MUNGO EATS Latin America

Some days the sun shines on you.  Today was such a day for the McLeans.  We travelled to Rio Gallegos on Easter Sunday, with the hope that we could intercept a propane delivery truck on Monday morning and refill our almost empty tanks.  The little propane delivery trucks are the only things that can fill the fixed tanks on our van, and luckily our hunch paid off, the little propane truck was refilling at  the propane plant, after likely a day off for Easter.  

We had to wait for just over an hour, but everyone was very helpful and we left with  full propane tanks.  Yahoo!!!  Now we can cook and heat to our hearts’ content!!

After filling the propane tanks, we drove to the Argentinean/Chilean border.  First, I have to say that the border was super organized.  All the stations are numbered and you visit the stations in order.  No guessing what building to visit first, or second.  Just follow the numbers….how easy!  I was a bit apprehensive about crossing this border for two reasons.  First, we have read that the border guards usually do a very thorough search of the vehicle, for fruits, veggies, meat, and  cheeses.  I had just finished restocking the fridge, had lots of nice veggies and some really, really good cheese.  I was not looking forward to having these taken from me.  Also, I had heard that the authorities can be picky about letting pets in to the country.  So last night, I “re-made” Mungo’s paperwork, dotted my i’s and crossed my t’s and hoped it all passed inspection. 

It turns out the the border guard on duty today had a soft spot for dogs.  Half way though our paperwork, he came in to tell us that our dog was crying for us.  What a suck.  When he actually inspected the vehicle, it was only cursory.  We had some oranges out in plain view and he took those.  He was supposed to take all of Mungo’s dog food, because apparently you cannot import dog food.  We had a small amount of dog food remaining in one bag, and a whole other new bag of  unopened food.  He took our almost empty bag and waved us through for the rest.  He even found some dog cookies, but he said they were fine and let us through.  So we made off with a fridge full of veggies and cheese and 30 lbs of dog food.  Yippee!! 

Tonight we are in Punta Arenas.  This stop has  two reasons to be important.  Even though we will be criss-crossing between Chile and Argentina for the next few weeks, Chile is the final country we will visit on our journey.  Last country!!  Also, Punta Arenas marks the southern most point in our journey.  From now on we will be heading north, back towards home!

For the first time in more than a month, we are sleeping indoors tonight.  The bad thing about Chile is that they are not as “camping happy” as the Argentineans, so we  are staying in a hostal tonight, with HEATING and everything!!  We also ate out for the first time in a long time tonight.  Although we  would have loved to eat out in Argentina, supper does not START there until about 8pm.  Usually folks would be heading out for supper, just as we were getting ready for bed.  The restaurant we went to tonight did have yummy food.  They had little paper placemats that had a map of southern Patagonia drawn on it, and there were animals and attractions drawn in different areas of the map.  On the very southern tip of Tierra del Fuego, there was a drawing of a beaver…A BEAVER??  I had to ask the waiter if the there really were beavers in Patagonia.  He said that there were, and that they were introduced.  He thought they were introduced to eat some sort of water rat.  Didn’t anyone every tell him that beavers are vegetarians?  We did a little web surfing for you all and found out that the reason that  beavers were introduced was because the government thought they could get in on the fur industry.  It was only after the buggers were introduced, that the government realized that no one really wanted beaver fur anymore.  Apparently the beaver population has exploded from 50 beavers to 200,000 beavers, since there are no predators.  They are decimating the forests in the area and are now considered a HUGE plague!  When will people ever learn.  Should have just left them beavers in good old Canada!!