December 7, 2010
Yesterday we drove from Gaiman to Puerto San Julian in the Patagonia region of Argentina. Claire and Garnet arrived on December 3rd after they were delayed in Buenos Aires. The delay was sorta funny we received a message from the Hostel staff on the 2nd (the day they were supposed to arrive) that they missed their flight. Shortly after this message arrived I got an e-mail from Claire stating their flight had been changed to a different airport in Buenos Aires (without informing them) and they were going to try again the next day. But the next day at 1pm when they were supposed to arrive they had not arrived. Finally around 5pm they showed up and proceeded to tell us how the location of their flight changed twice. On the first day it moved to one airport and so they missed the flight, on the second day they went to the airport it left from the previous day but the airport was vacant and so they rushed to the first airport but their flight was overbooked by thirty people. So, they waited until another flight was available and finally boarded a plane headed to Bariloche. We ended up having a pretty fun first night together. It was Garnet’s first time in a hostel and Buffy and I had already made a few friends. The next morning we woke up and Buffy and Garnet made breakfast.
On the 4th we went kayaking with Garnet’s scientist friends from the Atomic Institute in Bariloche. The kayaking was pretty amazing, Garnet’s friends knew a local guide and we kayaked around a secluded point and we enjoyed crackers and tea in a little cove on the lake. Buffy and I shared the work on our kayak and were pretty sore for the next day or so. That evening we headed out of Bariloche and drove to Esquel.
Esquel is a small town near a large nature preserve and so we woke early in hopes of touring the area via boat. However, the boat tours did not run that day and so we ended up having a very relaxed day sitting by the lake and driving through the park. We ate supper in Trevelin, a little Welsh community, and then drove across the country, heading east, to Gaiman (oddly another Welsh town) and spent the night. We woke up in our little Welsh town and had another disappointing breakfast of pastries.
As a side note: breakfast sucks everywhere we go. At the hostels we stay in we are often served toast, jam and Nescafe and at hotels we get about the same. If you ask where you can get breakfast, desayuno, you are directed to the pastry shop. Pastry shops are lovely, in South America, they have very cheap and tasty carbohydrates but they are not filling and so we crave our large American breakfasts.
Back to the travel story…
So we all have been travelling in this tiny Fiat across Argentina. We began the 6th on the West side boarder of the country and spent that night in a little coast town on the East side of the country. In all, we travelled about 12 hours today or as Buffy would say, “700 clicks”. The excursion of the day was Punto Tombo where we saw thousands of Magellan Penguins and their chicks. Surprisingly, Punto Tombo is a desert. I think that all of us had imagined we would see penguins on an ice cap or something similar to that, instead we walked through the desert and saw them in burrows. Yes burrows, the sort that you would imagine a rabbit living in. It was quite funny to see these amazing flightless birds waddling out of holes in the ground. Amidst, the Penguin burrows we viewed other exciting fauna such as the Alpaca, small rats, and loads of Sea Gulls. It was pretty weird to see penguins and Alpaca’s in the same area, walking amongst each other’s homes.
The trip has been fun so far, we have spent a lot of time together in the car driving. Today we took a little excursion out to an island east of town and saw dolphins and more penguins as well as corents and other lovely birds. Tomorrow we should arrive in El Calafate and the end of our driving. The plan is to spend a few days there and then Claire and Garnet will travel, via plane, to the southernmost city in the world, aside from those in Antarctica. Buffy and I meanwhile will take the car back to Bariloche, retracing the 1000 miles through thePatagonian desert of Argentina.
 |
| munchkin penguin |
 |
| Garnet and the Penguin |
 |
| Alpaca |
 |
| Penguin in a hole |
No comments:
Post a Comment