Today we actually set off when we said we would. Professional or what! Again we needed to munch the miles up Rn3 to nearly Comodoro Rivadavia and branch onto Rn26 to see how far we would get. It didn’t seem quite as cold today, but perhaps that was due to breaking out the long-johns. Drizzle as usual, but we broke through into the sunshine and the fingers didn’t go dead, so things were definitely looking up. Even the wind seemed to have lost its edge. We again went through the town of Caleta Olivia where we were once more on our last legs for fuel. The petrol stop on the outskirts of the town looked plain and simple, but the restaurant area was fantastic. A large salad bar full of meats and fish, then as part of a set menu you were served lamb with potatoes, drinks and pudding – not cheap though as it seemed to be the main canteen of the area for the oil workers. As we were not ready for a large meal, we just had the salad bar, honest! We also bought a second spare fuel can.

We went past the statue of the oil worker again in town and branched off to Rn26. The landscape is undulating, dominated by nodding donkeys and scrub. We decided to make for an Estancia mentioned in our guide book at Sarmiento on the border of Lake Colhue Huapi. What would it be like? Some of these were grand residences indeed. It was also near a petrified forest, something we had missed going south. Needless to say we could not get the mobile phones to work to book ahead, they never do when you need them.

We stopped at the petrol station at Sarmiento and got directions, 10km straight on. When we got to the ‘Labrador’ it was a little smaller than we expected. An ancient Spaniel with watery eyes and stiff joints greeted us while a Collie, that had had an accident with a car and had wasted rear legs, barked loudly to announce our presence. Two rooms were all they had, one of 3 beds and one of 2. Luckily no one else was there. The hostess was of Dutch origin and spoke excellent English. She had been born and brought up in Buenos Aires and married a half English half South African and settled down here in the 70s. To be frank, a B&B in England it would have been not much more expensive and would have been of a higher standard – but compared to the houses one mostly sees here this would be classed highly. The welcome was warm and the area interesting, so ‘no problemo’.

She was well educated and articulate and told us something of Argentina’s problems. Income tax starts at 50%, interest rates are 18% and it is hard to obtain long term loans (mortgages). In short everyone does everything they can to avoid paying income tax, which pushes up the tax and interest rates. A stable government and long term planning she felt would be the answer, sounds familiar.

In her grounds were two interesting things, a Patagonian cherry orchard and a colony of Ibis birds. The cherry trees were kept as bushes for easy picking and were delicious. Not too sweet, large and fleshy. She supplies Tesco…. The Ibis were very noisy, but most interesting looking birds with their long curved beaks and sacred Egyptian associations.