Ruta 40 was a bit disappointing for some of today's drive. Work on paving it is well underway and what this meant for a lot of the time was that we were driving on a gravel 'diversion' alongside a gleaming new asphalt road. This felt like it was taunting us as we rattled along, but at the same time we didn't have the romance or sense of adventure of Ruta 40 as there was works traffic around. It was quite hard to work out which dirt track to follow and we went wrong a few times. After a while we noticed the odd vehicle on the new asphalt and decided to join them for a bit. This brought back memories of our infamous drive from Riga to Tallinn when we didn't realise we weren't meant to be on the lovely empty road yet until it ran out on us hours later. Anyway we whizzed along for a bit which helped, as this was to be our longest driving day. Later we reached the end of the paved section and were on the proper old Ruta 40, unpaved, unfenced and empty. A detour to the estancia was even better in a way as they are rerouting the new road and leaving this old bit untouched.
The estancia is in a great location and surrounded by pampas with livestock and loads of birds including flamingos. The birdlife in general is good- we saw an owl this morning on a fence at the side of the road, in addition we have seen guanaco and rhea roaming around. All in all a long hot day, which makes the dos cervezas we are now enjoying in the last of the sunshine a real treat.
Facts:

Drove 156 km
Total 1425 km