Ruta40 – Go Quickly – The World Is Being Paved.

There are a few legendary roads in the world that allow you to ride a cross section of a country and get a glimpse behind the curtain at real life; away from the capital cities and tourist centres. Route 66, the Stuart Highway, the Trans Canada, and the M1 through Hemel Hempstead. Just threw in the last one to see if you were paying attention.

Ruta 40 is Argentina’s longest road; almost 5,000 km long from one end of the country by Bolivia in the north to Rio Gallegos on the Patagonian Atlantic coast. It was started as a national project in 1935 and tracks the east side of the Andes with 27 mountain crossing passes.

As we were cross-crossing the Andes this was our default route when in Argentina. In the north from San Antonio de los Cobres to Mendoza – in the middle from Bariloche to Trevelin – in the south from Perito Moreno to El Calafate maybe 200 km from the end of the road.  

This route used to be the classic dirt road trek and there are still a lot of unpaved sections but now more and more is being paved. The regional governments are also sneakily relabeling roads to steer tourism to their preferred spots – la Ruta de Siete Lagos is now labeled as Ruta40 and the original road is called 40X for instance.

Here are photos of the sketchy rutted dirt north of San Antonio – the newly engineered and beautiful crossing from Nonogasta – the wind swept tarmac almost at the southern end near Esperanza.

Not the wild road it used to be but still an epic way to see the country.