Welcome to wild-camping Argentinian-style
 

Sooks back home go on about all the trials and tribulations suffered at the hands of Australian officialdom and Caravan park owners.
Here is a whole different ballgame.

Second night out from Buenos Aires - wild camping in a nice stand of Australian Eucalyptus trees well off the main road - had just settled into bed when there was a blinding light outside and a blip on the siren and shouting - in Spanish of course. Obviously a police car so cracked the side door and poked my head out to see a rambo wannabe, but obviously suffering a nervous breakdown, dancing and prancing from one side of a tree to the other, shouting his head off and waving a riot gun - stockless shotgun all around the place while his offsider manned the 8" searchlight back at the car - while clutching a revolver and at least pointing it at the ground.

If it hadn't been to stupidly hilarious it would have been quite serious.


Anyway, I swung straight in to my usual cranky old grumpy barstard routine - "what do you think you are doing, We were asleep, why do you wake us up for nothing Put the gun down, turn off the light etc etc etc"
The idiot with the shotgun stepped back a couple of paces and the bloke at the car switched to limited English "out, out, show hands etc etc" so I shouted even louder "no chance - not coming out until you get rid of the guns and put the light out - and anybloody way, I've only got socks on and my pyjamas and you can see I have nothing in my hands" and slid the door closed a bit for emphasis.

Anyway, after a couple of minutes of total stalemate and lots of mutually incomprehensible shouting, the keystone kops finally realised they weren't going to get anywhere until they acted a bit more normally and DID put their guns in the car - or at least out of sight - and did swing the spotlight away.

On a roll, I said "not proper policemen - no uniforms!!" Boss man said "I boss, no need uniform" and rambo grabbed the cuffs of his pants and yanked upwards so hard I thought he was going to lift his feet off the ground "This IS uniform!!!!

Then "passaport, passaport" so I countered "show ID first or no passport" so rambo ripped his pocket off in his eagerness to get his ID card out and handed it over so I carefully inspected it before saying OK, one moment" while I shut the door fully to dig out my passports and handed them over.

Then the usual Ahhhh, Australian ----- kangaroooo.
Sigh!!! Si, si, kangarooooo, si

Then came the attempts to justify their antics -" locals rang up, locals are bad people who will rob you.."
What the!!! Why then would they call the police BEFORE robbing and murdering us???
Then - "we were worried about your safety and wanted to tell you to go into town and stay at the service centre."
What the!!! The only danger were were facing was from rambo and his shotgun. Pull the other leg why don't you. I should add that 10' in front of their blazing high beams and driving lights was a battered Iveco van with foreign plates with the GB and EuroZone symbol clearly visible

Round and round in circles - broken finally by handshakes all-round and they drove off into the night. Betty all the time in bed wondering what troubles I would get her into this time..

Anyway, we did decide that they might send some locals around to hassle us if we stayed so we did go into the next town and stayed at the back of the service station.

Welcome to Argentina

At least they weren't touting for the local caravan park like in Morocco - although the Moroccans didn't wave guns in our face in the middle of the night in a deserted forest

Hi Tony, in over a year, we have had just 1 "please move along" by the police, so you have yours done now. Sorted. :-)

Though our police were a lot friendlier. We did not spot a house that was nearby, and we think they were worried about what was going in, so called the cops. No biggie, the exact same would happen at home (Except the police might not turn up).

All been ok since?

Merv.

Mostly OK since but have had a couple of much saner visits since. Once camped on the side of he road - well, only 60 metres off - had a quick visit to check we were OK and once off Ruta 40 we got way off the road but happened to be on private Indian land so we had a visit from the local police who explained that the useless desert land really was private but as long as we moved on the next day it would be OK.

Was always a problem because we were driving a vehicle that was legally ours but was in Argentina on the previous owners TIP. Now that has all been "legalised" by crossing into Chile, the police can visit all they like - but preferably not after we have bedded down for the night

We had always try to wild camp where we are pretty shure that we don`t get detected.

Not just because of legal and safety issues, also because it is nice to make a little fire, to put on a small light - without to make any farmer or locals nervous.

We usually dont want to get in touch with locals when we do wildcamp. We search for an quiet area where we can rest, shower and relax before we get got out and back in touch with the rest of the civilsation.

If we are not able to wild camp, or get into a campsite - we ask the locals for a safe spot to stay. To ask the locals can result in a nice experiences anyway :thumbup1:

When the police was able to detect you, your spot was not choosen well...

Surfy

I found that most small towns in Argentina had a municipal park that allowed camping, usually free. Legal and no worries about cops in the middle of the night.