Two Beers and a Pretzel

I made it to Ushuia last night.  If you look on a map of South America, go all the way to the bottom – it’s the last real city on the Beagle channel before Antarctica.

Two buses for a total of 36 glorious hours as a passenger.  I booked a bus from Puerto Madryn to Rio Gallegos (about 1/2 way), but could not get a ticket all the way to Ushuia.  The bus from Puerto Madryn was comfy, but someone kept using some nasty hairspray that just hung around and gave me a headache. The bus provided blankets – which I used to filter the air.  When we stopped at Comodoro Rivadavia, I was lucky enough to find one ticket agent with one ticket left from Rio Gallegos to Ushuia.  Whew!  Because they say getting tickets in and out of Ushuia can be difficult, and the only thing to do in Rio Gallegos is to sit and watch the fishing boats unload their catch.

Taking pictures out bus windows produces some really bad images, but I did manage to catch a great picture of the sunrise the other day…

In Rio Gallegos I boarded a different bus and met a few German friends who had stayed in the same hostel in Puerto Madryn.  Down here, you cross paths with a lot of other travellers.  We crossed into Chile with the usual delays at the border, the bus took a ferry across the Straits of Magellan, then we crossed back into Argentina.  A quick stop in Rio Grande, then on to Ushuia.

For anyone thinking about Ushuia, you should try to fly to Rio Grande and take the bus to Ushuia – the scenery is stunning, and would be lost if you fly the whole way.

On the 9th I took another minibus tour.  This time onto the peninsula – well past where I had biked…

We stopped at a viewpoint where you could see the island that inspired the snake swallowing an elephant -versus- a mans hat drawings in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s famous book, The Little Prince.

I personally don’t see it, but I’m not stoned on shrooms like Saint-Exupéry was, so who knows…

Two hours later we found the Sea Lion beach.

About an hour we made it to the Elephant Seal beach.

The alpha males were apparently out fishing, but there were a few big females hanging out.

We also saw some fearless armadillos, but I accidentally had the camera on time lapse video, so it’s not worth posting online…

Finally, we stopped on the side of the road to see a family of monster rabbits.

Actually, these are not rabbits – they are juvenile Jackalope’s.

OK, they’re really Patagonian Cavy’s (or Mara).  The 3rs largest rodent in the world.  They have a squirrel’s head, rabbit’s body, and hop like a kangaroo.  No antlers that I know of.  They get to be about 18 inches tall and 25 lbs.

Saturday, Feb 7th – what a day…

PENGUINS

I booked a tour of the region South of Puerto Madryn.  The bus picked me and 2 Swedish guys, Magnus and Jonas, up at the hostel.  There were already a few Irish, Brits, and Argentinians.  Out guide was really cool, but I can’t remember his name to save my life.

We drove about an hour and a half on Route 3 to an area South of Trelew called Punto Tombo.  Years ago, a private land owner donated 17 km of beach-front penguin nesting grounds to the Argentine government in exchange for exclusive rights to have the only souvenir shop and restaurant near the park.  Around the whole area there were an estimated 2 million Magellin Penguins between mating pairs with 2 babies each and molting 1 and 2 year olds.

The park was basically a stone path thru the nesting grounds.  We were told to give way to the Penguins crossing the walkway because most of them were on their way back to the nest to feed the chicks.  You had to be careful that you didn’t step on any of them…  We were on a 1.5 km section of the beach where about 20,000 pengiun pairs were nesting with their chicks – so there were around 80K penguins in the “human” part of the preserve.

DOLPHINS

We headed back to Trelew and over to the coast to catch a boat to see Commerson’s Dolphins (also called Panda Dolphins).  These dolphins are small.  About 50lbs and 4.5 ft long on average.  Our guide stressed that we should remember that there was always a chance that we may not see them.  Shortly thereafter, we ran into a pod of about 20 of them ziping between out boat and another boat.  They were so fast that you had to film using video.  Even people with SLR’s could not get any good still images in the limited time we had.

Here’s my best video, again proving the value of having a waterproof camera – as no-one else dared to hold their camera under the bow of the boat.

…and another video of the dolphins breaching the water between the boats:

DRAGONS

After the penguins, we went to the city of Gaimen for Welsh tea.  Thus, the Welsh dragon.  This area was settled by Welsh immigrants back in the late 1800′s.  They planted trees in the barren plateau and irrigated the land to make farming possible. Everyone on our bus went to a very quaint Welsh tea house and enjoyed some bitter tea with what seemed to be an endless supply of pastries.

The lemon tort was the best, followed by a banana cream cake.  Plum sauce was a close third, with the raspberry/fig sauce not far behind.  The tea was not my favorite (I’m not a tea drinker anyway), but if you loaded it up with enough cream and sugar it became palatable.

RETURN TRIP

On the way back, we descended a hill where you could see how straight and far the road was – as well as how barren the landscape is.

We got back to the hostel around 8 PM – just in time for the dinner the staff had prepared – barbecued beef, pork and prawns, plus a good selection of local wines for about $12. There was also a featherweight boxing match for the championship belt being held about 3 km away from the hostel.  The main event was at midnight where an American challenger took on the Argentinean champ.  A number of us thought about going, but it was free on TV and we were having too much fun already, so we watched it on the tube.  The Argentinean won, making the hostel staff so happy that they neglected to collect money from anyone.

FYI, $12 is about what a bed in the dorm costs, and I’ve been lucky enough to be in a small 2 bed addition to an 8 bed room – without a roommate.  Aside from the tours, you can easily live on about $35 a day here.  Day long tours are about $50, but it’s worth it to see the animals in the wild.

No, it wasn’t that bad, but the title is catchy…

So I rented a mountain bike from the hostel for $10 and took off around 3pm for and elephant seal beach 17 km away.  If I timed the tides correctly, I would have possibly seen Orcas attacking seal pups – just like on National Geographic.   …except I never got there…

I rode North of town for about 5K, then turned onto a gravel road with lots of semi-tractor dump trucks on it – thus, muddy ruts in the road.  On the bay side of the road there were a number of places I can only assume are canneries or industrial fish cleaning centers.  This place wreaked of dead everything.  Another mile on and the smell dissipated – I’m pretty sure no one can get used to that smell.

The area turns into a nature preserve that is apparently inhabited by packs of wild dogs.  The leader was a German Shepard, but he had a Mastiff and a Rottweiler do do his dirty work.  They jumped in front of me and made quite a show.  I thought “ok, will the camera help me fight off dogs too?”  No need.  Since I didn’t flinch (much) and just rode thru them, they let me be.  Whew…

After making it up a hill and seeing that the dogs did not follow, I stopped to take in the view of Puerto Madryn.  It’s on a large bay that kind of reminds me of Monterrey, California.

While stopping to take that picture I realized two things.  1) there was a strong tail wind.  2) it’s almost pushing me forward while I try to sit still – the ride back is gonna suck!!

I tried to turn around and gave up to continue to the elephant seal beach.  It was harder going downhill into the wind than uphill with the wind.  I could get to the beach and try to catch a bus back home.  I cruised with the wind for another 30 minutes, then realized that I had not seen any buses,and still could not see the end of the road.

So I turned into the wind and attempted to ride up a small hill.  Then I got off the bike and walked up the hill, got back on, and trudged down the other side. 2 hours later I was back near the dogs, so I took a picture of myself, just in case…  Well, mostly to rest and regain some strength before riding by the dogs again.  I was getting exhausted.

Yes, I’m wearing a long sleeved shirt.  It’s about 50 Fahrenheit here.

I made it back safe (though I really hated riding back into the smelly part), rested and took a shower.  Then headed out to the common room where a German guy was talking to some Brits about his recent visit to the Inca Trail in Peru.  I got lots of tips on what to do in Cuzco and ended up splitting a 1.5 liter beer with him and his buddy.  They were both from a small Bavarian village near Wurtzburg, and I have been there, so we had a good chat.

Realizing that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, I headed out to find some food.

The Moon in the Eastern sky looked pretty cool at sunset, so I snapped a pic.

Then, of all things, I saw a car driving down the road with a dog on the roof, barking at other cars.  Sorry for the blurry pic, but I didn’t have time to change the camera mode…

I swung by a pharmacy to pick up some more sunblock after realizing that my face was again radiating heat from a sunburn.  I was checking out sunscreen when a very attractive girl came up and showed me these new reusable heat packs that they have.  We chatted for about 30 minutes.  She said she failed an English exam at college last year and needed to practice, but I thought she was doing great.  We planned to meet after dinner at midnight.  So it was now about 10:30 and I got to the place and sat down to order some food.  No waiter.

10 minutes of chatting to the Norweigen sailors at the next table and I finally got a menu. After 10 more minutes, the Norwegians got up and said goodbye, and I waited 10 more minutes.  No waiter.

I saw someone who looked like the owner cleaning a table inside and she motioned to me like the waiter would be right out.  So I waited about 5 more minutes before getting a found a booth inside.  Still not upset.  Very tired, and this girl was that pretty.

The owner made me get up to a smaller table because the booths are only for groups of 4.  What the hell, this place is 1/2 empty and it’s getting late.  Three waiters pass by me and the owner won’t look at me, so I drop and obviously audible F-bomb and walk out to tell the 3 couples looking at the menu that I had just waited over a half an hour and had not even gotten water yet.  They all left and I felt better.  The owner glared at me and I taught her the sign language for an F-bomb.

Well, I’ll have to go back to the pharmacy tomorrow and try explaining what happened to Marianna.  Yes, I’m starting to meet multiple hot girls in different countries with the same name.

It was nearing midnight and I was pretty ticked off, so I walked into the first pizza place I found and ordered a small one, wolfed it down, and headed back here to the hostel.  At least I was entertained by a guy running out into traffic juggling flaming torches to try to earn a buck.

Appendium:

After looking at a map the next day,it turns out that my bike ride was much longer than I thought.  The guy at the hostel pointed me in the wrong direction, so instead of riding 17km South to the beach, I rode about 40 km North, got ticked,, and rode/walked 40km back to town.  No wonder I was so tired and fell like I was kicked in the groin…  On the upside, I had no idea I was that in-shape…

After the disappointing news about the solar charger, I had to get to the bus station.  I did just gen an e-mail reply from Solio support offering to take it back, or a 40% discount on a new charger.  …Better than nothing, but neither option helps this trip much.  I’ll probably ship the old one back so they can fix it and I’ll have it again someday waaaay in the future.

Back to the travel report…  Buenos Aires has a big bus station, which was nice since it started raining..

Almost all of the buses here a luxury double-deckers.  I got in and thought “holy crap, this is like 1st class on an airplane”.  It was actually slighly smaller than 1st class, but I had booked the “exectivo class” bus.  A normal bus has 4 seats per row, similar to the buses I took around Brazil with Rafa.  Executivo buses have 3 seats per row  and recline a bit farther back.  This bus also gave you pillows, a blanket, and included all meals – so we never had to stop.  There’s actually one higher tier of bus where the seats lay completely flat for just a little more money, but those buses don’t run as frequently.

My bus was a little late to the station, so we departed around 3:30pm.  I kicked back as they put the “Jumper” DVD on.  It was a predictable and pretty stupid movie, but it passes 90 minutes of time.  Then I put on the iPod and started reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.  I’d never read a Harry Potter book before.  It’s not bad, but I’ve seen the movie already, and you should always read the book before seeing the movie whenever possible.  I reclined and streached out, enjoying the legroom.

There was a really cool sunset that was impossible to photograph from the rain-stained window of a moving bus.  Dramatic clouds in front of us with the sun popping out from gaps oin the clouds to seemingly light everything on fire, drizzle over us, and dark clouds behind with a huge double rainbow.  The bus was travelling on a slowly winding road, so my view would alternate between a fiery sunset, gray and brown landscape, and a fading rainbow against charcoal gray clouds.  Very cool.

I fell asleep around 2:30 am and was startled awake at 8:30 by the steward (young guy with a multi-colored mullet) poking at me and placing a breakfast tray in my face.  I guess they don’t train them as well as the airlines do – or he gets paid per tray that he hands out…

I looked out the window to see a barren plain.  Then we crested a low hill and there was the Atlantic Ocean.

About 15 minutes later we arrived in Puerto Madryn, where I caught a cab to my hostel.  It’s about 11:30 here now and rougly 45-50 degrees farenheight.  It’s actually a nice change of weather.

I have tours booked for tomorrow, but nothing today.  The hostel owner offered to rent me a pretty nice mountain bike and point me toward the Elephant Seal preserve 17 kilometers South of here.  Sounds like a plan…