by dinosaurs that today is marked by paleontological sites and museums. Along the northern coast lies the highprofile Península Valdés, with its abundant and accessible penguin colonies, shorebirds and marine mammals. There is Punta Tombo, which has gained fame for one of the continent's largest penguin colonies.
Instead, consider a detour to destinations where the coastal experience becomes even more intimate and rewarding.
Authorities long ago rerouted the road to avoid coastal settlements and ports to expedite overland commerce between Buenos Aires and the distant south. That's good for business,
“Consider a detour to destinations where the coastal experience becomes even more intimate and rewarding.”
but it's also a plus for visitors seeking access to more remote attractions in an already remote region. In 1979, for instance, I'd crossed the steppe from Chile with a German couple in a VW camper and the first Argentine city I ever visited was Comodoro Rivadavia — but I saw little more than the sprawling roadside truck stop where I eventually hitched a lift all the way to Tierra del Fuego.
Gateway to the Southern Coast
Comodoro's motto at that time was “A City with Energy” as it was the epicenter of Patagonia's then-thriving oil industry. In the ensuing decades, I've passed many times through Comodoro, whose outskirts feature two petroleum museums but it's also where, atop nearby Cerro Chenque, a prominent windmill farm symbolizes change in the energy scenario. This fast-growing city of 242,000 people is moreover becoming a traveler's gateway to spectacular historic and wildlife sites.
On my most recent trip – before the world turned upside down due to the coronavirus pandemic – I settled one afternoon into simple but comfortable accommodations at the Ventia Hotel, in Comodoro's walkable downtown. That evening, I dined nearby on Patagonian lamb in a Malbec sauce and, at breakfast the next morning, enjoyed medialunas (Argentina's version of croissants) before driving north on a now paved Ruta 3. Bypassing the roadside Museo Astra, which
combines petroleum and paleontology, I continued nearly 200 km before turning east across the steppe toward the seaside town of Camarones.
Camarones
Dotted with Victorian- style houses of corrugated siding, Camarones is home base for visiting the Southern Patagonia Coastal Marine Park and the nearby Cabo dos Bahías nature reserve with its sizeable colony of Magellanic penguins. After checking into a simple but stylish cabaña, I toured the Museo de la Familia Perón — it might sound improbable, but the legendary Juan Domingo Perón's father raised sheep nearby and, in his youth, the future caudillo spent quite a bit of time here. Equally surprisingly in this town of barely 1,000 inhabitants, it's a professional presentation — with good English translations — that's more than just an homage to the most important figure in modern Argentine history. Arguably, it's the best of its sort in the entire country.
Bahía Bustamante
The next morning, from Camarones, it was 85 km of a sand-and-gravel route (named for Perón) to Bahía Bustamante. In 2009, when I first saw this quaint settlement, it was a kelpcollecting company town. The streets still take their names from marine algae, but Matías Soriano has transformed it into an eco-resort base for excursions to offshore islands and other natural attractions. These include a large, petrified forest and a sprawling steppe populated by guanacos, rheas and seaside shell middens. A natural history museum is in the planning stages.
As I settled into my onebedroom casa de estepa (comfortably repurposed employee housing), one of those rheas played Peeping Tom outside my living-room window. After a brief breather, Soriano and
one of his guides took me and another guest to the offshore Vernaci archipelago in a flatbottomed launch; these excursions depend on the tides (and winds). We did not go ashore, but from the water we saw numerous southern sea lions, a colony of breeding Magellanics, an abundance of nesting cormorants, plus steamer ducks, black oystercatchers, and a single vagrant elephant seal.
On our return, I shared a dinner table and wine with an Anglo-zimbabwean visitor who was a keen birder. Argentina, of course, is a major wine producer, but the day's most startling sight was a planting of Pinot Noir and Semillon literally within spitting distance of the sea. Those wines aren't ready yet but,
“With its frontier-style architecture, for me, Deseado is what Wyoming might look like if it were situated by the sea.”
even if Bustamante resumes kelp harvesting, Soriano foresees a production of some 5,000 bottles per annum from vines planted just two years ago.
According t o Soriano's spokeswoman Astrid Perkins, the vines are doing well, with the initial harvest in March, a few months after my visit. They're planning to add an as yet undetermined varietal, but this year's production was only for their own usage. “The first real commercial production will happen next year. We're going to sell directly to wine enthusiasts who'll probably purchase all of it.” With Mendoza vintner Matías Michelini as a consultant, that prediction sounds promising.
After a mostly quiet night amid often blustery winds, our breakfast included homemade bread and guanaco jerky. The day's 4WD excursions involved a morning jaunt to Cabo Ariztizábal, past many troops of guanacos, the skeleton of a sei whale that had beached itself nearby, and a metallic aural sculpture by French artist Christian Boltanski. There is also a
solar-powered lighthouse, attached to the skeleton of an older one, and abundant foxes, Patagonian hares, and many ducks and gulls.
In the afternoon we went to Península Graviña, where a huge shell midden is under excavation, with nesting owls nearby, and then walked along a deserted beach that ends at a cove called Playa de los Toboganes, with natural pools suitable for swimming in summer. There's also a Tehuelche burial site marked with stones, and the ruins of some sheepherders' shelters.
Deseado
Departing the next morning, I navigated a steep lateral, rocky in places, back to Ruta 3 and then drove south to Comodoro and the city of Caleta Olivia. There, in Santa Cruz province, a massive statue called “El Gorosito” romanticizes unionized oil workers but, another 90 km south, a paved lateral leads 126 km east to the town of Puerto Deseado (this compensated the town for its exclusion from the rerouted northsouth highway). Along the way it passes the Parque Eólico Bicentenario, a collection of roughly 35 wind turbines to the east of Jaramillo; in one of Argentina's most petroleum-dependent provinces, it's another indicator of changing times.
In the 1950s, British naturalist Gerald Durrell called Deseado “a set for a bad Hollywood cowboy film.” With its frontier-style architecture, for me, Deseado is what Wyoming, a state in the American West, might look like if it were situated by the sea. Even better, it offers
fine museums and excursions to offshore destinations like the Isla Pingüino Coastal Marine Park, the northernmost nesting site for the captivating rockhopper penguin.
This time, though, my goal was the upper Ría Deseado, an elongated tidal estuary that prompted Darwin to write: “I do not think I ever saw a spot which appeared more secluded from the rest of the world, than this rocky crevice in the wide plain.”
I'd always anticipated I would visit here one day on an upstream boat trip but, in this case, I merely shuttled across the water to a waiting 4WD for an hour's lift to Campamento Darwin, a new ecoresort recycled from the former Estancia Cerro del Paso, a sheep farm dating from1914.
After breakfast in the big house, then undergoing restoration and improvements, we drove to the summit of a steep