Estancia Los Origenes

After a few days of rest on the sunny beaches of Las Grutas and the Christmas celebrations I left on Boxing Day to cycle towards Puerto Madryn on the Ruta Nacional 3.

I had contacted an Estancia (farm) 15km before the next big town of Sierra Grande to arrange an overnight stay so that I could visit their place, do some activities and rest for a day along my route.

I cycled 108km from Las Grutas in an almost unchanging landscape with a strong wind against me for the first 30km, met a few motorcyclist along the way (a girl was filming me….) and arrived at Estancia Los Origenes at 5pm.
To welcome me a small family of three who owned the farm and looked after the animals and the visitors, they introduced themselves, gave me some cold water and took me around to see all the animals.



We went into the “Criadero de Guanacos” first, fed the little ones and walked slowly towards the adult ones to avoid the famous “spitting”, they are very quiet animals and even though their natural habitat is in the wild they were not shy and you could get quite close and friendly…..







They then took me to see the rabbits, hens, chickens, ducks, peacocks, turkeys, and the lambs as we continued the tour filling the animals’ cages with water and food.

We arrived at the pigsty, passing by a cage where two wild boars were kept after being caught by the farmer in the woods around the farm, fed the pigs and had a look at the cute 11 piglets who were born just a couple of weeks before.














The girl who I contacted by email was the daughter of the owner of the farm and was married to a Brasilian, they had just come back to Argentina after living in Bahia for eight years where they adopted their son Joao, a very lively and nice young boy who was very happy to be running around the farm chasing the chickens and feeding the Guanacos.














As it turned dark and there was no electricity supply we ate outside under the stars and chatted for a while before bedtime arrived.


On the second day, after a good rest we sat outside cleaning and arranging some stones they found in the mines around the farm and went for another tour inside the Guanacos stables before having a nice lunch as the wind was starting to blow quite strong.















After a good siesta on the amaca, we went for a ride on the horses with Facha, the experienced farmer who had been working at the Estancia for the last four years and who took us around the land where the Guanacos and cows were free to roam.















I spent the evening talking to Facha about Argentina and the importance of the land for this country, he told me that they considered Patagonia to be like Jerusalem, their promised land where resources like water and a rich soil provided food for the all country. He also told me that on this side of Patagonia, further away from the Andes, water was now starting to become a problem as the region was suffering a long period of drought after four years of very little rain, and many farms were starting to sell their livestock or killing cows and lambs to sell the meat before being faced with losing everything.

The landscape around Sierra Grande and more south towards Puerto Madryn all along the Ruta 3 was really different from the one I saw further north on the Atlantic Coast, and the cultivated fields were now turning into very big semi-arid spaces where cows, horses and lambs were struggling to find some greens to eat.

After admiring the beautiful sunset, I went to sleep into my tent for the last night on the Estancia, hoping that the puma or the wild boars wouldn’t turn up looking for some Italian meat in the middle of the night……


I left the Estancia to cycle in the strong wind for another 70km, passing by the mining town of Sierra Grande to buy some water and have breakfast, crossing into the Chubut region and arriving at El Empalme before 4pm.

El Empalme was a family owned “motel” with a restaurant and few rooms, used mostly by truck drivers, who would stop for a meal or to spend the night before driving along the Ruta 3, which goes all along Argentina from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia.
I had some very nice food there, rested for a day and a half and got ready for another 87km ride to Puerto Madryn.

This time the wind was really strong and I was happy to have made the choice of leaving very early in the morning, which gave me plenty of time to stop along the way, rest, eat and drink.
Now I was truly facing the Patagonian wind, cold and strong gusts coming from the side which would really throw me and the bike to one side….but I felt so happy as I approached the town of Puerto Madryn, descending from a hill at a very high speed and leaving behind the Ruta 3 and the strong wind….I finally made it !!!!!!